Euro Trippin' w/ Mel - Leg 4. Cesky Krumlov

The bus to Cesky Krumlov was driven by a wonderful driver with a long flowing mane that anyone from Hamilton or west Auckland would be proud of.

We stayed at "Skippy Hostel" which turned out to be a wonderful little alternative place run by Skippy - a laid back Czech lady. There were even a couple of mix CD's of NZ music which some previous kiwi backpackers had left Skippy, she loved them which was cool (especially Che Ku!)

Oh yeah... one of the other hostel guests was a vet from california, while we were there he gave one of Skippy's 17y.o dogs a check up, you will be pleased to know she had a clean bill of health.

Anyway... it turns out Cesky Krumlov is a beautiful little town, nestled in the bohemian countryside, it has a nice river winding through it and a picturesque castle on the hill. I took advantage of the scenery and went out in the evening to put the new camera through it's paces at night, I would give it a pass mark!

Euro Trippin'w/ Mel - Leg 3. Prague

Mel & I caught a train from Berlin to Prague, after an initial kerfuffle over who was in what cabin and there being a log jam of people in the corridor we settled into a cabin with 2 Aussies & 2 swedes, basically a cabin of your stereotypical back packers!

After a quick dinner in Prague we ventured into suburban Prague in search of Jirka (or George if you will), our host's house. We saw in couchsurfing that George was planning on travelling to NZ soon (September even) so we thought sharing our knowledge would be a good swap for a roof over our heads. Luckily enough he agreed!

We did a day trip to a really beautiful little town of Kuthna Hora, it's main attraction is the Sedlec Ossuary which is decorated with human bones from when the Plague swept through, it was a little macabre, and a little eh...

spot the bird

The rest of the town was lovely though! And, in what is becoming a theme on this trip the food was excellent (backpacking with a decent budget has it's pluses)

Back in Prague, George took us out to dinner with some friends one night, and a guided tour the next day.
He also nearly got us tickets to a concert performance of various choirs from through out the world, that would have rounded out the visit nicely, but alas it was a non-flyer.

Mel & George discussing a few details while on our tour

The writing on the left of the 2 panels at the bottom reads something along the lines of "Czech Insurance Company" (in Czech of course), even back in the day nothing much comes for free!

This house was one of my favourite things about Prague, the owner obviously took the whole my house is my castle thing a little seriously!

From Prague we departed by bus to Cesky Krumlov...

Euro Trippin' w/ Mel - Leg 2. Hullo Berlin!

So, after Denmark the crew split up and we all went our merry ways, Tim & Glen to Latvia, Mel & I to Berlin, Andrew back to London & Andrew's bag to Florence!

Mel & I had our first official couch surfing experience with Andreas, a CS friend of Tony's. Andreas is awesome and he was an excellent host, staying with him was a great introduction to the world of couch surfing.

Again, here are the pic's, they can say more than I!

The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtniskirche, an old German church near the city centre, it was bombed in WWII and left as a reminder.

We went up the Europa tower which had pretty sweet views over the city, not that we really knew what anything was by this point.

And look! a roof full of air handling units! Don't worry, I'm purposefully being geeky

We went to the Jewish Memorial Museum, it had some fairly spooky aspects to it that drove the whole Holocaust thing home. Personally, I feel that growing up in NZ you are quite insulated to the effects of WWII and it doesn't really hit home until you go to these things.

This area of the museum is called the Holocaust Tower, they shut you in this concrete chamber with a small sliver of daylight coming through the top. Quite daunting, except for the fact that you're in there with half a dozen loud-mouth American tourists (no offense, loud-mouth).

I didn't actually read anything about this but it got the message across

The watchhouse/guardhouse or something. I just thought this was a nice photo!

Mel & Anderas chilling at his place. The 3 of us, and a freind of Mel's went out for a few beers in a nice area one night which was sweet!

Some punks getting all disrectful on the Jewish memorial

Checkpoint Charlie.

Berlin was a really nice city, I have to say that staying with a local and getting the pointers on what to do from them is an excellent way to discover a city, it also gives you an idea of what the city means to it's inhabitants.

btw. Did you know Berlin is dirt cheap to live in? Andreas pays about 2/3 of what I pay in London, he gets a nice one bedroom flat in a nice suburb, I get one room in a four bed house in a dodgy neighbourhood. seems good to me! All I need to do is advance my german...

We're now in Prague, staying with Jirka who is very kindly having us to stay with him. Stay tuned for the next exciting update!

Euro Trippin' w/ Mel - Leg 1.2 Copenhagen

Here's the photos from Mel, Andrew & my day in Copenhagen.

This is a cool church steeple in Christhavn, the stairs go up the outside for the last few floors!

Christiania in Christhavn, it's a hippie commune from the 70's, the residents declared independence & for a long time it was basically treated as a separate state by the government. That is until 15 - 20 years ago when the government cracked down on the drug trade.

They still like to think they're independant...

nice little inlet, I was trying out my new camera so bear with me through the scenic shots...

Look rugby posts! In Denmark!

The Little Mermaid, as disappointing as ever. I like the fact that there is bird poo on it, a little symbolic.

This guy is cool though...

Andy & Mel posing on a bridge. Wow, how good am I at this photography caper!

That is all.

Euro Trippin' w/ Mel - Leg 1. Roskilde Festival

So, my job is wrapped up, and I'm in Europe!

Andrew, Melody, Tim & Glen I arrived in Copenhagen last Wednesday, our hostel was located in the red light area of town which was sweet...

We arrived at the festival early-ish on Thursday morning only to discover just how big a campsite for 80,000 people actually is! after at least 1.5 hours wandering around in the draining heat we found what turned out to be an awesome campsite!

Chilling at the Roskilde Railway station en-route to the festival, it was already getting warm by this point, the festival must have averaged 25 - 30 degrees Celsius

This was our camp site, it took us well over an hour of walking with heavy tents & packs to find it, but all in all it was excellent! 2 tents for 5 people was a bit of a push though, especially about day 3...

Fact: tents do not offer much protection from early morning sun & the heat it produces. If you are going to stay up until 3am everynight be prepared to sleep in a pressure cooker!

The fishing lake, you could hire gear and see what you could catch. I preferred the swimming lake...

The swimming lake, note the dude in the pink "togs", Andrew took quite a fancy to him.

Lots of people had markers to keep a track of their group in the crowd, many were humerous. Here's an alien enjoying a bit of experimentation.

And here is a re-enactment of the scene from the little known Disney story "The Lynching of Winne The Pooh"

Radiohead were the opening headline act, they were pretty cool, I was pretty drunk so I'll leave the comments there.

Obviously very drunk... (or artistic)

Gnarls Barkley played, again pretty cool, again pretty drunk!

At one stage we found "The Lounge", Tim found a Danish (?) girl to dance with all night.

I found our Norwegian friends, they took us to a Norwegian heavy metal gig - Motorpsycho

This is my friend Bolo the Norwegian Clown who was rocking out to the soothing sounds of Motorpsycho

Neil Young played on the Saturday, he was frickin awesome, for an old timer.

By day 3 Glen's hair had taken on a life of it's own. by day 4 it could read and write.

The Black Seeds came and represented our fair land, they were good and it seemed like the crowd wasn't just kiwis. I think there were a couple of Aussies too...

Jay-Z came and sang in the rain, he didn't let it rain on his parade, or dampen his spirits, or... OK enough already. He was actually really good.

I improvised with the rain protection

Andrew was just showing off. loser.

Monday eventually rolled around and we loaded up and set off back to Copenhagen. Note the back pack that Andrew is carrying, this took 6 days to get back to London.

A lot of the campsite was left in a state that can only be described as carnage.

Long story short, we had a wicked time, the weather was generally excellent, except for a couple of occasions. We saw some great acts, some that I already knew & liked, others that grew on me. I guess that is the great thing about festivals - seeing acts you wouldn't normally see & expanding your horizons.

We spent most of Monday around Copenhagen, I used my extensive knowledge of Copenhagen and played tour guide to Mel & Andrew for the day. Again, photos... (bugger it, they can go up on the next post!)