Shotgun Cities

My trip out of Italy was the beginning of another shotgun blast of cities: Vienna, Budapest and Prague. I had only a day or two in each city.

The train to Vienna was only slightly better than the train to Venice. This time, we had a sleeper car (but we couldn't put the beds down for some stupid reason!) and a cabin full of people who spoke English! We didn't get much sleep, but we had a good conversation during the ride.

On Vienna: It's hard to talk about Vienna. There aren't a lot of touristy things to do in the city and it's not that big of a stop for visitors. It is, however, someplace that I'd love to live. The city is clean, the people are friendly and there are parks. Oh, there are parks. I spent well over half of my day in Vienna wandering around the sprawling palace gardens and museum parks. It was a cool day, perfect for a stroll. In fact, I didn't do much else BUT that, as there isn't a lot to do for a one day visitor. But it was still nice. That night I went out with a guy from Mexico and an Aussie girl to a travelers bar around the corner from our hostel and had my first ORIGINAL Czech Budweiser. It was delicious!

On Budapest: Buda and Pest (separated by a river, combined by a name) were much the same as Vienna. There aren't many touristy things to see and do, but it is a fun Eastern European city. I was only supposed to be there for an afternoon and then take a train to Krakow, Poland (to visit Auschwitz) but the lady at the information desk gave me the wrong information. So, I missed Auschwitz and spent another day in Budapest. The second day a German and I went on the free walking tour around the city. It took us nearly everywhere that I had been the day before, but provided the history and explanation as well. We were both going back to Vienna that day, so we caught a train at three back to Vienna. He stayed in Vienna, I continued on to Prague.

On Prague: Prague got the best of this rush with two days and three nights. It only got the third night because it was cheaper for me to stay a night in Prague than it was to pay for the night line ticket! So I got to Prague half an hour before midnight had a (cheap) beer and went straight to bed.

The second day I got up and took a free walking tour of the city. It was three hours long and I pretty much seen everything there is to see. The tour guide was great and he left us down the hill from Prague castle, so I finished the tour and walked up the hill to explore the castle. The streets up near the castle were filled with people and shops which ate up the rest of my afternoon and I went back to the hostel for some food and a nap around six.

That night I decided to go on a pub crawl. Fifteen euro to drink and smoke shisha free for an hour and a half, followed by 3 more clubs. It was a good night. For the most part. I spend most of it with two Scottish girls and a guy named Fred who got too wasted to walk. It was good fun until somebody jacked my hat that I bought in Spain, the only souvenir that I have bought for myself this entire trip. I was too drunk and disorderly to get through the bar, so my hat was gone. At the end of the night (four in the morning) the the clubs closed and I walked home with one of the guys who was in charge of the crawl. We had a blast on the walk and he even bought me a cheeseburger from McDonalds!

Since I had basically seen all of Prague the day before (and had a long, long night out) I didn't get up and out of the hostel til nearly one. I wandered down by the riverfront and though some of the small backstreets around the city center. As I was heading back to the hostel, the guy from the pub crawl seen me on the street! I'm not sure what I did to make an impression, but I must've done a good job. I ended up going back on the pub crawl that night for half price, but turned in around two so I could catch a train in the morning to the last country I'll tour on my trip, Germany. Berlin, ho!