Stay tuned for the web page of photos!!!!

Home



LisaB reporting in from Madison. I arrived only slightly late and without my bag. We'll find out today what fun adventures it went on. Hope everyone else made it home with no problems!

GutenTag from Salzburg!

This place seems oddly familiar....

Arrived at the hostel -exhausted, hot, sweaty, gross, as usual. Discovered mix up with our reservation on the part of the hostel. No beds?? Michelle had copy of correct reservation so hostel dude starting sweating. He says he has found beds but they will not be ready for a bit so we go drag ourselves around town again and have supper at a place with a killer salad bar. We arrive back and collapse on our beds. Poor Shannon got put in the basement. Happy Birthday? No, do not worry, she is in a room with the rest of us for our second night. Every school group on the continent was staying in this hostel - it was a nightmare of children screaming and running and injuring themselves (ambulance only had to come once). Little sleep was had. Tonight should be better.

Today Michelle, LisaB, LisaG, and Shannon caught a bus, train, bus, cable car to the ice caves 1700m up inside the mountains. They were a refreshing -1deg Celcius. They were amazing and refreshing, (especially the 90 mile and hour wind that blows by when they open the door to the cave) After an hour and fifteen minutes we were ready for the heat again. Nicole spent the day shopping and relaxing in beautiful Salzburg, fending off the urge to by the Armani suit she fell in love with.

When Shannon, the Lisas and Michelle arrived back, Shannon headed to the hostel to refresh and the other 3 hit the H&M store. Not too much damage was done, but we are now at the end of the trip and dont have so far to carry our bags =)

It is still hot and sunny, and we are starting to look forward to some Nova Scotia sun.

Tomorrow sees Lisa G and Nicole fly back to Canada from Munich and Lisa B, Michelle and Shannon are off to Innsbruck.

Made it to Prague. The over night train was a bit of a hairy experience, but we survived.

Prague was hot and sunny, but what else do we expect now. We spend our 2 days wandering around Prague admiring the beautiful and colorful architecture, and shopping =) One afternoon found us heading to Kutna Hora to see a church decorated in human bones. There was a chandiler made from every bone found in the human body. Yes it is as strange as it sounds.

Our rooms were at the top of 5 long flights of stairs but we were rewarded with great views of sunsets and rooftops.

After 2 nights in Prague (this is the digest version sorry), we headed to a small town called Chesky Krumlove (UNESCO). We took a direct van from hostel to hostel, ahh the luxury. On the drive we saw 2 accidents in 3minutes, one was the car right infront of us! We will be sticking to trains from now on so don't worry moms.

Chesky Krumlov was very nice, what you would expect a midevil village to be like, windy lanes little doorways, a castle and jewlery (Michelle and Lisa G got some pretty things). There was a river that ran around the town LIsa G and Michelle cooled off by dipping their feet in, Shannon took a leisurly float down the river with the current. Very refreshing.

Today we head back to Salzburg!

Part 3 of 3

The Day Everything Went Awry

The PLAN was to get on a noon train and connect to Egar, Hungary which would take 2.5 hours. We ended up on the train until 11pm (11 hours later). It was about 40C on the train. Did we mention the 5000 people on the train with us? They filled the compartments and were packed in the aisles. Hot hot hot. But we had to laugh through it all. We ended up in Kosice, Slovakia where we were turned away at the hostel and ended up in a hotel after midnight. We were severly sweaty, dirty and tired and dirty. Did we mention dirty? The nice security man who looks after the desk at night took pity on us and gave us a key to a beautiful room and it had its own bathroom which we used to its full advantage.

On to the Tatras!

Happily refreshed and wonderfully clean, we had a big Slovakian breakfast which always seems to include lots of ham, cheese, and bread (and exactly 30mg of vegetables) at the hotel and then went back to the train station. After asking 4 people if we were on the correct train, we sat down and headed to the Tatras mountains.



Saturday afternoon found us hiking up a beautiful trail to our chata (chalet) in the hills. Spectacular views everywhere, waterfalls and deliciously cool air - we were in heaven. The beer is a little flat and warm but you can have a contest on how many big yummy dessert dumplings your stomach can handle; Shannon won at five. After a hearty bowl of garlic soup no vampires will get us but we'll also make no friends, except the group of ten year old girls who befriended us here with their teacher and are loving to try out their limited English. They're very excited that we're from the land of Avril Lavigne, Shania Twain and hockey. There's also the "short shorts guys" here who are running the chata; they're wearing the shortest darn shorts we've ever seen and speak not a word of English. Really looking forward to the morning hike. Happy trails.

Part 2 of 3

Day 3 in Budapest found us navigating 2 forms of public transit to get to the Statue Park outside the city, the place where they put all the intact Communist statues. Random comments from us re the park: intriguing, bizzare, smaller than expected, haunting, quiet (except for communist music for atmosphere), interesting. We took many photos.

Back in the city we got some Hungarian fast food for lunch (pork and dumplings, pork & rice balls with potatoes, or fruit soup). Then Michelle and LisaB headed to St. Stephen's Basilica to climb to the balcony for the view (it's only a vacation if you go UP) while Nicole and LisaG hunted for chocolate delights. Shannon relaxed and headed out to the baths where she met LisaB and Michelle at the front door. They lazed about in various pools full of minerals or chlorine or chess boards or grandmotherly types in string bikinis (read saggy boobs and lots of age spots). We hoverd around the effercence pool (this is where bubbles shoot up from the bottom of the pool) hoping to get a try. Some nice american military men offered them a try. Michelle took them up on the offer. Not being very good at "stitting" on the bubbles, and not sure how long her bikini top would stay on she gave it back to the nice man. Nicole & Lisa arrived at the spa fat & lazy only to be stalked by an old lady for their perfect spot in the pool. Note: as you blow dry your hair in your unmentionables, the man next to you does the same.

Fine dining that night consisted of Burger King (Michelle was a little cranky and in need of food FAST). Then we enjoyed the view of the Danube and Buda from the Pest side and whiled away the evening chatting, watching the beautiful lights of Chain Bridge and the Castle on the river.

Part 1 of 3.....

Budapest Day 2

The next morning, everything in Budapest awoke simultaneouslz and ended our slumbers. We took a morning walking tour to learn about Budapest. We learned why waiters and waitresses are not as welcoming as one would expect" apparentlz Hungary has had many visitors over history who seriously overstayed their welcome: Turks, Austrians, Communists. We rode the oldest subway in Continential Europe. Saw Trabies which are 2-stroke, 26 horsepower engine cars that have bodies made out of a paper and plastic mixture (they look pretty solid). We found out that hello and thank you are some of the hardest words to learn in Hungarian and that holograms and the ball point pen are Hungarian inventions.

Near the end of the tour, as it was getting hotter and hotter, we walked up the castle hill = the funicular is for wusses, even in 34C = we were on a walking tour after all. After 3 hours of touring, our nice guide left us in Buda at the Palace (circa 1950 due to destruction and rebuilding) with a lovely view of Pest and the Parliament buildings. Shannon, Michelle, LisaB, LisaG cooled off by touring the underground catacombs which were cold enough to see our breath. It was creepz but soooo refreshingly cool. In the middle of the catacombs we were greeted by the sweet smell of ivzgrotto, a fountain that flows wine instead of water!

Michelle and Lisa took off for an hour of speed shopping while LisaG, Nicole, Shannon headed back to the hostel to recuperate and write postcards (see = we are thinking of you all). We met up in time to head off to the Opera. We had picked up tickets during our walking tour: 5dollar opera. It was a performance of THe Queen of Spades in Russian translated via text screen above the stage into Hungarian. We were lost on the plot until the second intermission when Shannon bought an English playbook. The inside of the Opera house was STUNNING. Michelle snuck some pictures with her digital spy camera. It was a beautiful experience (although Michelle suffered though the first act with a headache) though we all agree that you just cannot follow an Opera without knowing what they are saying. Strange European-Hungarian custom = all the performers come out at the end of every act to bow. And the audience claps in unison.

After all the excitement we all crashed in our beds and slept until 6am when the garbage trucks woke Michelle.

Tune in later for Parts 2 and 3!!

Good news!! The z and y are now in their proper keyboard locations! Yay!

We left Bratislava (FOODLAND) yesterday morning. Said goodbye to $0.80Cdn beer and $4Cdn entrees that would feed a family of 4. Took a nifty rusty, loud train to Sturovo and got off to make our connection - which meant getting back on the same train.

Made it to Buapest as planned, almost died on the 100mi/hr escalators that go straight down to the subway which is approximately 4000ft underground. Nicole was not appreciative of this grand, underground, enclosed structure (read: claustrophobic). We dumped our packs at the hostel (very nice) and hopped on a tram to the Gellert Hotel Baths (cheap cheap) where we lounged in luxury.

After the baths, we went out for supper. A friendly dude at the hostel recommended a place on a nice pedestrian street and we headed out merrily on our way. And we actually found the place: yay for not getting lost. Having been warned that in Hungary restaurants serve HUGE portions, we decided to share some entrees, being the little people that we are. Our server rudely indicated that we must each order an entree and then walked away. So we walked away also. :P A short walk down the pedestrian street we found a smiling (! in Eastern Europe !) girl who seemed to actually want our business so we went in there and had some tasty food and beer.

Three hot British men, desperate to communicate in English, approached our table after we finished eating and started to chat. After several beers and some laughs we agreed to go back to their camper with them - they insisted. Or not. Don't worry, we resisted. Despite the 400 invitations. =)

We left the British hotties and headed back for the hostel for some good sleeping. Two more days in Budapest, then on to Egar.

Whoops

Whatever you do, don´t type www.5women.com in an attempt to get to this site. Really. Don´t.

Blogging from a very hot, unairconditioned internet cafe in Bratislava where pivo (beer) is cheaper than voda (water). Beautiful pedestrian streets winding around full of old, interesting buildings = just spectacular in a slightly run down kind of way... but somehow better than showy Vienna? Everything is a bit of a blur, as we race from place to place. Tomorrow we are off again, maybe to a place that has keyboards with the y and z in the correct locations? Nah, what fun would that be?

The Hunting Lodge

Turns out the summer lodge was actually just the 1440 room hunting lodge. Our bad. Half the rooms weren't even gilded. Honestly.

LisaB, LisaG, Michelle, Shannon all climbed up the steeple of a gothic church downtown Vienna. Five minutes of climbing up a spiral staircase:awesome. Also sweaty.

Tomorrow: we say goodbye to Vienna and Austria and hit Bratislava in Slovakia, so our newfound German vocabulary (spokenzie English?) will go unused for a bit.