Day 31 - Final effort

Day 31 was actually like a week ago. I am posting this from the comfort of my own home and there is a pretty good chance I have forgotten the whole lot.

We woke up in our last hostel pretty damn late. Headed down and did the old checkout / bag leave jobby. We then headed to the old standard cafe for our free croissant and espresso even though it was like 37 degrees. It was then a case of a metro to the Vatican.

We didn't intend to get a tour but after rejecting a number of tour guides we were captivated by this one fit bird with an Aussie accent. After negotiating her down €5 each we decided to actually do a tour. Lorcan didn't have his student card and Mick didn't have a student card so we had to do a bit of cunfoolery at the ticket office in order to get us all in cheap.

We joined a tour of 8, us 4, and 4 American, old, large, female jehova's witnesses. Purfickt... Our guide began by explaining some kick ass things about the sistine chapel, how the pope asked Michaelangelo to paint it, even though he hadn't painted in 18 years, how he said GTFO but ended up doing it anyway. And fucking kicked ass cause it looks unreal. She also explained how the side panels were done by other artists including Raphael (the legend) who are largely forgotten.

Anyway we walked around and saw some cool stuff like Laucoon from the classics course and some pictures with stuff that followed you. And even an entire sculptured roof.... That was 2d. Impressive shit. Shortly before the chapel we had the option of doing an extra wing for another 40 minutes. Our fellow touries decided to bail so we missed a shit load of art and stuff. Oh well, more for next time.

We saw the chapel, which was savage before going out to the basillica and splitting with the dodge Christians. Then us and the tour guide (Jo) bantered for a while. It emerged she was good mates with the super hot blonde bird from transformers which was interesting. Eventually we let her go and headed into St Peter's. Here we saw some cool stuff like that Michaelangelo who's name slips my mind... Damn.

Then we headed outside and walked down to castle saint angelo. Being 17 as I was I got in free as did the lads and we headed up to finish our tour with a spectacular view of Rome. We cruised across town and home through a fire alarmed subway. Grabbed our bags, 30 euro taxi to the airport and then our flight home. No drama really.

So now I am home, I have lots of time to write and nothing to write about... Yay.

Day 30

Tecnically speaking I am home, but I wanted to finish the diary.

Today was a big day for us, we were finally going to see some of Romes biggest and most impressive attractions. Namely the Colleseum and Pantheon. However our iternerary pointed us in a completely different direction to start off.

We headed down the same old streets and ended up back at the all too epic "Momument to the forgotten soldier", tonight it was open so we headed up the steps and into the museum to see some of the more impressive modern sculptures around Rome. The place is epic, a huge marble monument made in the Neo Classical style, I for one, really like it.

After that we headed to the forum area, the true ruins of Ancient Rome. It was here we "bought" our tickets for the Colesseum and stuff too. I said "Bought" because they were actually free for under 18 EU citizens. Noice. We walked around in the baking heat and discussed the wonders of the city as it spread out before us, however something was on all of our minds. The arena.

We finally headed up to the Colesseum itself, we skipped the queues and scanned our tickets. Before stepping in to the immpressive oval arena. This 75,000 seater stadium is known for being one of the most impressive buildings in the world, and for good reason. It truly is fantastic.

However our mamoth day sightseeing did not end there, we wanted to go to the Pantheon and get inside, some of the lads hadn't been too impressed with the view from the outside as it wasn't all that cool. Once we were there though they had the oppurtunity to see inside the oldest Christian church, To stare at the almost perfectly hemispherical dome, with its circular iris, to marvel at the beauty of such a wonderful building, that had somehow surved the rape of the Catholic churchl.

Later we headed back to the hostel before intending to go out into town. This was a bit of an epic mess up. The river side was a promenade of classy bars and expensive areas, town itself was quite and boring. Drinking on streets was illegal so our bottle of wine got confiscated by an under cover cop, and worst of all Mac Ds closes at 11pm in Rome... WTF

Day 29 - Rome, where we finish Roaming...

Today we arrived in Rome after a pretty early train from Florence, we pretty much agreed straight away that Rome was a better option. We headed to the old station and bantered into the longest queue yet, there were some really weird people in there, and a couple of dogs too, wtf.

Eventually we got on our high-speed to Rome, I was sitting opposite a small child for the second time on this triop and honestly they need to stop stepping on my legs its far too annoying, like honestly, what the hell are they playing at.

We arrived in Rome at like 2pm and bantered to our extremely funny hostel. I am sitting in hgere right now, but basically what you enter is a laundrette, which has a table in the middle, they check you in, give you a map and show you a logical route for you to take around Rome, then they take you across the street to an apartment building to show you your room.

We basically then headed out on our first walk, we saw all 4 fountains, a couple of Piazzas and the outside of the Pantheon. Rome was hot, like 35 degrees as usual so we were dying, but we were presently surprised that the city was serviced by free water fountains which we basically dominated.

Later we headed back to the hostel, ate some pizza and stuff, and then two of us headed out again at around 10pm, me and Col just walked the streets aiming to see the city at night. Many of the sights including the "monument to the forgotten soldier" were bathed in white light. The Colosseum was of course epic as usual, and the whole place was buzzing...

Banter really. +1 Rome.

Day 28 - Firenze

Florenzo, the home of Michaelangelo's David, and pretty much nothing else, but its actually worth going just for that. Like the 5.17 metre monumental statue of David shortly before his battle with Goliath is savage. Considering it only cost us 5 euro to see it, and it had no queue whatsoever it was defo worth the trip.

Otherwise Florence is like every single other differnt italian city. Its kinda quiet, hot and has a pretty alright church. Nothing really to write home about, so why the hell am I bothering to. The answer, I am kinda bored in Rome already. Lorcan is asleep and Mick is typing some stuff. Me and Col want to go out and do something.

Also in Florence we saw some botanical gardens and spent a whole lot of time in a sports store as usual. Banter really, I bought a Ferrari shirt, wtf, why I am bothering....

We got food in a random place, was pretty cheap but we had to have a desert cause the legendary waiter told us it was "Orgasmic", we went out to some bar were some American 25 year old try to hit on Col, legend. After that we went strolling at night to see the city, had a quick chat with the police about the original position of David.

Day 27 - Venice

Our second day trip running was a visit to the sinking city of Venice, we arrived via the worlds least comfortable night train from Vienna at around 9am. We strolled across town to Saint Mark’s square, the most famous square in Venice and there we were just 4 in a massive horde of tourists, locals seemed almost nonexistent.

We started with a Gondola journey in true Venetian fashion, despite me saying to Mick “you can go to Venice without taking a Gondola, just watch me”. However we got it for a fairly ok 80 euro, and I was quite happy to see Venice from the Canals. The boat was 11 metres long but the helmsman seemed almost too happy to just bang around corners keeping the entire gunwale just inches from contact with the cold stone.

After the Gondola we got some food before bailing up the coast to a park where we chilled, chatted, and eventually I ended up swimming for about 30 seconds in the sea, which was a really really awful idea, but meh you only live twice.

After that we decided to visit the famous Saint Mark’s basilica where we took the free English tour, which I very nearly slept through, needless to say I am wrecked. The church is truly beautiful though, despite the sinking floor creating a stone wave effect.

Day 26 - Vienna

We decided to take a day trip to the Capital of Austria Vienna in between our Eastern Europe and Italian legs. It was a welcome change to once again be back in the Euro zone, however what we weren’t welcoming was any change, because prices were back to their EU extortion.

We strolled the gorgeous streets and saw some general sights, including the wonderful church on Stephen’s Platz, and various other things, before heading to try find a tour. Initially we went into the Jewish Welcome and Israeli tourism centre; they were helpful but useless and directed us to the tourist information centre proper. Once there we talked to the girl at the desk, who was far too banterous, and recommended us a bus tour around the capital.

The bus was playing Mozart between bits of tourist info and made for a good trip, Colman got me on for child because I am 15 (lolwut) and because of that I saved 7 euro, which was all too banterous. The bus tour showed us various sites including the biggest intercity bungee jump in Europe, the temptation was evident.

After that we got lost in a sports store for like 5 hours. It had a golf sim, putting green, climbing walls, table tennis, roller blades and various other distracting activities. We basically got food and then headed for our train.

Our train was going pretty well, we were 4 in a 6 man compartment watching shooter, however once the other two (an antibanterous old Austrian couple) got in, it was real shit. An uncomfortable 10 hours or so followed.

Day 25 - Fooking Starvin

Our final day in Hungary started with disaster, we headed out to the tourist information recommended water park, and it was catering for a slightly younger target audience, despite the trek, we made a decision to bail and go to the one we had originally had in mind. Once back in town we decided to hit the “house of terror” first.

This is a museum dedicated to the persecution, torture and execution of Hungarians under the Nazi and Soviet regimes from 1944-1945 then 1945-1989. The exhibit was interesting; however by the end we agreed that the histories of the entire eastern bloc were much of muchness in the 20^th century.

Mick wasn’t feeling his best so he didn’t join us for the second water park. We knew this was a trek out of town, but we weren’t sure how much of one. Needless to say, we were in for an experience. We got the metro to the end of the line, switched to another train and started getting that a mammoth 14 stops. However it didn’t really stop at stations, in fact to quote Colman “this isn’t a stop, it’s just a place where the doors open”.

But eventually we reached the infamous “stop 14” where we dismounted onto a deserted “platform” in the middle of fooking nowhere. We then rang our taxi number and he arrived, explained it was a fixed rate to the park and took off on the world’s smallest paved road which went through various floods and over a mountain. It was looking bleak until there stretching out in front of us... was not the water park, but the huge Hungaroring formula one circuit, where just the week before Filipe Massa had been involved in a 125 mph crash.

My day was made, but the water park was icing on an already far too sweet cake. Rain earlier meant the place was empty, but the weather had improved. Over 1 mile of slides, and needless to say, we hit every one, and a lot more than once. Perfect.

We headed back to Budapest and started packing for our 4am get up.

Day 24 - Even more Hungary

Hungary day 2 was my first real active day in Budapest, I was well rested and well pumped to see the city. Our free tour was at 2, so we started with some light shopping. Bantered around in H&M and Pull & Bear. After that we headed to the apartment for lunch and tried to reach our tour. We were late of course so when a low chain blocked our way we simply jumped it, before the fat Hungarian guard tried to kick us out of the British Embassy for being terrorists...

We got to the tour anyway and started walking around the city guided by our native tour guide. Her English wasn’t great, the route wasn’t perfect, and her style involved too much lecture. Because of this the tour was really lacking. What was humerous however was the horsemen on top of the castle hill. Every year local students touch the horses balls for good luck in their sex lives. Because of this the statue has gone green as copper does, but the balls remain gold. Lol.

After the tour we decided it was time to experience the baths. Several pools and saunas in once facility made it fairly expensive at 12 euro for 2 hours, but really worth it for health and fitness reasons. I guess I was the only one disappointed there were no really cold pools. Most were around 38 Celsius, with saunas as hot as 100 Celsius. I’m not very heat resistant, so I bailed on the hot ones, the others tried em out, didn’t last long. We finished the trip with some lengths before messing around in the 38 degree outdoor pool.

Thunder and lightning rolled in, so we bailed on the two hour mark. On our way home however we passed the victory monument, in the back ground lighting flashed every few seconds but it was dry right at that moment. It has to be one of the most impressive things I have ever seen.

That night we ate in TGI Fridays, needless to say I destroyed free refills.

Day 23 - If your Hungary, eat.

We arrived in Budapest early on the morning of whatever day that was, let’s face it, days and dates have become an absolute mash of cheese. I arrived wrecked because of our pre soviet era train from Prague. So after our Hungarian neighbours gave us a tour, and we hit the grocery store I went to bed.

I basically did nothing else that day, the others tried fruitlessly to hit the baths and they walked around aimlessly in the heat.

We ate out in a very cheap but very nice Italian, I had like loads of food and two drinks for once. Heaven is cheaper.

Day 22

We pretty much didn't wake up this morning, based on the staying up late we were dead the next morning. So we were well late, we then didn't leave for ages while we showered and chilled in the hostel, which made us feel kinda bad cause we were meant to get the hell out of dodge.

Eventually we mustered up the strength to get out, we just walked around aimlessly, we finally saw the astronomical clock tick, and tock and do some other stuff that wasn't that great. But we were glad we finally saw it.

We then bantered across Charles Bridge to climb up to the castle, when we realised the extortianate rate for water and shit we bailed back down, but then we got ambushed by some lad selling concert tickets. So we ended up going to see some works by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven performed by String Quintet, which was bant.

We then bailed on to the world's worst night train, we were in a room with two Americans, who were banterous, and after an hilarious first few minutes we started to try get some sleep. The problem was with the window closed it was far too hot, with it open it was raining, really cold, really loud and kept closing. Eventually Colman just jammed the curtain in the window bant.

Day 21, banter...

The Czechs are famous for very little, but anything they are famous for is pretty shit. Charles' bridge for example, is little more than a cobbled bridge that is far longer than it should be, the astronomical clock, is hardly out of this world and the beer is nothing on Munich. However the city of Prague is very beautiful and today we decided we wanted to tour it.

We had to get up far too early and try and book our train to Hungary, before trying to find our way to the city centre for our tour. Eventually we sorted it out, and ended up on my third "new Europe" tour. Our tour guide was a young girl from Worchester and was far too enthusiastic, cringy doesn't quite cover it. However soon we got around the cringe and began to banter back with her. By the end of the tour I feel we kinda dominated the group a little which may have been unfortunate for any others on the tour.

Our hosteler had recomended us some night clubs, including one which was 5 floors with 5 different kinds of music. The biggest night club in central Europe. When we told our tour guide this she kinda laughed at us and said "its good if you like 14 year old Italians" and tried to persaude us to join her pub crawl.

We switched hostels in the afternoon and got food, me and mick decided to get some sleep while the other two went boating again. Boring boring boring.

We began to get ready to go out, and some German guys from across the courtyard invited us to theres, we kinda didn't go. We got dressed up, went out, saw the bridge and the clock at night before entering the club. In the club we met a lot of people, in fact we did the old classic where we met someone who knew someone we knew, he also recognised us because he had been in our hostel in Berlin. (Colman has a stripe in his hair). Basically the 5 floors were really cool, but we just spent all our time in the chillout zone at the top. Banter.

We cruised home at 4am, and here I am.

Day 20 - On the rails again.

Day 20 was our last day in Berlin, but we didn't really make the most of it. We slept in a little, finally left the hostel an hour late and went to the statue of victory near the Brandenburg gate. From there we got a very accpetable view for 1:50 which I really enjoyed.

After the pillar we headed to the reichstag to get some sun and relaxation before our train, basically we sun bathed, Mick slept. Sorry this entry is weedy.

We then went to the hostel, Colman nearly left his valuables behind, we then bantered out to the train station, late. Luckily the time we thought the train left was early so we "had time" for food. This sadly was a lie, and we ended up running anyway. Oh well. We didn't get four seats together but we got on a train, anyway.

Halfway through we switched to a compartment and bantered. We then got a tram in Prague and we are here.

Day 19 - Tours and shit art...

So today we finally reached that tour, it was the same company that had done the tour in Hamburg and what we discovered was that they followed an almost identical format. We started with some funny stories about the Brandenburg and Paris square, including the infamous Michael Jackson "blanket" balcony, and some humerous stories about the French. We then moved on to the Reichstag and along the wall, checkpoint charlie, museum island and loads of other stuff. He finished with an epic story in which he told us how the wall fell. It was like 15 minutes long so no retell here.

We then tried to use our cards in a cathedral, but they didn't accept them, so we moved onto the gugenheim, which was crap. One piece was literrally a white sheet on white canvas on a white wall. Its not too good to look at really. I kinda left glad we didn't payt the old 3 euro in. We tried another museum which was also full, wtf.

We then headed back home to Alexanderplatz, and the hostel. The lads (mick and lorcan) went to bed for four hours and me and Col basically just bantered around the hostel playing the piano, singing "With or without you" and messing with people. The other 2 got up and we went out to Vapiano, the same chain of restaurant we visited the last day in Stockholm. I enjoyed the pizza it must be said.

Back home and Mick wanted sleep, we went to the bar for a bit, before also hitting the bed.

Day 18, Schumahcer's Return...

Day 18 was our second day in Berlin, today we planned to basically hit as much as we could as quickly as possible, starting with a tour early in the morning, which we missed... lol. We then moved on to the Pergaumon museum which houses a lot of the stuff on our classical studies leaving cert course, annoyingly it also tends to lend it out. So we seemed to miss a lot of the things we initially would have liked to see.

We then used our museum cards to just randomly stroll into another museum which was actually pretty good, I enjoyed it. After that museum I think we headed back to the hostel, did the standard super-market run, I bought 10 boxes of matches for 25 cent and we played poker with matchsticks, before some pool and then we decided to roll out to TV tower for around 10 pm.

Tv tower after dark is quite amazing, its a 200 m high observation deck with a view over the whole city. Its a tower similar to a chimney, but 196m up there is a massive globe. When the Russians built the tower in 1969 they had no real trouble, but when the globe arrived they didn't know how to put it on. So they had to hire some Swedes on the sly to get them to do it.

On the top of the tower we started playing a game, we started getting people to pose in photos with us, usually getting someone else to take the picture. We would do a number of poses and things, and the groups grew, people were laughing and clapping after pictures and things. So what we did next was get Lorcan to shoot a few pictures, then get people to change poses, while we recorded it. Banter to the max.

At around 1am we headed to the Reichstag and then Brandenbourg gate too. Was good.

It's also important to note I got some extremely significant news today, Michael Schumacher will make a shock F1 return in Valencia to replace the injured Filipe Massa. Schumacher is my ultimate hero, so he's back to dominate, one thing is for certain, I know where I will be on the 23rd of August.

Day 17 - Ich bin ein Berliner

Day 17 was our first day in Berlin and our first day with our final member, our fourth wolf (in our wolfpack, first there were two, then Colman joined the wolfpack). We arrived pretty early on the baby train from Malmo and got lost in the train station. We eventually discovered where we needed to go, and decided that because it was too early to buy a more valuable group ticket we would just wing it then two stops to Luxembourg Plaza.

We arrived at our hostel, buzzed in, left our bags and headed out to the airport, the plan was always to ambush Mick, however we wanted someone to film it. Part A was perfect, we got him from behind, chased him down and knocked him over, part B failed as the asshole filming somehow managed to screw it up.

The 4 of us then basically headed back to the hostel before heading out to Berlin. We went to see the Jew museum. Now I am not anti-sematic, but I do disagree with this museum. I don't see the reasons for having an exhibit to many semi-notable Jews and a number of completely non notable Jews just because of their race. It somewhat annoyed me. The architecture was interestign though.

We basically headed right back to the hostel and hit the bar, at some point in between we got food or something.

Day 16

Day 16 was always going to be a travel day, which means it should be cheap. But oh no, it wasn't. Our train to Malmo was booked up in second class, meaning we had to fork out 55 each for first class. So I was already 10 euro over budget for the day. For breakfast I had 2 crossiants and 5 bananas in order to save cash. We then got our train, 5 hours of free fruit and wifi. We had about 30 minutes in Malmo, but the train was delayed quite a lot.

Once we reached malmo I had to buy internet so I could look up the reservation number, we did this printed the tickets then tried to spend our last Swe Krone in Burger King, however this was the world's slowest fast food, and we ended up sprinting for the train, hopping on at the very back before strolling up to our couchette.

We basically ate our food before getting into the beds and trying to get some sleep, but before we dozed off, I shit you not, our train boarded a fucking ship. Yes I know, it makes literrally zero sense, Europe has cheats. Thats the only logical explanation.

Day 15 - Theme Park

Right so we got up at 9 am just so we could be first to a theme park nearby, we had free entry on our card so it was banter. We just hit the rides real quickly. We started small, with the biggest free fall in Europe. It was called tilt and we couldn't work out why. So when we finally reached the top of the tower we were ready to fall, and didn't expect the seats to all drop forward so we were looking down, scary shit. I was moving so fast I couldn't hear myself scream.

We then moved on to one that was a just a kinda standard roller coaster but the carriages were like spinning as it went making it really interesting, at some points we were pulling 3.6g, this just went to show how sick the sport of F1 is, they pull that in most high speed corners and can still manage to drive a car.

We then went to some shops and things before hitting a pub for the grand prix, was a goodish race, I guess it was a little boring after the start. We then headed out to the Nobel museum before switching hostel. Our new hostel was near our first and was real banterous, we talked with a Swede and some Dutchies, got some food and came back. On our way back in we met the Dutchies with 2 Germans and a Canadian heading out so we went with them and hit a pub. The night was banterous really. But at the end of the day we ended up in a nearby fountain getting soaked.

Day 14 - Warewolves

Day 14 was to be our last day in hostel before we switched into the city center. We left kinda late, I dunno why really.

We started the morning with a boat tour around the Islands of the Archipeglo of Stockholm, saw some of the nicer sights and all for free on our stockholm card. The tour was savage we just managed to see a lot of the Stockholm as the city is based on an archipegelo of like 14 islands.

We went to visist this Island park called Skansen which was a bit of a mystery to us, we knew there were like old style buildings and animals there, but no one could say if it was a park a musuem or a zoo. We ate there which was probably a bad economic decision, before heading into the park, not entirely thrilled with the inital look of the place. However we headed across the park to the animals and it was kinda cool, we saw some wolves, bears and elk and stuff, then moved on to a lemur enclosure where we could just walk around with them, then various baboons and a things, before a small aquarium.

Once we left Skansen we went back to our old hostel and lay around before heading off to our new one with no directions or anything. Banter, we reached the old town Gamlastan and started walking around trying to find the place, after several failures I whacked out the laptop and found some wifi (thank you Sweden) and within minutes we were in our hostel, or rather outside it. Too late for check in, I had to do it over the phone. The place was small but nice, and more importantly bang in the center of the old town.

Half the old town was a pub club district which was dominated by Irish pubs, places like "Temple Bar" "The Liffey" "O Leary's" and "The Dubliner" were all down there, however everything closed at around midnight there. We met some South African lads and bantered with them for a while before heading back to our hostel.

At around 12:30 we went off to the cliffs on the islands opposite to see Stockholm from above at night, it was amazing. While up there we met some of Stockholms less well off young citizens. For some reason though they didn't mug us just sat and talked and told us they hated Stockholm. Was an experience.

Day unlucky 13 (maybe in Bingo)

Day 13 was amazing. We just woke up nice and late around 10, got out of our apartment and down to the reception to switch into our new room. We then bantered off the tesco-cheap supermarket and got some stuff for breakfast. Pasta, Frankfurters, Musili, Raisans and Milk made quite an interesting little breakfast before we hit the launday and played some table tennis.

We basically hung around the hostel for ages killing time, msning and doing shit so we didn't get out till like 4. But once we did it was highspeed sightseeing time, first thing was picking up a stockholm card. 30 euro gets your free entrance almost everywhere, a ton of discounts and free public transport with this savage little card.

We then headed to the city hall cause I wanted to hit the spire, but no look really as we arrived 5 minutes after it closed, however no worry really as the place was very peaceful and pleasant. Next we decided to take a quick and cheeky metro, the train to our station wasn't running though so we kinda couldn't. However that didn't stop us seeing the fucking savage underground station, real cool.

We walked the streets did a bit of shopping (I mean, we didn't buy anything...) and then got food. Thai, I hit the old classic chicken fried rice. Our waitress was pretty legendary, we played the old guess the age game, I will mention I was just one year out, with the other 2 missing it by 5 and 8... Banter. She was 20.

We then just hit the hostel killed some more time with cards then had a sick idea. For like 1:60 each we hit the sauna for around an hour... Unreal. How the fuck does our hostel have a sauna. I dunno but its sick. Anyway more to follow laters.

Day Zwölf

Day Zwölf started in Copenhagen, but we had already decided it wouldn't end there. The hostel was crap, and we wanted to move on to somewhere nicer.

With that in mind we first headed to the train station to book our train to Stockholm, €7 each for highspeed reserved, nice. Before that left we had a couple of hours to chill, so we just had a bitta breafast then headed into Copenhagen.

Basically all we did was hit the old boat tour, I had been before but I guess this time I actually listened. It was pretty banterous so the old errmaid and some cool looking glass buildings and whatnot.

After the old boat tour we just hit home, we were going to go theme parking but the queue was too long, instead we hit dinner which was unreal. Best burger I have ever head then bantered on to the old train.

Swedish trains are sick, first we crossed the longest bridge I have ever been on, then we realised the train had wifi, then we found the plugs, UNREAL. We had the old 3 seat malarky, so we did a bit of sleep rotation which was good crack.

This is another weedy blog entry... Sorry.

Day Err-Leven

Day 11 has so far been pretty bad. We left Hamburg at just passed midnight, got a train for an hour to a shit hole called NeuMunster. We had a 4 hour stop over in NeuMunster during which time we met an amazing Finnish couple and an equally cool German - Austrian couple. We basically crashed in a corner till 4:44 when we were told our train was delayed 90 minutes. Yay.

So we bantered some more in the station and did some Iq challenge which was good. Eventually the train arrived to cheers and applause but not for long. It was packed, every compartment and couchette. Based on that I ended up sleeping on the floor somewhere and the others tried to stay awake in the restaurant. Basically copenhagen wasn't looking too good.

Once we reached the city early in the afternoon we went straight to the hostel which isn't too nice and hit some sleep which wasn't too nice before having a shower which wasn't too nice then went into town.

A friend had recomended some place called "Christiania" which was basically just a park full of hippies on weed so we thought that was pretty not too nice. We got food twice both times pizza, both were goo, but drink (water or coke) even in the supermarket is far too expensive.

We are now playing cards... Which is good. Friends are a savior sometimes.

Day 10

Day 10 was a long time ago because I don't have net, but I think it started in the hostel for breakfast before me Lorcan, Evan the Canadian and the English couple went into town to see the model railway thing. It was a serious scorcher in Hamburg so we were loving the rays. Before hitting the models we got lunch in a pub, had a bit of Turkey Snitzel which as always is good.

We then headed to the railway and picked up a ticket for later on that day rather than stand in the line. So we decided to head off the harbour area and sun bathe, with no cream. Needless to say I got burnt, but I am looking more tanned now which is grando really.

The railway was fucking sick, 12 km of model track, 900 trains, one was 16m long. it had over 300k little lights and went through a day night cycle. I must say I have never seen anything quite so amazing. In fact it almost made me feel ill, 600,000 man hours were already in the project.

We then headed back to the hostel and picked up Colman, good to see him again. We hung around for a while before saying goodbye to our Canadian and British friends and getting on the nightmare train to copenhagen. More to follow.

Day Nein...

Day 9 kinda started grand, we just got up in our savage room showered had breakfast and headed out for our free walking tour at 11. The plan was always to just get to the tour then wing it from there. Its a pretty good way to meet English speaking people.

The tour was good, we saw many of the main sights in Hamburg and heard some stories from Hamburgs history. The guide was banterous. We met an English guy and girl and a Canadian guy who we bailed off with after to get food. I went for the turkey Snitzel, which was good stuff. Before we headed back to the hostel.

At this stage me and Lorcan were discussing alternatives to spending that night in Hamburg, the city isn't very nice and our hostel is kinda far away. However none of these plans came to fruition, instead we asked the Canadian guy to stand by Lorcan as he checked in so we looked older. It worked pretty well and because of that we were staying in a dorm that night. Thank god.

We basically then hit the kitchen for some food where we met a bunch of English lads from Leeds. At 18 they were the youngest people we had met yet and were coming to the end of their trip. We quickly nicknamed them Macfly, The Jonas Brothers (two of them) and Fritz. We bantered around for a few hours before heading out the red light district.

It was unpleasant, horrible and I never really want to go again.

Day 8(not teen)

Today we arrived in Hamburg after a very relaxing train (which we were in seats on) from Munich. We pretty much found the hostel right away and went in. This is where the problems started. We didn't lie about our age and we were told that anyone under 18 couldn't check into a hostel in Germany and we would need to, A, get parental permission and B, upgrade to a private room.

Eventually we sorted that out and as they were sorry the hostel comped us breakfast which was good banter, they also made an effort to free up our room early and we basically hit it straight away.

We went and got some food in Lidle and Burger King before going to bed. Later we shot some pool before heading into Hamburg briefly just after dark, but turning around because we were in the biggest red light district in the world and it wasn't the most comfortable experience.

(Day) Seven Steps to Heaven

Day seven started as day six ended, with torrential rain. However as we had planned to see the massive deutsh museum with Matt and Chris (English lads) it wasn't really an issue. The 30 minute walk however was, we got fucking soaked big time, despite the jackets. There were also the inconsiderate and phsycotic Germans with their umbrellas...

On arrival at the museum we had the old classic 1 hour queue... In the rain. Then about 4 hours of the museum itself. Science and Tech, was really all very technical so I won't go into much detail. Plenty of planes and ships and manly things. If you spent 1 minute at every exhibit it would take you 33 days to see it all, so needless to say we didn't even come close to seeing everything.

After the museum we hit an "all you can eat" Chinese restaurant and its fair to say we destroyed it. We ate 65 plates of food, which was on a conveyor delivered to our table. I had everything from Sushi to Duck, it was a destruction. I still feel abit full several hours later.

Today was really about banter amoung friends, we realised how attached we have become to Munich, two non drinkers from Ireland in the beer drinking capital of the world, its funny. It was hard to book our tickets to Hamburg for tomorrow morning. Just enjoying a last drink with Chris and Matt now before we head off.

Day Sixislicous.

Day six and still in Munich, who would have thought two non drinkerse from Ireland would have such an attachment to the beer drinking capital of the world, its certainly starting to feel like home. This morning we had planned to go on a free bike tour, but before leaving the hostel I ran into two English guys I met last night also going on it. So we bailed off to it together. It was actually unbeleivably good, I nearly killed our tour guide and almost got hit by a tram and a large business mercedes, but somehow didn't.

During the tour we saw many sights, but mainly we saw the English gardens, which were full of naked men just strolling around, dodge. We stopped at a beer hall thing there and most people had a few and some lunch. It was there we started talking to Alex our tour guide, he was a bit of legend. Later in the tour we saw this man made still wave that surfers were using on the river. Was pretty epic. Apart from that we saw the sight of Hitler's Beer Hall putsh, the hq of the luftwaffe and various German parliamant buildings, churches and castles.

After the tour, us the English tourists and the two English tour guides decided to get beer and cocktails. We went to the massive beer hall in the center of Munich to sample some of the delights. Was pretty epic when our guide got ID'd, but I didn't. I tried a weisse beer, tasted like Banana, not too good really. Over at the cocktail place, I couldn't produce ID so was serverd non alco, but Lorcan produced his ID, then we convinced the barmaid "December" was at the start of the year... HOW THE FUCK DID THAT WORK.

So basically I ordered a non alco strawberry margerita and lorcan ordered the alco version. We had half each then switched, nice of him. Our tour guide invited us out to his 19th that night, but we were already feeling the cost of the day and kinda opted out. We then hit the pizza place with the English guys (our third pizza there) which again was good crack, before heading off.

Me and Lorcan hit the Police station to sort some lost and found paperwork. Then headed to the hostel. Our room mates strolled in one by one. A French girl, a Norwegian lad and a Mexican lad. Random group really. None seemed up for the banter tbh. We headed down to the bar in Jagers (the hostel next door) and started chatting to some randomers, including an Israeli lad who seemed to have an almost equal grasp of Economics as a Lorcan... I wasn't sure such person existed.

We just chatted down in the bar before hitting bed, good night all in all.

Day High Five

Day High Five started badly. Stuck in literally the worst German train station on the planet, its large empty shell just served as a glowing reminder of lonliness, various twosomes and individuals wandered aimlessly. Sleep was impossible. When that ICE train finally pulled in to wisk us away it could not have felt any better.

Once we reached Munich it was all about getting a hostel for the night and getting to police station. We checked into "Euro Hostel" next door to where we spent our first night in Munich. It was 9am and our room wasn't ready till 2pm so we decided to use their lobby. We just relaxed before heading into Munich for food. For bugetary and health reasons we bought 4 boxes of health bars and various tubes of vitamin supplements.

We bailed back to the hostel and began destroying our healthy food. The plan was hit bed at 2 for a few hours then go out and meet some friends in Munich. However sleep got the better of us, 8 hours after check in. We then hit town for a few hours, met up with Russel who had moved hostel to the other side of the original into Wombats. We had some drinks with him and a spainish group. The vibe was good until the spanish lad tried to down a 2 pint tankard, and he did it, but not for long.

We then hit the old town trying to find and Irish pub with the spanish girls, but when that failed it was back to bed for another solid 7 hours. Feeling so rested I am tired at this stage.

Day four-ced out of bed at 5am after barely an hour sleep.

Bastille night was unreal, after the party we got a taxi back to the hostel, things didn’t go to banterously from there. Basically we borrowed one of the other group’s beds and when she got back we got the boot. So at 5am we walked to the train station and began to get things sorted for the day ahead.

We figured it was time to head back to Munich, our bags had been there for 48 of their 72 hours and we kinda needed to go to the copshop and report the missing interrail ticket for insurance reasons. We did that got breakfast and then went back to the hostel, we basically stole their WIFI for a few hours before going to the station again to dish out 400 cash for a new ticket. We then tried to book our train to Munich, however as it was the day after Bastille day, trying to get out of Paris was like trying to get out of Azkabam.

Eventually our cashier suggested we board the banter engine for Strasbourg in 4 hours time. We agreed this would be good crack and paid our €3. Savage. We then tried to kill time, but at this stage we were seriously tired. I actually slept on the steps of Gare L’est for a while it was that bad. Eventually we boarded our TGV to Strasbourg. Sat down at our pre reserved table tickets, opposite some mum and her kid.

We fell into a deep sleep until the conductor woke me up. Lorcan is now in charge of the tickets (for obvious reasons). So I attempted to wake him up, several seconds later he finally came too, but remained unresponsive for some 2 minutes while I kept repeating “Lorcan, tickets”. Eventually he came round but not until the mother and the conductor had enjoyed a good laugh at our expense.

This wife and kid then became a real problem. The kid kept accidentally kicking Lorcan preventing him from good sleep. He played music off his DS and talked loudly. Whenever going in or out he stepped on my legs. He was a real nightmare.

We speedily pulled into Strasbourg and were told it was 3 hours till the next train. We headed into town only to be shocked by the beauty and eloquence of the architecture, The town was quite, and it was after dark, but the main attractions were brilliantly lit up. Including the new EU Parliament building, which was sick. It was there we met too random 30-something ladies who helped us get back to the train station on time by bantering with us in a taxi – which they paid for. They shared their own city experience and it was tbh all too awesome. Lorcan grabbed some quick food and we boarded our 8 hour 3 connection train to Munich. I write this from part of that train.

Day 3some

Going to sleep in Munich and waking up in Paris sounded like a good idea, and it was. However the whole experience was tainted by the losing / stealing of my interrail global pass. Because of this I really should have been booted off the train, was it not for the legendaryness of one man, one man whose name was Burger...

Anyway we cruised in Gare De L'est at 9:30 am and began walking down toward the Luxembourg gardens, a walk of at least 46.2 minutes. We sat in the beauty of sunlight in the magnificent Luxembourg gardens for almost 4 hours, not noticing as UV rays played there damaging game with our skin. Needless to say we are burnt to a crisp.

I met a friend in Paris and we also met another group from our year, we kinda saw Notre Dame, and some other stuff. Before bantering back to the hostel and breaking out the booze. The others wanted to have a few drinks and head out for the Bastille day celebrations, so we just headed out with them.

Paris was jammers. 700,000 people watched the Eiffel Tower light up in a fantastic collage of colourful fireworks. And sadly I wasn't one of them. In fact I was trying to push out of a metro station with the lads. Not cool.

We basically spent the rest of the night sitting in the middle of a roundabout talking to some Italians and French. Good crack. Before heading back to a hostel we weren't booked into... Lol.

Day 2 - Standing room only.

Today we decided to do some real tourism and go to a castle in Bavaria. A tour that started at 8:30 am and took 11 hours. Involved 2 trains, and a bus, both ways. Yesterday was gay day, today was our tour guide was gay and the guy who built the castle was gay, but everyone else was a Jehova witness. Was weird, because a group of them befriended a group on the train and said and I quote "maybe we can send you an email or knock on your door sometime", Lorcan was nearly in tears laughing.

The first train was fine, the second was packed, seriously standing room only for like 2 hours. The temperature was hell on earth. Then we had our bus, then a 40 minute walk up the steep mountain side in brilliant sun. Eventually however we reached Germany's most photographed building, the place to get the best view was a dodge wooden bridge over a gorge on one side, unfortunately this side was covered in scaffolding.

The castle was beautiful, of course when the tour guide said the throne was gold and ivory we couldn't help but asking her did she say it was chryselphantine, to which she responded "no it never arrived". Lol. An American then asked were the windows original she said "yeah, even though Ludwig wanted to make an old style castle he was a modern man so he pimped it" we laughed, and she asked what the real word was, someone said "modernised" to which I said "WITH AN S"

The banter back down the hill was real nice and we got a less crowded train back to Munich. Once in Munich we were famished, decided to get pizza where we did last night. Instead of ordering individual we ordered one 52cm for all of us... SICK. Me and Lorcan sorted a train to Paris for Bastille day tomorrow. Night trains are an experience. Writing this I am chatting to a very good looking American Girl who is also getting that train, says she refuses to sleep in couchettes now, but I am broke so easy for some.

Lorcan tried the local beer, just for the taste, it was an interesting lemon situation, says he loves it. But only as a drink!!

Today was expensive, despite discounts.

25 = tour

20 = train

5 = dinner

7:50 = 2 drinks and a hot dog

2:00 = postcards

So way over budget, but banter.

Day 1

Got up at 4, bantered to the airport, our brand new Port Tunnel was closed of course for construction so got there a bit late. Bantered over to the gate and skipped breakfast, didn't sleep on the plane. It was good crack anyway.

We landed in a field in Memingem, 2 hours train away from Munich. As me and Lorcan are hardcore lads we walked the hour from the airport to the train station. At the time my head was full of ideas about what to say about that particular leg of the journey, but now its kinda gone. We discussed how funny it was that in a months time we would be full of stories, but at that time we were walking down a lonely road in the rain.

We got a bit confused at the train station, the to the point German eventually telling us that as we had interrail passes we didn't need a ticket from him. So we filled it in and got on our way to Munich. Our tickets got checked like 5 times en route so again sleep was impossible.

Munich, the home of Beer, BMW and Bayern Munich, the place where Hitler made his first public apperance, is hosting gay pride weekend... Banter.

Arriving in Munich all the hostels seemed to be booked but eventually we got in somewhere for €25 euro, nice place, wifi and breakfast included. 6 Person room, turns out its two lone guys, and 2 girls who don't speak a word of English. The one lad we have talked to is called Russel and is doing this from the USA.

Eventually we went out to try and find some food and the city centre. The place was hopping, turns out its gay pride week. Eventually we found a pizza place, ordered 50 cm pizzas each, didn't realise they were massive and banted to this gay couple. They thought we were gay, of course. They seemed to want us to hit the parties, we weren't really up for it. Then one said I was a breaking style because I was the only one in Germany wearing tracksuit bottoms (cantos/sweatpants/running trousers).

I am sorry this is weedy, we are about to have a free Bavarian pint with Russel while we plan our day tomorrow. Looks like a trip out to see some sick castle and then train to Paris.

Things I know for sure.

I am leaving in two days, and of course I haven't really planned anything. There are a few things I know for sure because there are a few things I had to book in advance.

I am flying into Munich, halfway through we are getting a night express train from Stockholm to Berlin, and we are flying out of Rome.

Everything else is entirely optional, in fact I don't even know if we are going to stay in Munich the night we arrive, more than likely we will immediately get on a train to Zagreb Croatia.

Something increasingly hard to calculate is the amount we are going to spend each day, the reason this is difficult is because it always adds up to more than you want :P. If you take 15 euro as an average for accomadation and say 20 for food with 10 for intertainment your already at a sick 45 euro. I think I'll just wing it for as long as possible and call my rents when I run out of cash...

Air ticket price breackdown...

Right so this is the price breakdown for my 75 Euro flight from Dublin to Germany.

75 Euro is the total. This seems like a pretty decent deal for air tickets, even though its Ryanair. With that 75 euro I get such comforts as a seat, and a table, and an in flight magazine filled with overpriced Ryanair shit, however not all of that €75 goes to Ryanair.

If the website is to be believed in fact, only €20 goes toward my actual fare, two days earlier this had been €0, but we missed the chance on that one. Ryanair prices fluxuate like an unconvinced suicidal on the top of a skyscraper. We weren't bothered about where we flew to, or when. So we got the best deal going.

Now another €33 goes to Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan, which they can give away to banks as they please (until the next general election). I don't want to press the tax issue for too long, but in fairness why the hell do I have pay my government 33 euro to leave OUR nation? Not only that but I find this particularly unfair as due to Dublin Airports close proximity to the sea only about 2 minutes of my 3 hour flight will take place over Ireland. Incidentally on the return leg I am giving the same amount to Berlusconi, as everyone knows he does all his banking in Switzerland so I imagine he will spend his money putting spinners on his "ho mobile"

€10 goes towards my baggage. I think this is reasonable, I can carry up to 15kg in one bag, what’s silly though is should I go for 16 KG I will get smashed with a simply outrageous 25 euro bill, if its 17kg that will be 40.

Another €10 seems to go toward “online check in”. Right so I am paying a tenor to have the privilege of checking myself onto the plane, excellent. What makes this ever more farcical is I actually don’t have a choice, its online check in only these days, and once I get to the airport I will still have to stand in a fucking queue to check my bag onto the plane...

The remainder of my cash goes towards paying a “visa charge”. Yeah I am getting charged for paying the most convenient way possible, thanks for that Michael O Leary.

Interrailing plan

I first started planning interrailing back in October, since then cities have been put on a list, crossed off and then penciled back in. At the moment we are looking at a combination of Germany, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and the Czech Repulic, in some other order.

The general plan is me and 3 mates hitting as many cities in europe as we can in 31 days. While in those cities we'll do a general mix of sight seeing, general amusement, relaxation and partying. Sleeping is going to be divided between dodge hostels and night trains, with as much done on the move as possible. In order to keep costs down we will eat whoever runs out of money first.

Atm the costs are fairly hefty, the train ticket costs €399, flights are €75 out and €160 home. That's just transport, and that's all we are really pre-paying for, the rest is out of the pocket once there. Keeping that in mind, I think I'll travel with a Maestro debit card, as we will be dealing in,

Danish Kroner

Czech Crown

Swedish toilet paper

Swiss Francs

Croatian Cattle

Euro

There is a debate going on in my mind on whether or not to bring my laptop, I probably will. If I do I will blog the entire experience with pictures and details from each city we visist en route. I might also try and keep track of my costs, if its not too depressing.

As for the rest of the inventory, as much light clothing as possible, jacket (obviously) one pair of shoes that will be grand to walk in, but will still look ok in clubs, camera, phones and enough wiring / adapters for all of them to stay charged.

So if anyone has anywhere they would suggest 4 lads visit in central / eastern europe. Smash it in a comment.

Why the fuck am I blogging, actually why the fuck are you reading.

Meh first post, the ods on this being read are so low.