Ben Murrell

I got up at 3:00pm – the Italians were still asleep, geez. Got dressed, then tried finding hostels in Munich – decided to put it off till I get there because I liked Wombats so much and they were full. Hopefully someone cancels… found out there are no buses to Munich on Monday, so 75 euro train ticket it is…

Anyways, I ended up getting Schnitzel from a small shop, then got a carton of cranberry juice and gum from another small shop. Met Simon back at the hostel around 6:30 and decided I wanted to go to the Opera and recruited Simon. I showered, then we got there around 7:00. It was a ballet (Anna Karenina) put on (according to the Russian lady in front of us in the 4 euro standing section) by the best dance company in St. Petersburg. It was really cool to go to the opera in Wien because it is famous for it (it’s the city of music). After the ballet, Simon and I tried to figure out where / which cafe all of the hot women from the Opera would be going to… but they mostly dispersed, so we went to an outdoor cafe in the main square and had (again, famous) Vienna coffee. Watched people and talked for about 2 hours (ranging from politics to military (he’s been in the Australian army for 10 years) to traveling to motorcycles). He’s going to be meeting his parents in Croatia, then going to camp in France along the Tour de France route. We headed home at midnight – I was going to use my free drink card at the hostel, but decided I needed sleep and that an alcohol free day wouldn’t kill me (aka, would be good).

On the bus to Vienna! Only 13 euros vs 60 for the train!

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Wasn’t able to sleep on the bus at all – got to the hostel in Vienna and crashed from about 4:00pm – 7:00pm. Met Simon (from Australia), Francisco & Bellatrice (from Italy) in my room. Drank a lot of water, then got on the ‘net and also laid out my plan for the rest of the trip. Looking like: Munich -> Interlaken -> Seville -> Madrid -> Barcelona -> Dublin. The only problem is that there are no flights from Interlaken to Seville. The nearest airport to Interlaken is 1.5 hours away and still doesn’t fly to Seville.

After the internet, I went to the hostel bar and sat with Simon and 2 English guys (Rob and Joe). Talked a lot of soccer and foreign politics with them (read: I didn’t say much) and we eventually went to a club called Chelsea. We saw tons of prostitutes on the way – far more than any other city I have been in so far.  Watched a few get picked up – just like GTA, haha! The club was packed and under a railway… it had a very underground feel to it, and there were a lot of locals. I’m pretty sure the bouncers didn’t turn out anyone – there were a few falling over drunk hobos wandering around even. They played a lot of alternative type music, so that was cool (Strokes, White Stripes, etc). In the beginning it was so crowded so I could barely move (around 1:00am). Around 2-3, it was a bit more reasonable so we moved to the dance floor. On entering, I locked eyes with a pretty girl, then walked straight to her and introduced myself, then we started dancing. She was Julia from Vienna. Favorite movie: In Bruges. We liked the same music. Ended up dancing till 5:00-5:30am and left the club with the sun coming up. As I was walking out, Rob saw me and said something like “You’re a sly fox!” – haha. Julia and I walked around Vienna as the sun came up over the city. Since she was from Vienna, she knew a lot about the city – it was a good tour! We had Starbucks at 7:00, walked around a bit more, then eventually parted ways at 8:30am. I got to sleep at 9 (slept till 3:00).

I got up at 10:30, got ready, and met Zuzana at 12:30 for a tour! I was supposed to meet her at 12:15, but I got lost (this seems to be a theme of this trip…). I didn’t make it until 12:30, but she waited!  We walked through the city until 5, then she had a hair appointment. I had fried cheese with her (typical / traditional food in Prague), saw the towers, the castle, and the chapels of Prague (and the bridge!). Learned a lot about the Czechs and the Slovaks. She was really nice! It rained a lot though We bought an umbrella for the rain, and afterward, I teased her and told her she should hold it up like a real tour guide (we saw a lot of guides doing this!).

Since she wasn’t from Prague, she didn’t know all of the stories or names of things, but it was fun! We made everything up as we went … and I got to compare some stuff with my roommates who went on a real tour – she had the better stories I should have set something up with her that night… but didn’t. We parted ways, and I went back to the hostel after buying a few post cards. I pub crawled again with the roommates – we found one that had unlimited drinks for 300 crowns. We had dinner before – chili goulash and garlic soup (more traditional dishes). There were loud annoying British guys at the pub crawl. I mostly hung out with Mark and Storms – the pub crawl ended in a club called Roxy (apparently where part of Eurotrip was filmed), but it sucked so we went back to Le Chapeau Rouge (Where I met Zuzana). No Zuzana . I gave her a $1 USD bill and signed it after the tour

I got to the Hauptbahnhof at 6:00am and bought the 60 euro ticket to Prague, then got in a Harry Potter / James Bond style train. COLD. Not comfy. At all. Had my ticket checked several times… in short, didn’t get much sleep. Got to Prague around 12:30pm. Checked Czeched into the hostel then internetted for a while, then went to the grocery store and bought ravioli, pretzels, coke, and bananas [[My feet / calves were getting cramps on the train ride, so I was trying to beef up my sodium/potassium intake]].  Ate it, then went and took a nap. Got up, internetted some more. Pub crawled. Met Mark Maccoll (Irish) and Storms (San Diego) from the hostel. Like most pub crawls, the ratio was skewed. Bided my time until the club basically… had a good time with Mark and Storms though! In the club, we met some Swedish girls, but then I saw a pretty girl all alone and went and pretended to be Australian. 15 seconds later, I had to admit I was American (haha). [[She asked where I was from in Australia. I know Australia... but I hadn't considered that myself, so I just bailed... ha!]] We really hit it off and danced all night, then wandered the streets in the rain for an hour… then I got a cab with her back home. What’s up with people paying for my cabs!? We agreed to meet up on Friday at one of the shops we had walked by and she’d give me a tour.

Her name is Zuzana – she’s from Slovakia and is studying international relations in Prague. She knows Czech, Polish, Slovak, French, Spanish, and English (wow!). And she is awesome.

I haven’t posted on here for a while now – mostly because it’s hard to come by a good keyboard that I can actually type quickly on, but also because I have been avoiding using the internet too much because there is so much to see/do and the internet will always be there. But now, it is raining.

So, to catalog my adventures: I spent June 1st in Nice (which is mostly in the last post), then I went out with the Australians/New Zealanders/South African again. I ended up leaving my hostel to go to the common area of the hostel I stayed in the previous night becuase the hostel I was in (Hostel Meyerbeer) was pretty dead. Had an interesting night that involved swimming, being approached by countless drug dealers on the beach, and watching a fight almost break out between the Aussies and some rough guys that went dumpster diving for bottle weapons. I took off after that and headed to my hostel but on the way I was propositioned by a prostitute. When I got into the hostel, a rat ran over the edge of the stairwell and took a 10 foot fall then kept on running. My key wouldn’t open the door to the floor, so I wandered around a bit and found a homeless lady sleeping in the stairless then booked it back to my floor and kept on trying the key. Eventually the door opened and I got to sleep for a few hours before the train to Paris.

On June 2nd (Tuesday), I tried to catch a 6am-ish train to Paris. It turns out they only allow 20 people with the Eurail passes per high speed train in France. Pressed with not going to Paris, or coughing up 115 euros for a ticket to Paris, I paid the 115 and caught the (EMPTY) train to Paris. Granted, it filled up as the train made stops, but I estimated the train could fit around 800 people and it was nowhere near full. Definitely felt ripped off by the pass at that point.  I checked into my hostel in Paris, then set out for the Eiffel tower. Ended up climbing the stairs to the 2nd platform (as high as you can go on the stairs) and took a lot of pictures, then came back down and rode the metro back to the hostel so I could catch the 7:00 dinner. At dinner, I met a few people and we all ended up going out to the Eiffel tower to see it at night and to see it sparkle. Didn’t end up making it till around 12:30, but we laid out at Trocadero with some wine and basked in the view. And it was cold (I have no warm clothes with me). After the tower, we went to some bars but didn’t really find anything and wanted to go back and get to sleep. The girls I was with wanted to stay up all night because their flight left at 7am, but everyone else was really tired so we caught a cab back and ended the night then.

On June 3rd, I did the free walking tour of Paris. Saw most of the sights in the main area of Paris (I never made it out to the Moulin Rouge / Montemarte district) including the Louvre, the Champs du Elysses, le Arc du Triumph, Notre Dame, Pont Neuf, etc. After the tour, I ran out to the catacombs then went to the Louvre. After the Louvre, I walked all the way down the Champs du Elysses to le Arc du Triumph which ended up taking a really. really. really long time (it always looked like I was almost there, but it is so massive that it was really hard to judge). Along the way was the location of the Guillotine during the French Revolution. After the Arc, I hit the metro back to the hostel and met up with another group and did the Eiffel tower trip again.

On Thursday, I went to Versailles and spent the day out there, then made it back to the Hostel in time for dinner and did the Paris pub crawl. A group of people studying abroad from Michigan State University also did the crawl that night and it ended up being pretty crazy.

Friday, I caught the train to Amsterdam. Spent Friday and Saturday in Amsterdam and decided I had had enough and went to Berlin.

Got to Berlin on Sunday around 11:30pm after one train got cancelled and one train got delayed 65 minutes. The upside of this was that I got to have a Belgium waffle in Brussels, Belgium. Ended up checking in right behind some guys that I hung out with the whole time I was in Berlin. Spent 4 nights in Berlin (through Wednesday night) and then caught a train to Prague. Had a 6:30am train, so I didn’t go to sleep and just stayed up all night hanging out with people and doing Kareoke with people from all around the world. Turns out the train going to Prague isn’t very comfortable, and I didn’t get much sleep as a result. Picked up some Czech money from the ATM… $2000 to be exact. The ATM spat out 2 $1000 bills. Yeah, pretty awesome. It’s like $100 USD though. Czeched into my hostel around 12:30 and it has been raining basically since I got here (which is why this post has gotten so large). I’m only staying here two nights so I need to get out and see/do everything there is to do in Prague - hopefully the rain goes away soon.

So, an overall view of my trip so far: Rome -> Venice -> Milan (ugh) -> Florence -> Cinque Terre -> Nice -> Paris -> Amsterdam -> Berlin -> Prague. (Or Roma -> Venezia -> Milano -> Firenze -> Cinque Terre -> Nice -> Paris -> Amsterdam -> Berlin -> Praha, if you will.) And coming up next: Vienna -> Munich -> ??? -> Dublin. I’ve got a return flight out of Dublin on the 28th that will put me back in KC at 6:30pm on Sunday night so I can make it to my first day of work on the 29th at 8am

And, finally. My health insurance ran out on June 1st because I am no longer a student but I hadn’t started my job. I picked up some temporary travelers insurance last night that covers serious illness and stuff like that, so if I get sick I get to live again. Yay.

I got up at 10:00am, showered, then had breakfast at the hostel. After that, I went with Chris and Andres to the Jewish museum, then came home and got a shishkebab. Afterwards, I had a 2L das boot of beer – Chris and I raced, and Chris won. If you finished it in 3 minutes, it was free… so of course we tried. And failed. We ended up doing karaoke all night in the hostel bar – Chris opened with a Rick Roll, and I followed with a really messed up cover of Bohemian Rhapsody that ended up being only half the song. After that, I did a lot of songs with some guys from the Netherlands (Laurens, Daniel, and Kelvin) [[Ended up randomly running into them in Munich]]. I ended up getting two free t-shirts for it… but they were women’s shirts. That didn’t stop me from wearing them for the night! (… I didn’t really realize that they were women’s until later…). Anyways, got told by some girls that I have a great voice. I stayed up all night to make the 6:30 train to Prague.

I got up at 11:00, and it rained all day. I did laundry with Chris and Andres, then went shopping for a bag. I bought a new bag that was still small enough to carry on [[should have gotten something larger]], then went to a department store and bought two new undershirts. I called my brother Nick and wished him a happy birthday at around 7:00am KC time, then went to the Reichstag and climbed the done on top with Chris and Andres. We went back to the hostel, then went to a microbrewery called Lemke Brauhaus and had some local beers plus a “Berlin” ham knuckle. Got to bed around 2.

I woke up at about 10:30am (finally, sleep!) – but unfortunately the sun comes up in Berlin around 3:30am and all of the windows were open so it was on and off sleep. I went on Brewer’s free walking tour which lasted around 5 hours. It went by: Berlin Wall, Museum Island, Brandenburg Gate, Hitler’s Bunker, several memorials, the book burning square, Checkpoint Charlie, and the Reichstag (and probably more that I’ve forgotten). Afterwards, I went to Alexanderplatz in search of a new bag but didn’t get one because I had to go get home for a pub crawl at 8:00. Went with Chris, Andres, and Classic Scott. Experienced the whole underground electronic music of Berlin thing – went to Cafe Zapata and BangBang. Ended up having to watch after Classic Scott but got to dance with Swedish and Australian girls. On the way home we walked by a brothel and they tried to get us to go in. We almost lost Classic Scott at that point… Made it back around 3:30am … yay sun.

Getting out of Amsterdam now – the place doesn’t really do much for me. I had a really hard time meeting people in the hostel and in general because almost everyone was really stoned. I regret not being able to go to the Van Gogh museum, but I don’t want to spend any more time there.

On my way to Berlin today – I hear it’s really easy to meet people and that it’s a very interesting place to visit. Got 1 night in a place called The Circus which was recommended to me by a guy from Chicago in Amsterdam (Jack).

I hate slow people! This is the second time I’ve missed a train due to slow people. I missed a connection to Berlin (13:41) and now have to wait until 15:41. The people getting off the train were slow. The people on the platform were slow.  It’s 14:41 right now. Not going to get to Berlin until 9pm at least… need a train pass badly – it cost 100 euros for this trip so I’m at 260 euros / $390 on train tickets in the last week. 21 day Global pass would be great right now…

I got to Berlin around 11:30pm – had a train get cancelled and then another get delayed by 75 minutes. I met Chris Colby and Andres Amerikaner while checking into the hostel (ended up hanging out with them in Berlin the whole time… [[and again in Barcelona]]) and got a kebab for dinner. Had one beer and went to bed around 2:00.

[[Looking back...]] It’s funny that I ended up being friends with Chris and Andres – they annoyed the crap out of me at first. I was behind them when checking in at 11:00. It was late – I had been traveling all day and I was tired. They kept asking where the good places to eat were, and what the good local beers were and stuff like that. Marking it on maps and the like. I was just like… HURRY UP, I WANT TO PUT MY BAGS DOWN AND RELAX. But I waited. And finally it was my turn. I heard them say something  about being hungry, so I interjected that I was hungry too and asked if they’d mind if I came  along. This is something that happened a few times during my trip – I got annoyed with people I didn’t know for silly reasons, then ended up being good friends! Just thought I’d throw that in there.

I got up at 10:00am, packed, then found out I’d be in the same bed so I went and unpacked again. I took a walking tour of Amsterdam from 11:00 to 3:00, then had lunch with the guide and some people from the tour group (Helen from NY and Will from London). After the tour, I went to the Anne Frank house. It was interesting – they have the original diary, and you get to walk through the actual house, hidden staircase and all.

I later met some cute girls from Athens. Then I went to the supermarket and bought some razors (I lost mine in Paris), some orange juice, some hair stuff, and some Axe. I walked home, took a shower, and shaved. Then I went to sleep.