So I got up bright and early and headed down to Turku on the 6:22 train. The idea was to spend the day in Turku and then hop on the ferry to Stockholm. As plans went, it was a pretty good one. I said good bye to Antti and Tiina and got aboard. I’m gonna miss them.  For as much as they complained about Vaasa being a small, boring village, I had an absolute blast there.

Oh yeah, I should probably tell you that in Finnish, my name would be Jakke (pronounced something like Yakea) but I chose a Finnish name for myself, Pelle, which means “clown.” So when Tiina has kids, I’ll be seta Pelle (Uncle Clown). I like that.

Anyway, I try to write on the train, get a little bit done, then promptly fall asleep. Not a bad thing, really, but there you have it. A few hours later, we pull into Turku, a port city, and I set out to find the port. Of course, in order to get to the port, one must first walk to the town center and take a bus. The thing with European towns, almost no matter the size (as long as they are actually towns or cities or villages and not a small collection of homes along a main road), is that they all have a town center. Anywhere you go, if you follow signs, maps, old women on the street, and ask for “Centrum” you will go to the main area and from there, you can get almost anywhere else you need to be. Kinda convenient and completely unlike any of the places I’ve ever lived (besides, perhaps, Salt Lake City, but I don’t really count that – not going back to Utah). So I’m in the Center, I catch a bus to the Viking Line terminal and buy a ticket for the evening’s ferry. I have a choice here. I can get a cabin for something like 190 Euro or just a ticket for 40. I get the ticket. I drop my big bag and wait for the bus back to town. While I’m waiting, I see this big brick building, but think nothing of it. It isn’t until I’m on the bus and ask that I discover the brick building is the Turku Castle, which,

Turku Castle

I’m told, is the ONE thing I must see. But, I figure, it’s by the port so I’ll catch it on the way back.

So I take the bus back to the center, where there’s an information office, grab a map of the area, find some quick food for lunch and head to the library to do a quick email check (and take care of my class). The library in Southern Finland is quite nice! They have an art display up of rock and roll photos which is very cool. Naturally, though, I pick the seat next to the Tourette’s sufferer who keeps shouting (not obscenities, but just grunts and wordless outbursts. Makes getting anything done slightly difficult. I felt like a character in “Harrison Bergeron.” Finally I decide to just wander back towards the ferry dock, going along the channel

Sculpture along the channel

and stopping by the castle before boarding the boat for the night.

Turku is a pretty place, but I certainly didn’t get any type of feel for it as a town. I’d met a German girl in Helsinki (gotta love the international-ness of Europe, huh) who was working there as a nanny and said it was great, but I didn’t have the time to really hit more than the highlights. But

I love tall ships

those I did hit. Along the water there was a small craft faire which had some nice stuff (mom, you would have loved some of the wooden utensils) and some scenery. I checked my map and guide book to make sure of opening times for the castle and knew I was going to make it in plenty of time.

It’s a very well preserved castle, too. Huge, with a working chapel. I took the guided tour, which provided a bit of history, and then had a wander around on my own. There were two parts of the building, one part, the older looking, typical castle-like structure, was restored to various periods of time. The upper floors were

Chapel inside the Castle

medieval while the lower floors were later. Both were time periods when the castle was in use, so it made sense. In the other part, though, the more livable area, was set up in various dioramas of a mix of

St. George and the Dragon iside the Castle

archaeological restoration of the ancient dwellers of the area and the inhabitants circa 1890s. Weird.

Afterwards, I still had time so I went to the maritime museum as well. This also was done in two parts. The first part was mostly old boats set up like those boat shoes they have at the convention center. The kind I used to love to go to when I was little and could dream about how cool it would

Boat show

be to live on a boat. This was before I realized how absolutely sea sick I get. The second part was various rooms, each with a little bit about the maritime history of Turku or Finland, including a room devote to outboard motors and one for shipwrecks and disasters.

I'm helping!

By the time I finished there, it was time to grab a bite to eat then get ready for the ferry, which was late anyway. We boarded an hour late and took off fairly quickly, heading for Stockholm. Now here’s the problem with not booking a cabin: you have to sleep wherever you can. So I ended up on a bench in the bar. I’d scoped it out earlier as being one of the few places where there was an outlet for the computer and when I started getting tired, I just packed everything up, used my backpack as a pillow and crashed out. Not the most comfortable night I’ve had on this trip, that’s for sure. Add to that, we lost an hour coming over to Sweden and it made

The room of outboard motors...

for a fairly miserable voyage. But hey, when I woke up, we were in Stockholm, the capitol of Scandinavia!

The way my time in Europe has been going, I just roll with the adventures. If someone or something comes along and suggests something, unless there’s a reason, I go with it. With Tiina and Antti, they had several things they wanted to show and do so I put myself in their hands and let myself see a Vaasa I’m sure very few others get to see.

With that in mind, on Sunday, Antti had gotten ticket the Housing Exhibition. Of course, when he said this, my first thought was “home and garden show.” And while I wasn’t terribly excited, they seemed to be so I put on my game face and we headed out.

Turns out, the Housing Exhibition is a home and garden show re-envisioned by Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor. It’s held every year somewhere in Finland and this year happened to be Vaasa’s turn. The city hosting usually works on it for several years prior

Heading in to the Exhibition

because what they end up doing is actually building a neighborhood! All the different housing developers in the country each build a house and fill it with state of the art products (I saw a toilet with a control panel Mr. Spock would have had trouble figuring out - thankfully the button for ‘enema’ was in English!). You’ve heard of concept cars? These were concept houses. It was impressive, except the penthouse on top of a 6 story apartment building which looked like it hadn’t been started yet. This was also a place where I discovered a difference between me and the Finns. Of course, when I say “me” I’m actually referring to ME not to Americans in general. Yeah, I got yelled at by Antti because as we were coming down in the elevator after looking at this unfinished mess of a construction site (and had queued for the priveledge) I said something to the other people in the elevator about being disappointed. They kinda mumbled something back. Now, you all

look at the name - made me laugh

know me (and if you don’t, you will after reading all the entries herein) and I’ll strike up a conversation with anyone at anytime but when we got off the elevator and were alone Antti explained that in Finland, “we don’t talk to other people.” I knew they didn’t talk to other people in the winter time, but this was summer, right? So no more talking to other people (for the day – I can’t NOT talk to people). The three of us, though, since we already knew each other, had some great conversations about housing (and windows since Antti’s company supplied a number of the homes’ windows and doors) and the Finnish market, paid entirely too much for parking and then Tiina had an idea for what to do next. After lunch she wanted to take a cruise around the archipelago.

Tiina and Antti on the boat

See, Vaasa, and the western portion of Finland, is part of a huge island chain called an archipelago and there was a cruise which took you through some of the prettier parts and then to a small bar only accessible by boat (are you getting the impression the Finns take their water sports

A fine summer day in Finland...

seriously?). I thought it sounded great so off we went.

The ride itself was slightly uneventful. We did see the largest bridge in Finland (which I only mention to get it into your heads – it will come back in another adventure) and some fantastic scenery. There was only one time, though, that the captain said anything (a bit of trivia) and then the stop at the bar was an hour and twenty minutes. Thirteen Euro for a trip to a bar seemed a little steep to me, but it was still fun and I got some great pictures out of it. The payoff,

self portrait with anchor

though, came when we were almost back to port.

In the distance, a Finnish naval ship appeared and started heading in our direction. Naturally, everyone took pictures and pondered it as a curiosity object. After we docked, though, the ship came closer, eventually pulling in directly behind the ship we’d just come off. Even though we had to try and get to the store to get food, we stayed and watched the circus that is the navy docking a ship.

Now don’t get me wrong. I fully respect the boys in the military and I support the job they do, but these guys were hysterical. They come into the pier all formal, everyone standing at parade rest as the ship comes to stop. Then

The Finnish Navy

the docking crews get to work. Everyone has a job to do and boy, do they set about doing it. First you’ve got the guys tying the boat down. It takes two or three guys per station (thick, heavy rope here) but even then they don’t get it right and have to untie it once or twice before it’s made fast.

But the best part was the barricade. A side hatch opens and a couple of guys emerge carrying flat, rubber octagons with circular holes in the middle. The proceed to walk the length of the ship, casually tossing these things down as they go. We, of course, are watching in rapt attention. What are these and what are they for? One of our answers comes when the guys disappear back into the hold of the ship and re-emerge with orange poles which, it so happens, fit right into the circular holes. Ahhh… we say. They’re going to put up some sort of barricade (which naturally leads to speculation about who they could possibly be carrying on board). Then they start lining up the poles and the rubber bases. There’s a guy at one end of this row of about 15 poles and he’s directing the guy at the other end (about 50 meters away) which way to nudge the pole until it lines up. I look down at the surface they are working on and immediately realize they have a tiling pattern and really, all they have

Me and the boys...

to do is start at one end and follow the straight line of the paving bricks and it’d be done in 30 second.

But nope. Why do it easy when you can do it hard. We couldn’t take too much of this so we left before they had finished. We never did find out who the special cargo was. Any guessed? Best answer gets a special postcard.

The ferry to Helsinki was uneventful, save for a very expensive buffet. At one point I tried to find a comfortable place to sit and maybe sleep for a few minutes, but discovered all the good spots were already taken by folks who were already sleeping! That appears to be the thing to do on the early morning crossing. Pulling into the Helsinki harbor, though, I saw the most brilliant

Summer house

thing – a tiny island with a tiny house on it! I found out later this is a traditional summer house and all the Finns either have one of their own or have friends with one so they go there for several days to several weeks in the summer.

I’m learning that Finns tend to spend the winter, dark months living like zombies, annoyed at the world, locked away inside their own places and thoughts. But come summer, they light up like fireworks, enjoying the sunlight, listening to music and generally enjoying each other’s company. It is really, from my understanding, a tale of two worlds.

So anyway, off the boat, heavy pack loaded on and meet Jennica and Tommy at the dock. Jennica, as you’ll recall, I met in Prague and Tommy is her significant other. He had taken the morning off work so they could come get me in the car to take my stuff back to the house and then he was going back to the set (he makes TV/Commercials) and Jennica and I were going to wander.

Which is what we did!

We started out by taking a tram back down to the waterfront and having a traditional Finnish breakfast of meat pies and apple

Jennica at the Rock Church

donuts. The atmosphere reminded me of Café du Monde in New Orleans but the food was certainly different. The meat pies were just that, a pastry filled with a minced meat and spice concoction which was quite tasty, once I got over the fact it wasn’t a donut. The donut, though, was a donut and that was all good. The place we ate was where Jen used to work so we got the royal treatment (and considering the President of Finland, who lives across the street, has eaten there, that’s saying something).

The fountain by the harbor

Afterwards, we did indeed wander. We hit the fountain (yes I made a wish and no, I’m not telling you what it was) which is a central meeting point, we walked up the stairs to a large church and we went through a park called the Esplanade which had statues and monuments for writers and poets! We even went to a museum where, for some inexplicable reason, the exhibits all had something to do with marriage. There was a chupah set up and a chair with a crown on it (I couldn’t resist sitting in the chair and putting the crown on – I’d

King Jaq

already done the chupah thing).

Honestly though, we just wandered and talked. Every now and again Jennica would point out something or I would ask a question, but for the most part it was just hanging out with a friend. We did, however, run into The Pink One (see, I’m not the only one who gives their friends epithets). The Pink One is one of Jennica’s oldest friends and she met us for lunch and then for drinks

The Pink One (like I could resist)

afterwards. A very funny girl! And she was wearing pink (how she got the name to begin with).

I must say, though, there’s this weird fascination in Finland for naming businesses after American cities. We ate lunch at Memphis, had drinks at Texas and passed Amarillo down the street. You never realize how much of your culture is exported until you hear the Friends theme as a ring tone on a cellular phone.

The next day, Jennica had to go to work but we made a plan to meet up at the statue when she was done. This meant I had the day to myself. What did I do? I did what you do in Finland – I got on a boat and went to see a fortress!

The fortress is called Suomienlinna (which is, quite literally, Finland’s Castle). It’s on a series of six islands in the Helsinki harbor and not only does it have a rich and varied history, but it also has the only remaining submarine in the Finnish navy (they had 6 at one point but after WWII had to get rid of them all – I think there were plans to move them to SuomienDisney but in the end

The Vesikko Submarine

they were scrapped). There was also a toy museum on the island, but they didn’t allow pictures. I did, however, buy a card game where you had to collect cards to make a little blonde haired, blue eyed family and the bad card, the “old maid” if you will, was a little black boy. I had to get it.

The castle itself held a distinguished place in Finnish history. It was never finished, it didn’t quite

Re-enactors showing how things used to be...

do what it was supposed to do and in the end, in it’s one major battle, it surrendered. Over the years, though, various governments have owned and operated it, changing the armaments, updating the

Guns on the island

catacombs. Now it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and a prison (the inmates are used as groundskeepers).

After taking the Ferry back to Helsinki, I met up with Jennica in the Esplanade. We listened to a live band for a few minutes (whose name I really can’t remember and they really weren’t that good) before heading off to meet Tommy and then get fixins for a barbecue that night. On our way, though, we decided to stop for ice cream. Let me stop and take a few minutes to talk about ice cream in Europe…

It’s everywhere! If I get fat over here, that’s why. No matter where you turn, if there is a crowd of people, there is an ice cream stand. Usually, it’s one unit of currency for a single scoop in a waffle cone (i.e. if they have Euro, it’s a Euro or two, if they have crowns it’s a crown, etc…) Sometimes there are more flavors than you’ll know what to do with, sometimes, like in Finland, they have just a few. But anyway you cut it, there is ice cream whenever you want one, and when they’re everywhere, you want one all the time! So Jennica and I wanted an ice cream. We hit the stand and the way the cost breakdown worked you could get one big scoop or two little ones for the same price, We both chose two little ones and then went happily on our way. About now, you’re wondering, why is he telling us about getting an ice cream? Be patient. As we’re leaving the stand, Jen hands me a napkin. I look at her, and she responds by saying “I don’t think you’ll need it or anything…”

Those of you who know me know what’s coming next, don’t you?

Yup. No sooner is the napkin in my hand than the top scoop of ice cream is falling down the front of my shirt while I scramble to catch it before it hits the ground. Which I manage to do. Of course, my jacket is a mess, my hands need the napkin and Jennica is laughing hysterically, but I still have my ice cream!

For another thirty seconds.

I take three more licks (and don’t get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop) and the whole thing goes sailing off the cone, forward so there’s no chance of survival, and into the dirt. My altruistic attitude instantly becomes one of “well, I guess someone doesn’t want me to have any ice cream.” Jennica feels bad, certainly, but she still has hers so we continue on. We get about 50m when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, comes a lokki (that would be Finnish for seagull) who dive bombs her and takes a chunk out of the top of her ice cream. We stop so she can scrap the residue off, lokki are disgusting critters after all, and she is not about to eat where it’s landed. We are both laughing at this point, me without an ice cream and her’s cut down in the prime of its half-eaten life. Basically, we are off our guard. I mean seriously, how much more can happen in once little trip with an ice cream cone?

Turns out lokki are not only disgustingly dirty, they are also incredibly crafty! While that first one distracted us, got us to relax,

Jennica post lokki attack!

its fellows came in on a sneak attack a few minutes later, this time taking out the whole cone, knocking it right out of her hands! Honestly, if they had opened season on lokki right then, Jen would have taken out a dozen with her bare hands. Of course, just to prove the point that they were NOT going to stop us, we went and each of us got another cone (single scoops this time, we might be filled with hubris, but we’re not crazy!)

Continuing on, we made our way through the Plague Park (yes, they have a park named for victims of the plague. The big church in the middle of town? Doom Church. The Finns are not a jolly people, despite the fact Santa allegedly lives in Finnish Lapland) and finally meet up with Tommy. The idea is that we are going to meet up with Jen’s sister then go to her parent’s house (they’re out of town) to get their car and have the

Doom Church

BBQ.

Everything goes smoothly until we get to the house and Jennica realizes she doesn’t have the keys to get in. No worries – quick change of plans. Instead of open flames and outdoor beer, we’re going to go back to Jen’s place and Tommy is going to put his culinary expertise to work. And he does. We have reindeer sausage, some kind of pork filet and a marinated chicken (heavy on the meat here). For dessert, Tommy makes some sort of chocolate/banana concoction which like heaven in a (burnt) peel. Despite never finding the keys, I’d say the evening was a complete success!

I got up and made it out fine and in time (I only had three beers spaced out over the course of the whole evening – but the common room was a mess. I left it as a tribute to the reputation of the English lads). The only problem was the tour company I booked through never bothered to tell me they weren’t the ones who ACTUALLY conducted the tours. So I’m there but I almost missed it since I didn’t know. No worries, I made it. Of course, I had booked two tours, one for the morning and one for the afternoon, and I forgot which was which, so I was a little surprised when I realized this one was the Schindler’s List/Jewish Quarter tour. But it’s cool… I can roll with the punches. So our tour guide is named Jacek (but he goes by Jack) and he kinda looks like John Goodman’s character in The Big Lebowski. He’s fun. And he knows his stuff.

I see a dragon... do you?

We head down the road and he’s got us all laughing as he gives us some great history of Krakow and of the Jewish presence

Jacek tells stories

there in. Seems that Poland, and Krakow specifically, had been welcoming Jews and other religious groups for several hundred years and the Jewish Quarter was and is very different than the Ghetto. It’s an interesting thing, similar in certain aspects to Berlin and Germany, in that Poland is doing its level best to convince themselves and the world that they love the Jews and hated Hitler and everyone should just get along. Now, I’m not saying this isn’t true, and I’m not saying they didn’t invite Jews from all over Europe in to escape religious persecution during the middle ages, but it still seems like a bit of a whitewash. The reason for the Quarter, say, is because the Jews all banded together and didn’t want to live elsewhere (but they had limitations on where they could live and the kind of trade they could perform outside the quarter). Again, I’m not discounting any of the good, but no one is blameless for the bad.

Jacek is telling us about all the different temples in the quarter (and other great stories about the Krakow Dragon when we pit stopped in a very funky little bar) and he mentions the Orthodox temple (still in use) but says we’re not gonna see it on the tour because it costs 5 zloty to go inside. But he encourages us to make it out to have a look. Then, a little later, we’re all sitting and listening to a story about a temple and he asks if we want to see the orthodox temple. I say “yes,” thinking he’s talking about later in the day on our own time. Nope, he means right then, as a group. And I accepted for everyone. Sorry gang, but you know what, it was worth it!

Inside the Orthodox Synagogue

It’s interesting to compare the interior of the temple with the interior of the hundreds of churches and cathedrals I’ve seen over the last few weeks. Honestly, if the Christians were to put that money to use solving world hunger, we’d have no starvation problems. Sure, they’re beautiful, but wow that’s a lot of money! In contrast, the temple is very simple and elegant. And plain. The thing which made it the most interesting, though, was the cemetery out back. The oldest grave there was from 1642 and there were about 300, all perfectly preserved. Now, the question arises, how did they remain during the Nazi occupation? Well… the Nazis decided that the perfect humiliation for the Jews was to turn their synagogue and its cemetery into a garbage dump. The upshot, of course, is that when it was excavated, the filth had actually saved and preserved things. However, there is still a hill which hasn’t been excavated and still holds remains and the gravestones which were broken or could not be saved were used in a memorial project and became

Cemetary

Krakow's "Wailing Wall"

the building blocks of Krakow’s own Wailing Wall.

Something which has been happening, and I think I’ve talked about it already, is that I try and learn at least the word for ‘thank you’ in every language. Well, as we were leaving the temple I realized I remembered ‘thank you’ in Hebrew, so I said it as we left.

We passed one very interesting memorial, which was a square full of slightly oversized chairs, commemorating the furniture which had been thrown out of the windows of the homes of the Jews who had been evacuated and sent off to the camps from the train

Chairs

platform which was right next to the square. The end of the tour had us at Oskar Schindler’s factory, which is covered and undergoing serious renovation to open next year as a museum dedicated to the resistance and Schindler.

The next tour was a city walk and while it was interesting, there really wasn’t that much to talk about… wait, that’s not exactly true. We did learn something rather interesting. Krakow is the final resting place of a number of people who never went there in life. There were several very famous Poles who were born somewhere else, lived all their lives somewhere else (mostly Paris) and yet, inexplicably, are buried in Krakow. They even tried to get Pope John Paul II (who did, in fact, live and work in Krakow for a number of years) but the Vatican said no. So there one famous son, the guy they actually liked AND had claim to, he’s in Rome. Crazy.

After the tour, I went and found Massolit Books, which I had been told had a nice English Language selection. When I finally found it, it was great! The almost perfect used bookstore! (The only thing which would have made it better would have been a

Bookstore

selection of sandwiches and soft drinks in addition to the coffee and pastries) So I grabbed a book (Stanislaw Lem, whom I’d been meaning to read anyway AND he’s Polish – I like to be a book ahead. So as I get close to finishing one, I pick up another) grabbed an iced coffee and a brownie and had a seat. At the next table over, a guy and a girl were speaking English. I ended up joining the conversation and when the guy left, the girl, whose name is Carolyn, came over and joined me at my table. We ended up talking for a bit, then went for dinner, which included a walk through the square and ended when I dropped her off at the train station so she could get her overnighter to Budapest. That’s the cool thing about backpacking trough foreign countries and doing things off

Me and Carolyn (I'm on the left)

the beaten path. You meet these really great people who you hope will become friends, you hang out for a couple of hours and then they go one way and you go another. And the next night you’re going to meet someone else and the process will continue.

For my part, I’m hopping a train and a bus to Vilnius, the capitol of Lithuania, where, yes, I am like a god!

My last day in Vienna was fairly uneventful… this seems to be my pattern now. I got up, and Imbi and I went and dropped my bag off at the bus station before grabbing breakfast (well…trying to find breakfast was an issue and we finally just settled for Starbucks where we could get free wifi). She tried to talk to her mum and dad and sis on skype on my computer but it was too

Imbi on my computer

slow so she went off to find an Internet café while I finished a post from last week (I swear I’m trying to get caught up). Then I went looking for a post office (which I found and wasn’t open on Saturday) and met up again with Imbi while she was finishing her family chat.

I had wanted to go to the Lower Belevedere museum to see an exhibit but by the time we were both finished with our stuff, it was getting later in the day and besides, it wasn’t really her thing so instead, we just walked around the park, talking and doing things for free. Took some pretty cool pictures under a dramatic sky and generally had a lovely afternoon. Around 4:30, we parted

Vienna Presidential Palace

company, she had things to do in the evening and eventually, I had a bus to catch.

Of course, it was only 4:30, so I decided to try and get to the museum (which closed at 6) and see if I could catch a little bit of the exhibit. I tried to read the map, had a bit of trouble but hopped a U-Bahn and headed in what I thought was the general direction. When I got out of the underground, I saw a sign pointing the way to the museum. Yay me! So I started walking. And I walked. And walked.

And walked.

And walked.

(sensing a pattern yet?)

And walked.

Eventually, I oriented myself and my map (seriously, this was like negotiating an Israeli/Egyptian peace accord in 1973) and discovered I’d been heading in the wrong direction. I turned, refocused and began walking. And I walked. And walked.

I’ll spare you the gory details but suffice to say I when I finally got to the museum , it was nearer six than half five and when I asked if they offered a late entry discount. Nope, not a chance in heck (Bailey and Riley are reading this!). So I went into the gift shop just to see what I was missing and you know what? The exhibit wasn’t what I thought it was! Actually, I’m glad I didn’t go earlier, I would have been horribly disappointed. This way, I got to find out I didn’t want to see the art AND got 250 words of a funny story. Win win I’d say.

So I left the museum (not gonna talk about the horrid directions I received from the cloak check girl which put me on a tram going the wrong direction and ending up further away than where I started) went back to stephensplatz and waited out my bus.

When I got the bus station, I was about 45 minutes early. Not a big deal, really, so I had a candy bar (oh man have I discovered I really like Twix!) and waited, knowing my bus was going to be pulling into gate A. About 3 minutes to 9, still no bus and now there were three of us waiting. It should have been more, but the departure board was still insisting we were in Gate A. 20:59 and I headed to another bus, just to check. Yeah, you guessed it. No indication the bus was going to Krakow, in the wrong gate, but sure enough, that was the bus I was supposed to be on. So I handed over my rucksack and got on board, looking for an open seat. I finally found one and settled in, knowing I had about 7 hours of sitting too close next to a complete stranger and trying to sleep . Looking around, I noticed a mother and son had taken up two whole rows across the aisle from me, each sitting on the end with backpacks on the window seat and stretched out luxuriously. Just plain rude if you ask me.

The bus took off, and I caught some cat naps. At one point, my row companion departed so I ended up with a row to myself, which was nice and then the bus stopped. And the driver got out. I tried to sleep but then I heard some sort of industrial clanging. Don’t know what was wrong, but when I looked out, the driver had his shirt off and a huge box of tools open next to him. I kept my eyes closed like a kid who didn’t study for a math test, hoping I wouldn’t get called on to try and fix something (completely irrational, I know, but it was 5am and I was still sleeping). When we finally pulled into Krakow it was just after 7am.. I found my hostel fairly easily, dropped off my bags and booked a tour for that morning – The Salt Mines.

Copernicus made out of salt

The Salt Mines were pretty cool (cold actually, though not as cold as the Ice Caves). They started the tour with a bit of history, some statues made out of salt and then some dioramas showing how the mines worked. There’s 2% of the mines open for the tour and we ended up about 135 meters underground. Even down there,

Underground Cathedral

we saw two chapels (a little one and the big one, dedicated to the queen who was responsible for the salt coming to Poland, according to legend) Both chapels are made entirely of salt and you can book them out for weddings and other ceremonies (they have a big ballroom for receptions as well).

After the mines, I wandered a bit around the town square, then headed back to the hostel to officially check in and have a nap. That evening, I didn’t do much, made use of the wifi, talked to some people and generally relaxed. I knew what was coming. Monday was Auschwitz.

My last day in Zagreb was fairly uneventful. I didn’t do much of anything, really. At least nothing touristy. I wandered around a bit, then found a nice place to sit and wrote my last entry and a bit on my novel and then headed to the train station for my 9 o’clock to Salzburg. I actually went a little early and ran into Annika and Cecelia, who were returning from a day trip so I was able to say a proper good-bye. Once they left, I headed for the platform and struck up a conversation with a girl from Bosnia. It was interesting since she spoke very little English and I spoke no German (even though she held a Bosnian passport, she hadn’t lived there since she was four, some twenty years earlier – She now lives in Hamburg. This will become important later). Just a side note, it’s fascinating when you’re in a different country with people who don’t speak your language. I was on the tram, heading to the train station to drop off my backpack earlier in the day and met a guy who spoke only German, except for his numbers, which he could do up to twenty or so in English. And which he proceeded to share with me. It was sweet and fun, but ultimately, I spent the tram ride listening to a 60 year old guy counting and being very proud of himself for doing it. Of course, what started this conversation was a broken wondow and our common sharing of the phrase “Kaput.”

Anyway, back to the platform… so when our train pulls in, I have a reserved seat and this girl does not. She decides to sit with me. Cool. We’d already discussed she had spent some time down in Bosnia to see her Uncle and Father and Brother and was now on her way to Munich to pick up her son (she kept saying ‘children’ in the plural and it took me a little while to realize she was only talking about one) before heading home. On the train, the two of us get comfortable in the compartment and she tells me she’s very nervous and wants me to help her. It seems her visa to enter the EU expired on the 30^th of June, and we were traveling on the 1^st of July. And she needs a visa since Bosnia is not yet a member. Neither is Croatia – yet. But Slovenia is. So sure enough, we get started (a half hour late, mind you) and the police come in to do a passport check and hers is a little beat up and they question her expired visa and I’m trying to interpret since she and I had been talking and I’m a friendly voice in all this. The police go and come back a few times, taking her passport with them. Finally they return and stamp her passport, saying they really don’t care, but the Slovenians might. They are EU after all and they take their job very seriously (as you’ll recall, they scared me coming down).

When we stopped in Slovenia, they asked her all the same questions. They wanted to know why she didn’t speak Bosnian or Croatian (similar languages). She kept turning to me for help. Finally, the Slovenian police asked if we were traveling together. I, of course, said ‘no’ at which point I was politely told to shut up and they would be dealing directly with her. I shut up. No fool I. A few seconds later, she was removed from the train, crying and pleading with them about her ‘kinder.’ It was an odd experience, that’s for sure. On the plus side, though, I did get the compartment all to myself and so was able to get some decent sleep.

Sleep was good since I pulled into Salzburg at 4:30 in the morning. Nothing was open and I didn’t have enough euros in change to pay for a locker. So I waited around in the train terminal and eventually was able to gather the 3.50 needed to store my bags for the day. It was barely 6:30 by this point so I just wandered around an empty town, taking in the sights. I found a place for breakfast and when that was finished I headed over to the tour place to see what kind of tours were available. There were two I wanted to take, the Ice Caves and the Salt Mines. Unfortunately, They overlapped time wise so I decided to go with the Ice Caves. But that meant I still had a lot of time to kill. I decided on taking a city tour as well. This was fun, but sitting in a 7 passenger van with a an old guy droning on about the city in both English and Spanish was too much for my tired brain to deal with… I promptly fell asleep and stayed that way for half the tour! I woke up in time to explore a summer palace of a 17^th century ruler. Fun stuff!

The tour ended near the funicular up to the fortress which overlooked the town (the fee for which was included in the price of the tour) so up I went, exploring the museums and exploiting the view for pictures. I didn’t have a lot of time, however, since the ice tour started at one. So I saw what I could then headed back down to catch the next bus.

Turned out, the tour was myself and a group of friends from India. It seems the three patriarchs of the families met in college at architecture school and every two years they all meet somewhere in the world so the families can all stay close. So it was me and them. Oh yeah, and our guides, Alex And Admir. Alex was just training so really, it was Admir’s show and he was quite funny. He was having a good time, making jokes and still being very informative. The bus ride to the cave site took about 45 minutes and it was beautiful countryside. We were at the foot of the Alps and they even stopped once so we could all get a good shot of a fortress on a the top of a hill. Then we got to the parking spot for the caves. It was going to require a little bit of walking at this point, about twenty minutes to get to the cable car which was going to take us a good chunk the rest of the way, but there was still another twenty minute walk AFTER the cable car, too. And it was hot. It’s been hot the entire trip, true. I’ve been losing in water weight any potential fat I’ve been putting on (my back, under my backpack, is almost always soaking – I know, gross, but there you have it). So we walked and walked and walked. As we got the tram station, we ran across a group of soldiers, all in uniform and getting ready to march down the way we had just come. I asked permission before snapping a few pictures and we all made some jokes. (One soldier, when questioned as to what kind of a unit they were responded simply, yet shrilly, “We’re in the army NOW!” We all laughed.) One of the soldiers then pointed at me, indicating my shoulder. I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked down and saw I had picked up a hitchhiker – a little butterfly had landed on me and decided it was tired of flying. It stayed with me for a good hundred meters or so before taking flight again. This goes along with my bee in Munich and the HUGE creepy crawly thing in Zagreb (did I mention the huge creepy crawly thing in Zagreb? If I didn’t, I’ll tell you that story and how Annika and Cecilia stole my bed in a future installment).

Anyway, we all climbed in to the cable car (as Admir nicely pointed out, “Oh good, it’s

Top of the Cable Car

the new car – the old one fell last week.”) and zipped upwards. Quickly. It was one of the fastest cable cars I’ve ever been in. So we get to the top and Neil (he’s the son of one of the three friends – going into 7^th

That’s Neil

The Elephant

But… getting back to the start of the tour, there’s a small door you must pass through to get inside. The air-pressure differential leads to (literally) ice cold winds of up to 120 kph. Remember all that heat I was talking about a few paragraphs back? Guess what? All gone now! We were freezing! I was just wearing my Grumpy jean jacket and a t-shirt underneath (I didn’t even bring my hat) AND I was elected to carry a lantern (In fact, I ended up with two lanterns because the young family in front of me ended up giving me theirs so mom and dad could each carry one their little girls up and down the 1400 steps). So my hands went numb fairly early on (but I was still a trooper and took pictures when I could). All told, we were in the cave a little more than an hour, maybe 75 minutes, and it was certainly worth it… but cold!

From the top...

Of course, as soon as we got out of the cave, the rain started. Huge electrical storm blew through, delaying the cable car down so we were stuck for about a half hour. I took the opportunity to eat. I don’t remember what I had (Alex, the trainee tour guide) recommended it. It was a traditional Austrian dish, like macaroni and cheese but not quite. It had ham bits in it (although you could get it without) and the cheese was thick and gooey (and some of it burned to the iron skillet it was served in). As a meal to eat while a storm raged outside, it was perfect! Eventually, the rain subsided and the cable car started running again.

On the bus ride back, Alex and I got into a discussion about history, politics and language. Again, this is me we’re talking about. I was having a great time! We finally made it back to town, I said goodbye and thought about doing some souvenir shopping. Unfortunately (for you, lucky for my bank account) the shops were all closed so I just headed to the train station and jumped an earlier ride than I was thinking and made it into Vienna, and to my hostel, just before midnight.

A quick word about my hostel in Vienna… I get off the elevator and there’s a sign saying “Remember to bring your rat to reception.” For some reason, they’ve tied all of the keys to the tails of these stuffed rats and if you’re the last person to leave the room, you take the rat to reception and leave it there for whoever gets back to your room first to pick up. This way, if someone is in the room, it’s unlocked. Odd concept for a room being shared by strangers, but it seems to be working okay.

Another simple day, in that I only did one thing involving touring, but that one thing was a doozy! Before you go any further, though, look at the new picture atop this page. Not only did I take it, but that castle is where I spent my day!

The castle is called Neuschwanstein and it’s located about 2 hours south-west of Munich by train just outside of a little town called Fussen. I met up with a tour group and we headed out around 10am this morning. I immediately fell asleep on the train and would still be there if some nice Australian bloke hadn’t woke me up. Got off the train, onto a bus and towards the Castle drop off point. After a quick snack we started walking. Our first resting point was beautiful lake Hopfensee (and here are some pictures of said lake – since I’ve been accused of not telling what the various pictures are).

Next, as we headed up towards Schloss Neuschwanstein, we got a view of The Yellow Castle, Schloss Hohenschwangau, which was built by King Ludwig’s Dad. Ludwig himself became King when he was 18 and immediately decided he was a huge fan of Richard Wagner and wanted to build a fairy-tale castle in homage to him. This was Neuschwanstein.

So anyway, We head up the hill towards the castle. It was a long walk, about a half hour and our first stop was Marianbrucke (Marian Bridge) which overlooks the place. It also provides great photo ops of the surrounding countryside which pretty much defines “picturesque.”

If the castle looks familiar, there are two reasons for that. The first is it was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The second, and probably larger, reason is it was the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland.

Inside, they wouldn’t let us take pictures, but when you see what he did, you can understand why the called him mad! The decorations are outrageous! Only a small portion of the castle was completed before Ludwig’s mysterious death (officially, it’s a suicide, but they really have no idea what happened to him – lots of political intrigue though) and of that, an even smaller portion was decorated and livable! But he did make sure he had his fake underground grotto and a music hall big enough for an NHL sized rink.

And swans.

There were swan motifs everywhere! The swan is the official heraldic symbol of the area as well as Ludwig’s favorite animal so he put it everywhere. It’s in the walls, on the chandeliers, even the sinks are golden swans which spit water.

Oh, and I should also say a quick world about our tour guide inside the castle (different from the guide who took us there and brought us back). Inside it was a young boy, about 18 or 19, who walked slowly, as if he were still getting used to his legs. His eyes glanced nervously sideways at every sound and his hands were never comfortable , always flat at his sides. But the best…the absolute best…was his voice. He spoke in a closed jaw accent you haven’t heard outside of a bad WWII movie and he was the evil Nazi. Everything was soft “s” sounds “v” for “w.” It was great! I can’t do it justice here, but trust me, not since Peter Sellers have you heard a German accent this stereotypical!

And finally, for Aaron, in the bathroom of the castle (probably not original pieces), the urinal, complete with engraved fly!

What a day! This was probably the best day I’ve had so far, mostly because of the company. Last night I met these two other travelers – Jenni and Jim. Jim is a rock singer from England and Jenni is an agro-economy major from Finland. We ran into each other in the lobby of the hotel and struck up a conversation. Then Jenni’s friend Marcus, a Swede studying economics whom she was waiting for, turned up and the four of us had a bit of a chat. They decided to join me on my excursion outside city limits to visit Kutna Hora and the famous Ossuary there.

As you’ll recall, I was also supposed to go with Tracey from my tour the day before. Well, I never met up with her at the metro station so it was just the four of us on the trip. Things started off on the wrong foot because Tracey had the slip of paper we had gotten the day before which told us train times and the name of the city we were going to. All I could remember was the that the train was supposed to leave for wherever it was at 9:47. Thankfully, Jenni had her trusty Lonely Planet guide to Prague (checked out from her public library) tucked away in her bag. The day excursion to visit Kutna Hora was listed so we could go to the ticket agent and point and hope to get our idea across. This was a good thing since the ticket agent didn’t speak any of the several languages Marcus or Jenni spoke (between them they spoke Swedish although Marcus is also fluent in German and French, Jenni in Finnish and they both speak excellent English, which is good because that’s the only thing Jim and I speak). We finally arranged for our ticket, but of course, it was printed in Czech so no one could read or understand it. And while the ticket had our destination listed as Kutna Hora, none of the trains on the board were listed as actually GOING to Kutna Hora so again, we were in a bit of a quandary (for those who have never travelled by train, there’s a big board which lists the train number, destination, departure time and track number – you will often see people standing around, looking at the big board, just waiting for their train to be listed so they can run to the right track). While there was a train listed as leaving at 9:47, it was going somewhere different and we couldn’t figure out our train number. Finally, we decided to just go to that train and ask someone working if it was right.

We arrived just as they were making a last boarding call, the train agent, who, honestly, looked and acted as if she missed the old communist regime (back when people knew their place and the trains ran on time, Comrade) gave us dirty looks and yelled at us to get on, that yes indeed this was the right train. We jumped on board as it started rolling away and tried to find seats. We took up residence in an 8 person compartment which was only occupied by one other person (who didn’t speak any English) and we were on our way.

Arriving in Kutna Hora, we headed off towards the church where the ossuary was located. It was about a kilometer from the station. We decided to walk because, well, that’s what you do. We stopped at a little café for a sandwich (Jim and I had neglected breakfast at the hostel) before moving on. When we got to the church, we had to walk through the cemetery which was adjacent first. Jenni was a little skeptical, not being a cemetery kind of girl. But we made it to the entrance just fine. Once inside, though, things were a different matter. See, this place had somehow become known as a good place to bury victims of the plague so eventually, the cemetery started to get full to overflowing. No one quite knew what to do with the corpses so a monk figured he’d do arts and crafts and started to make flowers out of the bones. The ultimate project was completed around 1870 and now there are the remains of over 40,000 people used as decoration inside this little church. I hope these pictures do it justice because it was awe-inspiring. Obviously, none of us had seen anything like it and immediately, we all knew the trip from Prague had been worth it. But now, as long as we were already in Kutna Hora, we figured we’d head off into town and see the sights (the ossuary is about 2.5km from the old town center). Off we went, walking (because even though we’d been offered a ride for 30kp – about $2 – we figured it wasn’t that far to walk) and talking and generally following signs which seemed to point to the town center.

Would have been better off if we’d had a map. As it was, we just wandered, trying to keep our bearings by always heading towards the spires of a certain church. We found out later, this wasn’t a church that was even open! We also realized later that we did, in fact, have a map! It was inside the ever-present Lonely Planet.

We finally made it to the town center square where we stopped for a beverage and to rest our feet. Thanks to Jenni’s phone, which has a pedometer, we knew we had already walked about 6km. The main information center was just across the way, with a replica of an alchemist’s lab in the basement. Of course we had to see that! (for those wondering, an alchemist is someone who tried to find the Philosopher’s Stone and turn lead into gold). It was okay, but not great. We also discovered the train schedule for our return (that’s right, we didn’t know the return schedule when we left Prague!). Discovering we had about two hours to kill, we headed off to find more old things to take pictures of. And they were everywhere! No matter where you turned, there was some statue or fountain or stone work which looked ancient and we took pictures of all of it (no, I’m not posting them all here). There were also these green signs with pictures of the various monuments and arrows, so we tried to find as many as we could, playing a sort of artifact scavenger hunt, but since most of it was written in Czech, we could only guess if we got the right thing (The Stone Fountain, for example, wasn’t a fountain at all and the Plague Column I don’t believe actually existed).

By the time we made it back to the train station we had walked a total of 15km and we were all dead tired. And hungry. We figured we’d come back to the hostel, refresh, then meet up for dinner (we did stop at the McDonald’s at the station to get something to tide us over until a full meal could be had later on).

Dinner was in the Old Square in Prague. Jim had found a nice place, with traditional Czech food, the night before so we decided to try it out. Unfortunately, as we realized quickly, since the place was right in the heart of tourist central, the prices were inflated and the square was filled with a giant TV screen and thousands of people watching the Euro 08 match of the evening (Sweden v Russia – Russia won 3-0 Sorry, Marcus). We ended up at a nice place around the corner with the nicest rude waiter any of us had ever encountered. It was late when we got there and by the time we were finished eating, the staff all wanted to go home, so our waiter was slamming the bill down, demanding payment (in a nice way) and ended our night there with a firm “Thank you – GOOD NIGHT.” We left. We could take a hint!

Before heading home, though, Jenni wanted to see the Rock Cafe. Not to be confused with the Hard Rock Café which had only opened the day before (and then just the gift shop and bar, the restaurant is gonna take another few weeks). No, the Rock Café is a local venue and Jenni has a dream of opening her own someday so she likes to check out the clubs in other cities. No problem. We found the place (again, the map issues meant a few wrong turns, but not as many as in Kutna Hora), went inside just in time to see the evening’s band packing up. But now, we were very close to where The Dancing Building was located. This is a modern construction designed in part by Frank Ghery and I wanted to see it. As we were walking there, however, we passed the 20km for the day point, which signified a drink, so we stopped in at a bar before seeing the building.

And then home again… back to the hostel for a night cap and time for Jim to change his plans. He was going to leave Prague on Thursday but decided to stay an extra night so we could all hang out again. Then he and I are going to take the train together on Friday into Munich, Jenni is going to fly home to Helsinki (I’m gonna visit her on my trip up the Baltics) and Marcus is staying until Sunday so he can catch up on anything we missed.

So Dresden…

Nice place, but everything is in German so while I could appreciate the architecture and art, I had a difficult time putting a lot of it into historical context. Mostly I took a bus tour (with English narration on headphones) and snapped a lot of pictures. And then, when I went to look at The Blue Wonder, the oldest steel bridge in the area, it started to drizzle… and then it started to pour. It was coming down incredibly hard! I had to go out in it in order to catch my bus and by that time I was cold and wet (and hysterical – thank you Gene Wilder) and decided to come back home.

Just wasn’t as drawn into Dresden like I was Berlin. There were certainly some fairy-tale houses and some nice castles, but I think I was expecting more war stories and damage from the bombings and instead, it’s a charming little town. Tomorrow I’m off to Prague.

So anyway, here are some pictures… I think there are some nice ones in this batch.