Andiamo!

Preface Note: You can find out more about where I’m volunteering by going to Blue-World.org. Check out their site, and support them if you can, they are doing good work here.

The end of my first workweek here in Veli Losinj, was on an interesting note. First of all, we had been out on sighting runs everyday this week, which was the first time in quite some time that they have been able to do that thanks to the weather. So I’m a lucky bastard as far as that goes.Second of all, we’ve been able to have two good sightings out of four trips, so we’re batting .500. That’s also a good average all things considered. It’s high tourist season in the area, and that means lots of boat traffic, noise, and other factors that typically force the dolphins to head more offshore for some peace. So Annika, ADP’s head researcher, has been rather pleased with the results this past week, although she did show some signs of crankiness on the days we didn’t see anything.

So to recap the past three days’ activities:

On Thursday, we went out with just three of us, Annika, Niko, and me. Marta, the student intern, had to go do some radio interviews for the center in the morning, so she couldn’t come. We headed out close to 9AM, and though we covered alot of ground, didn’t see any dolphins. Niko did manage to get several good audio samples from the acoustic points of the reserve, so that means that we at least obtained some good audio data. We stayed out til about 2pm, before calling it a day.

The rest of the day, I worked on some database input for the navigation data. That evening, we went to Rovenska for Pete, a British PH.D candidate who’s working with ADP part-time right now, because it was his birthday. The newest volunteer, Udo, a guy from Munich, Germany, who had volunteered with ADP three years earlier, showed up that night for his stint, so we all got to meet him.

Though Pete called it a night about 11-ish, a few of us, including Niko, Marta, Vesna (ADP’s educational director), a local guy named Igor, and Martina, a friend of Vesna’s, managed to hang out a bit later. The weather was nice for a change, so we made the most of it. They were also playing some cool music for a change.

Friday morning, Annika declared that we were going out for a sighting run first thing. Some of us were understandably a bit slow in getting out of bed due to previous night’s activities Comment from: gay Lannon [Visitor]

OK, keep the night life to a minimum if you can. You’re not a kid any more, and the dolphins need you more than the rest of the wildlife does!
Love,
Gay

2005-08-21 @ 19:06

Comment from: Martin Tse [Visitor]

Slow down ‘old man’. You need to rest and have some sushi!

Peace out! Brother!
Martin

2005-08-24 @ 07:17

Preface Note: You can find out more about where I’m volunteering by going to Blue-World.org. Check out their site, and support them if you can, they are doing good work here.

I arrived in Rijeka, Croatia on Sunday via an all night train from Budapest, via Zagreb. The train ride was ok for the most part, spent the first half of it in a cabin full of girls from Barcelona, and then the other half from Zagreb in a cabin with a Hungarian couple on their way to Croatia for a holiday. Nice couple, but the guy talked way too much, and I really wanted to sleep. The only excitement was when I got off the train in Zagreb, under the impression that the train was going to be there for over an hour before leaving, to go get some food. I found a McDonalds that was open, and being it was my only real choice, I got me a “Mc Greek Grill” sandwich, which was actually quite good (don’t look for it in the US McDonalds, they won’t have them). It was essentially a grilled chicken breast in Pita bread with tomato, cucumbers, and greek Tzatziki sauce. Considering I was starving, and I broke my own rule about ever going to a McDonalds, I think I did ok.

Well anyway, I get back to the train station, and my train is not there anymore! I kinda freaked out, being that all my stuff was still on the train. I found a conductor, and he told me that they just moved the cars to a different platform until the train left again in an hour or so. Whew! He pointed me to the train, and I was reunited with my stuff.

The plan was to get to Rijeka, rent a room there and then take a bus to Veli Losinj to start my volunteer stint with the project the next day. When I got off the train in Rijeka, it was still quite early in the morning, so I had to wait for stuff to start opening up before I can look for a room somewhere. I stopped by a cafe that was open across from the train station and killed some time there. Once stuff started opening up around 8AM on a Sunday morning, I started walking around looking for a hotel or tourist office to see if I can find a room. I did find a kiosk and it gave me the locations of a couple of hotels close by where I was. I walked over to both of them, only to find that neither had room. Turned out also that those 2 hotels were two of only three in the whole town. So, that wasn’t good. I went to the tourist office, which was open now, and she said that there was no chance of getting a room anywhere in Rijeka. So, I text messaged Andrea, my contact at ADP in Veli Losinj, and told her the situation. The lady at the tourist office said I had a far better chance of getting a room for one night in Veli Losinj, than I did in Rijeka.

So I hopped the next bus to Veli Losinj. During the bus ride, I got a message back from Andrea, that she secured me a room, and all was good. So relieved, I sat back and enjoyed the spectacular scenery during the bus ride from Rijeka. This bus had to go through some of the most beautiful coastline I’d seen in years. Steep limestone cliffs, turquoise blue waters, blue sky, man, this was going to be cool. The bus also had to board a ferry to cross the narrow strait from the mainland to Cres, the first island in the chain of islands that make up the Losinj Archipelago. The more I was on that bus, the more I hated myself for not being here right now aboard Andiamo. What in the hell was I thinking? Well at least I know now that I’ll definitely be planning on sailing these waters in the near future.

After the spectacular bus ride, I got off in Veli Losinj, the end of the line. It’s not a big place, the town is built at the end of a narrow peninsula that makes the tip of Veli Losinj island. I had to go to the town center to get to the tourist agency that made arrangements for my room. They didn’t reopen until 5pm, so I had a couple of hours to kill. I spent this time enjoying drinks at a terrace bar, walking around a bit, and checking out the waters from the harbor point. When the office reopened, I got my room, albeit after a bit of a wait because they were busy as hell. That’s one thing about this place, it’s loaded with tourists, mostly Italian.

So cut to the chase, I got settled into my room, took a nap, showered, changed and headed out to get some dinner. Most of the restaurants were pretty packed and really expensive, but I found a little joint with a guy who was grilling outside. When I was watching him, he was grilling some beef, and putting it on some flatbread with some nice sauce on the side. It looked good, so I went in and grabbed a table. When the waiter came, he couldn’t speak English, but he could speak italian. So good for me, because it gave me a chance to warm up my italian after a bit of awhile. I told him I wanted what the guy outside was grilling, the beef and flatbread stuff. He said that there was no more beef, only fish. I told him that the fish was ok, thinking he was cooking it the same way. He asked me if I wanted fries on the side, and I said sure.

About 10 minutes later, he comes back with a bowl full of, and I’m not kidding, deep fried whole minnows, extra crispy, with heads and tails on. And a plate full of fries drowning in ketchup. I was initially shocked by the food, because it was not at all what I was ordering, or expecting. The waiter just kinda looked at me, wondering what the expression on my face meant. I just sort of winged it, and said ok. And started munching away on my whole fried minnows. Only thing was that I would not eat the heads. I draw the line on heads. So here I was biting off the bodies, and then tossing the little minnow heads over to the side of my plate. Can’t say they tasted bad, they were quite salty, but I can’t say that they tasted fantastic either.

So after that wonderful first meal in Veli Losinj, I decided to walk around a bit. Though the town was mobbed with tourists, it had its charm. The harbor area was a small intimate little hamlet, with several small fishing boats moored inside the little cul-de-sac, and the bigger boats were tied up on the dock closer to the end of the breakwater. It looked like a wonderful place to come in while cruising these waters. At the harbor point, there’s a walk that goes around a set of cliffs over to the other little harbor that is part of Veli.

Because the town is so condensed on the peninsula, there is walking only within the town limits. All the cars have to be parked outside of the town at a variety of parking lots. Then you have to make your way down some very narrow, and sometimes slippery polished cobblestone streets to get into the town. I had a bit of fun trying to figure out my way back to the center and to my room after walking through the winding narrow streets a bit.

I turned in a bit early that night, and the next morning, I reported for duty at the ADP’s office and education center, which was right in the center of town, and very hard to miss. I met my contact, Andrea, who in turn introduced me to the rest of the staff. It was a small group of researchers, interns, students and at the time, I was the only volunteer. I got to meet everyone pretty quickly, and with the help of Marta, a Croatian student intern working with the project, I got moved into the house. Surprisingly, the house is quite comfortable, with all the amenities. Because the volunteer staff is quite low this period, I was lucky enough to get my own room. So for now, I’m enjoying the luxuries.

The rest of the first day went fairly quietly. Everyone was busy with some outstanding stuff, and the person who usually coordinates everything, Nikolina, one of the full-time Croatian researchers was out of town until later that night. When she got back that night, she immediately started coordinating my activities, and I was reassured that things were going to stay interesting.

The 2nd day, I got a lecture from Nikolina about ADP’s goals, and its current activities. She then showed me what one of my main tasks was going to be during my time here. They need to severely update a database of recent dolphin sighting data, and I was going to be doing as much of it as possible. Basically, I was going to spend at least 2-3 hours a day inputting data from the field logs. Not so fascinating work, no, but I can see why it’s necessary. So, to fill a few hours, I went back to the house, and started inputting the data.

Within an hour of starting my chimpwork, we got a call that Annika, the head researcher, a German marine biologist who is working on her PH.D, decided that the weather and conditions were good enough to take the boat out for a sighting run. Everyone was pretty excited about that, because the weather has been bad the past couple of weeks, and they haven’t been out once. So within a half hour, we were onboard ADP’s large inflatable RIB, and off we went. The weather was awesome, sea conditions were good, but unfortunately, we didn’t spot any dolphins. While it was a tad disappointing, I think everyone felt good about being back out on the boat. For me, it was a good primer as to how the research procedures worked. Nikolina, took some underwater acoustic recordings to get a good sample of ambient noise underwater. They make these random samplings so they can get a good idea of what kind of noise conditions they find dolphins under, so they can better understand how noise affects where they actually go.

For example, in their research, they have found that the dolphins are spotted further and further away from where boat noise is prevalent. Since dolphins like staying close to the coast and continental shelf, this puts them at a disadvantage because most times the sounds they are trying to get away dissipate enough only when they reach really deep water. Only problem is that their food supply, the fish they eat for the most part, stick to the continental shelf too. So ADP is gathering more and more data to figure out how these moves by the dolphins they research ultimately affects their ability to reach their food supply. Since we didn’t spot any dolphins today, there would be no data as to where the dolphins were. But it was fascinating to see what they do nonetheless.

That evening, after dinner, we all walked down to a beachfront bar called Rovenska for a few cold ones. It was a bit cold and windy, but we stuck it out enough to enjoy the scenery. This place should be really quite fun when the weather is good. I’m sure I’ll find out. Hey, it’s the “pub crawler” in me.

Today, my third official day on the project, I got a lecture from Marta, the student intern, who gave me more information about ADP’s activities, the organization’s history, and introduced me to some of their better known dolphins in the region. ADP has identified and catalogued about 120+ dolphins who they consider residents of the Losinj Marine reserve. These are the dolphins that they focus their research on. This population has been tracked constantly since 1987, making it the longest running bottlenose dolphin research project in the Mediterranean Sea. They identify the dolphins by markings, scratches and nicks on their dorsal fins. These markings are caused by social interaction, playing and fighting, and are unique to each dolphin.

After the lecture, I proceeded to work on my database stuff for a couple of hours. I knew I was scheduled to work in the education center, which is a place that allows tourists to go in and get information about dolphins, watch multimedia about dolphins and find about how to support the project. My job was essentially to show people around and give them information about the volunteer programs and how they can get involved. Oh, and I had to make sure that they paid the admission, because unfortunately, most of the tourists try to get in without paying the measly 1.50 Euros that we charge adults, and the 1 Euro we charge for kids over 6.

So a couple of hours into the day, I’m working on the database updates, and we get the call. We’re going out on the boat again in 30 minutes. The weather was iffy, but seas were calm, so Annika wanted to try again. So in a half hour, we were off. This time, it didn’t take long for us to spot a large group of dolphins, about 17 of them, that were playing not far off the coast.

When we first spotted them, more than a kilometer or so away, they were playing and jumping their hearts out. It was pretty cool seeing that from such a distance. By the time we got to their area, they subdued their behavior a bit, but they hung around. We were able to watch them swim, play, frolic and in a few cases, breach and flip out of the water. It was especially cool to watch the juvenile dolphins swimand jump in sync with their mothers. On our way back to the harbor, Nikolina spotted another group swimming dead ahead of us, again more than a kilometer or so away. But by the time we got to where they were, they simply disappeared. Oh well, so far, I’m 1 for 2, and ok.

My first evening shift at the education center was quiet. There really wasn’t any traffic on account of the weather being windy and bad. So I cut out early, and got back to the house in time for dinner.

The weather should be good tomorrow, so we’ll see what happens.

The train ride from Prague to Budapest was an overnight one, so I actually was able to get some sleep for a change. I had a cabin all to myself (thank you, first class eurailpass!), so I was able to sleep without any interruptions except for the border crossing time, which involved an inordinate number of people who needed to look at my passport and train pass.

The only excitement we had was when a gang of thugs got onboard the train during one of its smaller stops, and went through the train stealing whatever they were able to grab. Several people in my car were robbed. One of the guys ripped open my cabin door, and I was half asleep, he looked at the shelves and saw only my large bag up there. My smaller bag was tucked underneath the seats, which I had all folded out so I can sleep. He didn’t see anything else worth taking, so he ran off, and his thug buddies ran on behind him.

They proceeded to hit the subsequent cars as well. Before we left the stop, a chinese girl came over and asked me if I had seen the guys. I told them yes. She then said that they took her suitcase, and reached into her purse while she was asleep. I told her she should tell the conductor so at the very least they can call the police and search the train. She panicked and ran off, and I did notice lots of police milling around the train, but I think they were too late, and the thugs were gone. It was freaky, and lots of people got robbed, but luckily I wasn’t one of them. I felt really bad for the chinese girl, because she really had no idea what she was going to do next. I didn’t see her again, but I don’t think she got her stuff back.

Other than that, we made it to Budapest without any further attempted train robberies. But that didn’t mean I was in the clear just yet.

I hadn’t yet booked a place to stay in Budapest, considering I had just made the choice to go there not even a day before (It was a toss up between there and Ljubljana). So the first thing I wanted to do was book a place and go straight there so I can get situated. I was only going to be in Budapest about 3 days, so I wanted to make them count.

Once I got off the train, I saw a tourist info place that had internet. I figured I’d check online first to see if there was anything available last minute. I had checked online in Prague before leaving, but didn’t have much luck in finding anything good and cheap. So I got on the terminal to see what I would find. There were only two terminals in this place, and both were taken.

I noticed some people were standing behind us, presumably waiting for one of us to leave. I noticed this one guy standing about 6-8 feet behind me, but everytime I looked to one side, I noticed he was a bit closer each time. My two bags were both on the floor by my chair, and all I needed to do was look down and to my left to see them. Anyway, while I was surfing online, I noticed the guy behind me was now crouched down on the floor, looking for something in his backpack. I didn’t think too much about it, though I did notice that he was alot closer to me than he was before.

Right about the time I was going to look down at my bags again, the girl sitting next to me yelled out to me that the guy behind me was holding my bag. I turned around, and he dropped my backpack and started walking out of the room. I said to the girl to keep an eye on my bag, jumped out of my chair and ran after him. He was just stepping out the front door of the place when I yelled at him “Hey, stop right there!”.

I was fully expecting for him to run, but he didn’t. He took a few more steps, looked each way to see which way he should go if he did run, and then turned around to me. By this time, I was right up to him, and I asked him “Did you just try to rob me?”, hanging on to his arm so he wouldn’t run. He was quite nervous and he offered up a wallet, and kept saying “no problem, no problem” over and over again. I looked at the wallet, and assuming it was someone else’s wallet that he had stolen, I asked around to the now rather growing crowd if this was anyone’s wallet. He started to kinda walk back away from me, and I grabbed the lapel of his jacket and told him he wasn’t going anywhere, and to stay still.

He kept pointing at the wallet, saying “no problem, ok, no problem”, which was confusing as hell, because when I looked in the wallet, I saw it was his ID in it. He was trying to give me his own wallet. At this point, I asked him if he thought I was stupid, which I’m not sure he understood. Then I told him he was going to jail. I asked the girl at the counter to call the police, which she was already doing. The guy starting talking to me, acting mad and inconvenienced, but in his own language so I couldn’t really understand him. He then asked for the wallet back, which I told him I would give to the police when they arrived. At that point, he got very agitated, and took a swipe at my arm. I was just about to grab him with my other hand and pin him down to the floor, when one of the guys who worked at the tourist office walked up, grabbed him and pushed him about 5 steps back right into a wooden chair. The guy fell over the chair onto the floor. The guy who pushed him down told him in hungarian to sit down and shut up until the police arrived.

The police showed up in about 10 minutes or so, inexplicably long considering that they have a precinct right in the train station. That’s when the real fun began. None of the police can speak english, so one of the guys at the office translated my version of the story to them. The girl who had witnessed the whole thing was standing outside the office with her friend. I was originally under the assumption that she had left, but she was still there, so I walked up to her and asked her to tell the cops what she saw, as I was sure that they were going to want a witness. She obliged, and talked to the police. They then asked me if I wanted to make a report, and I said “Hell, yeah”. I figured at the very least, the cops were going to have a record of him, and this was going to keep this guy from victimizing some other traveler for the foreseeable future. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him walk scott free, especially since I didn’t get a chance to kick his ass (hey what, I have a macho, “street-fighting man” side, ok, stop laughing… no really, stop it…).

So the police asked us to walk over to their office on the other side of the station, they said the whole thing would take about 30 minutes. The girl who witnessed the whole thing, an Austrian girl named Chiara, was understandably apprehensive, but agreed. I gave her my appreciation and told her that we were doing his next potential victim a real favor.

We got to the station and gave them our details again. They appeared to be taking notes and working rather haphazardly through the whole thing. The guy who they said was their “translator” (it was our first question before we left to go to their office, if they had anyone who spoke english) had about a pre-school level of english comprehension. It was pretty pathetic. The cops were now getting kinda frustrated, and said that we all had to go to main station house to finish up the report. I told them I would go, but that they should get whatever info they need from the witness now because it was not fair for her to be held up any longer. They had me go with them in the same car as the thief, which happened to be one of the cops’ own personal VW Golf. It was kind of strange.

Ok, so we get to the station, and I’m asked to wait in this very dank and uncomfortable waiting room. There was really no one there who can speak english, so they just sort of nudged me into this room and said “wait here”. It was about 11:30 at that time. So there I waited, and waited. About an hour rolls by, and I realized that I was a) thirsty, b) really hungry (I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner in Prague the previous night) and c) growing tired, probably because I had not eaten. So I looked for a water fountain or coke machine, or something where I can at least get a drink. Nothing, nada. I then asked the cop attending the desk by the door, if there was a place I can get a drink. He just looked at me and shrugged that he didn’t understand. I then mimicked me drinking something, asking if there was water anywhere, and he just shrugged, I think conveniently this time. So now I was growing rather frustrated.

Another hour went by, and I started becoming really restless. I didn’t understand why this was taking so long. Nobody said one thing to me since the cop told me to wait in that damn room. It was now lunch time at the station house, and all these cops were rolling in with bags from Mc Donalds, and Subway, and other fast food joints (I know, in Hungary, strange huh?). And here I am starving to death. It was getting to be a little too much for me, and I was just going to walk out the door if someone didn’t say something to me right now. At this point, all I wanted was some food, water and sleep. I was back at the front desk again asking the cop if there was any water, please. Right about that time, one of the detectives from the train station walked in and saw me, and just waved his hand saying “ok, ok,”. As if he thought I knew what he meant. This was starting to get really bizarre.

So more than 2 hours later now, while I was waiting in the room, I noticed a poster on the wall, talking about a tourist victims advocacy group called “The White Ring”. In english, the poster discusses how they are available anytime to assist victims of crimes, particularly foreign tourists. So I walked up to the officer at the desk with the poster in my hand, and started demanding that he call this agency immediately for me. Right when I started talking, this lady walked in, and said “Oh, you must be the american who stopped that thief at the train station”.

I thanked god for her being there, just because she can speak english. She explained that she was a translator for the police victims’ unit, and she was going to help me make a report. I told her I was a bit frustrated as I had been waiting in that very dank waiting room for 2+ hours. She said that they had only called her about 5 minutes ago to come in, as if that was supposed to make me feel better about waiting for so long. It didn’t.

So they walked me up to an office, where she and her associate were typing into a computer. She asked me to start from the beginning and tell her what happened. I did that, it took me about 10 minutes to go through the whole thing. They then started asking me questions about the accuracy of my story, as if I was lying or exaggerating about some parts, I don’t know. I did notice that they were both drinking a nice cold soda, and I had mentioned repeatedly that I was hungry and thirsty but neither offered me anything. I finally asked the lady for a glass of water, and she just looked at me as if she didn’t hear me. It was pretty unbelievable.

So finally, when they thought that they had my story ok, they printed out an official affidavit in Hungarian, which the lady was supposed to read to me. She started reading off everything, and only every other line there was a significant error. So then they had to correct all the errors, and print out a new copy.

Finally they were done, and I signed everything. They thanked me for my patience, and said I was free to go. I told them that I was told by the police back at the train station that someone would bring me back after I was done. They kind of looked at each other, as if they didn’t know what to do, and then the guy picked up a phone. He muttered something into the phone, hung up, and said that if I can wait a few minutes, one of the officers would bring me back to the station once the “car” was back. I asked them what they meant by “the car”, and the lady explained that the whole precinct only had one car assigned to it. That explained why the cops had to bring me and the thief guy back to the station house in his own personal car I guess. This was all pretty strange stuff.

So they walked me downstairs and said goodbye, the lady said I was lucky because 99% of the time that this happens in Budapest, the criminal gets away clean, so I should feel good about that. Oh joy, I thought.

I stood there about another 20 minutes, when two officers walked out and told me to get in to their car, parked right in front of me. I got in, they took me to the station, and gratefully, that whole episode was over.

So back at the train station, I went to the same tourist info office, and told them that I just wanted a room, and make it reasonable. The best she can do was one for 60 Euros. I said “deal”, and she told me where to go to get the shuttle bus that would take me there for no charge. In 30 minutes, I was in my room close to Blaha Lusja Square, and I walked over to BK, got a Chicken Whopper, ate it in 20 seconds, walked back to the room, and slept for 6 hours. My time in Budapest was off to a roaring start.

When I finally woke up, it was past 9:00 PM, I got dressed, and tried to figure out where I wanted to go, or if I wanted to go anywhere at all. I found an internet cafe, where I was able to get caught up on some online stuff. Then I walked around, but there really wasn’t that much to see. It was a Tuesday, so I guess things were a bit on the quiet side. I did find a metro bus that headed to a place called Deak Square, which was supposed to be a good little hub, close to the Danube, and lots of nice places around it. I hopped the bus, and went over there. There were some people roving around, but there still wasn’t much going on. I was afraid that I was not going to enjoy Budapest at all, considering that things had such an exhaustingly rocky start. About 11:30 or so, I decided to call it a night, and start fresh tomorrow. So back to the room I went. I watched CNN for a couple of hours and dozed off.

The next day, the weather was perfect. Warm and sunny, could not ask for a better day. I slept in so I missed my comp breakfast, which is nothing new these days to me. I hopped the bus back to Deak Square and walked around a bit and took some pics. I came up with the idea to rent a bike and do a nice ride around town and along the river. So I found a bike rental place, and in matter of minutes, I was mobile. I asked the rental guy to point me to the river from there, and that was all she wrote. I got out to the Danube River, and alas, it was like the curtains raising. There was this absolutely wonderful view of the river, the several historic bridges like the Chain Bridge, the Liberty Bridge, and the Erszebet (or Elizabeth) that connect Buda to Pest and vice versa laid out in front of me. See, Budapest is actually two cities on each side of the Danube, but everyone just calls the whole place “Budapest”.

So along the river I rode, with my MP3 player jamming, and the sun and wind in my face. I crossed pretty much every bridge, to get a look at the scenery that is unique from each one. I rode up to where Statue Park is, which is a park on a large bluff overlooking the Danube River, there is a statue of St. Gellert, presumably the patron saint of Budapest. The view is pretty awesome. But I couldn’t get any pictures, because my batteries died while I was up there.

I rode up the Buda side, up to where the Sziget festival was just going into full swing. This is an annual world concert festival that runs for a week. It’s surely one of the biggest festivals in Europe. I didn’t even HEAR about it until some hungarian girls on the train from Prague asked me if I was going. There were some bands that I wouldn’t have minded seeing, but none enough to want to pay $25 a day to see. So no Sziget for me. But I did ride by where it was happening, and let me just say that there was a shitload of people going to it.

The bike ride lasted several hours, I had probably done a good 30 miles of riding. It was a great ride, and now I had a really clear idea of how the city was laid out. I got to see the parliament building, St. Matthias church, and Castle Hill, which is a tall hill that is capped by a 14th century castle. By the time I was done riding I was a bit tired, but had a sensational day.

Back at the bike rental place, I saw that they did a “Pub Crawl” tour, and there was one that night. Now, I’m not one to do organized tours, only never ever. But a pub crawl tour sounded interesting to me because I was only in town for a couple more nights, and I really wanted to see what Budapest’s nightlife was like without all the trial and error time. The tour met at Deak Square at 8pm, and I was going to be there.

I showed up at the church steps where the tour started, and alas it was going to be a small group. The guide, a guy named Chris, who was originally from Kentucky, but had been living in Budapest for several years seemed like the right kind of guy for this tour. The rest of the group consisted of two nurses from Singapore, Sheila and Berina, who now live in London. So the four of us headed out on the tour. Chris actually seemed a bit happy that the tour group was just us, because he said we can cover a lot more places in less time with such a small group. The cost was about 20 bucks, and it included a free beer or free shot of a local favorite liquor at most of the places we were going to hit. The first place we went, gave us free beer for the first hour. It was an authentic hungarian pub owned by a former champion olympic rower. It was a nice first spot. It was fairly quiet, and gave us all a chance to get acquainted.

After a good hour there, we went to the next place, which was more of an “abandoned building” club. In a trend across Europe that actually started in Budapest, according to Chris, some very cool clubs are opening in long-abandoned buildings throughout the city. The buzz is created strictly by word of mouth and the net. There is nary a sign or anything else giving its presence from the street. We hit 2 or 3 places like this and they were all very very cool. We hit a couple of clubs that were supposed to be good, but no crowd, so we just moved on. We then went to the campus of University of Budapest, where supposedly one of the best clubs in town resides. It’s in an open courtyard nestled by dorm buildings. The beer was cheap, and there was food, which was good, because we were all getting pretty hungry.

This kind of thing went on until we ended up a large outdoor summer club, called “Jardon” I think. This place overlooked the Danube on the Buda side, and was huge. It was only open during the summer, but it looked like it did pretty well. After we were there for more than an hour, doing lots of dancing (Sheila and Berina are insane dancers, btw). The Singapore girls decided that they were going to call it a night. Chris still had some life in him, as did I. So I told him I can carry on if he can. Though the pub crawl was officially over, Chris said he knew a few places we can hit before the sun came up.

We tried to go to another outdoor club called Cafe Rio, which was right on the other side of the bridge from Jardon. But they wouldn’t let us in because Chris had a backpack. That was ridiculous. So we grabbed a cab, and headed over to an after-hours bar called “Piaf”, named after Edith Piaf of course. It was a funky looking lounge, very dark, and red upstairs. Downstairs, it was basically a cellar with arched ceilings. There was a DJ playing some cool lounge, and a small but mixed crowd. Chris explained that this place served as a “last resort” pick up spot for some people, a cooling off place for some of the local working girls who get together here and tell their best and worst “john” stories for the night, and it’s also a place for people who just aren’t ready to go home yet. He said it’s different every night, but always interesting. We had a couple of beers there and Chris talked to some people he knew. It was definitely a colorful bunch.

When 6 AM rolled around, they threw us out into the daylight. We were both pretty hungry, so we walked around to find a place that was open, to no avail. We kept walking, and before long, I really needed to go to the bathroom. Things started getting pretty urgent when Chris remembered a place we can go. It was a non-stop gambling and sports bar, so he knew it would be open. I beelined right to the mens room when we got there. When I came out, relieved and feeling good, Chris handed me a beer. I told him I didn’t think I can drink it all, considering it was now, oh, breakfast time! He told me no problem, drink what I want. I had a few good sips and that was about all for me, really.

We ventured back out, and were walking a few blocks towards the square where my hotel is. When we got out into this one street, I realized that I knew where I was now, and my hotel was only a couple of blocks down that street. I bid goodbye to Chris and ventured back to the hotel, where it was now BREAKFAST TIME! So for once, I made it for breakfast. Nevermind that I didn’t get any sleep leading up to it. I loaded up my plate with goodies, with a smile. I just kept telling myself how good life was as I munched away on my cocoa krispies, and ham and cheese on toast. Ahhhh….

I got up to the room, and within minutes, I was out like a light. I didn’t wake up until after 1 pm. I sent the Singapore girls a text message when I got back to the hotel, and got a text message back from Sheila and Berina about the time I woke up asking if I had any plans for dinner. I told them I’d meet them at Deak Square at 8, so we got that plan going. I now had to see about getting some laundry done, because the situation was getting urgent, and I didn’t want to go down to my next stop in Croatia with a bag full of dirty laundry. My hotel didn’t have a laundry, but their sister hotel down the street did. So I went there and spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry. Only problem was that there was only one washer and dryer, and the washer was oh-so-slow. I didn’t actually get done with the laundry until almost 8, so I had to message Berina that I’d be a little late. They were nice enough to wait and we met up about 40 minutes later.

They knew a good hungarian restaurant that they wanted to go back to, and I was game. So we took a cab to the Buda side. Because they didn’t know exactly where the restaurant was, they struggled a bit with landmarks. Then I suggested that they just ask someone if they knew where the restaurant was. But they said that was impossible because they didn’t remember the name of the restaurant either. So needless to say, it was a miracle that we found the place at all.

The food was great. And though they warned that the service was really slow last time, this time they were right on the money. We all had a great dinner including some good local goulash. I had fried catfish with potatoes, which is apparently a big local delicacy in Hungary. We were the last people out of the restaurant before they shut their doors.

We then decided that we wanted to do a little pub crawl of our own. So we walked back to the Pest side, crossing the Chain Bridge, which was all lit up beautifully. We got some good pics from the bridge with Budapest in lights behind us (don’t worry, I’ll get caught up on pics shortly). We hit a couple of places on the river, enjoyed some cocktails until they’d close up and make us move on. It was past midnight now, and we were finding ourselves hard pressed to find a place that was open. We kinda walked around blind for awhile, until I vaguely heard some music coming from one of the back streets off of Deak Square. We walked along a dark barren street for a few blocks, but I thought that something was up, because there were a lot of cars parked along it. We turned a corner, and voila, lo and behold, we found an Irish Pub called Morrison’s.

It was packed, and they seemed to be playing good music. So we found a home for the rest of the night. We stayed there, and enjoyed cheap draft Amstel for a good couple of hours, and danced like fools. Sheila was in particular pretty hyper on the dance floor. By the time closing time came around, I suggested we grab a cab and head back to the “Piaf” bar that I was at with Chris the night (or morning) before. The girls were up for it, so we hailed a cab, and were there in a matter of minutes. This time, we were charged a cover, and there were more people, but we didn’t care. The DJ was playing much more upbeat stuff, which kept Sheila dancing pretty much the whole time, so they were happy. We stayed there until about 6 AM before heading home. The girls wanted to see if they could make a big market thing that happened in the morning before they were going to leave for London that day. So we said our goodbyes, but I did promise them that we would see each other again when I was in London on my way back to the states, so that’s cool.

I again made it back to my hotel by about 7 AM, just in time for breakfast again. Two days in a row, yeah baby! I savored breakfast, but this time, I was a bit bummed, because today was check out day, and I needed to be out of the room by 11 AM, so no long sleep session for Tony this time. After begging for a late checkout only to be shot down, I decided that I could make it with a couple hours’ sleep, pack, and then head to the train station to catch the 3:30 train to Rijeka. It was going to be an all-night train ride via Zagreb, so I would have plenty of time to sleep on the train.

After I checked out, I went to the train station, only to find out that that train was not running that day for a reason that they didn’t know. So now I had no train and was homeless. I called the hotel, and they said that they had no more rooms now. So I went online and found a hotel room at an Ibis hotel, which seemed reasonable for the money. Only problem was that it was at the west end of the city. But I got good directions and which metro to use, so it wasn’t a problem at all. I checked in without a hitch, and once I got to the room, I found myself wishing I had just stayed at this Ibis all along. This was an extremely clean and well-run hotel with all the amenities, and it was the same price for the room I had by Blaha square. It was an excellent deal. Oh well, at least I got to enjoy it for one night.

I ventured out around the west end a bit, just because I hadn’t been there at all since I’d been in Budapest. There was a lot to do, cafes, pubs, and clubs everywhere. But I was still pretty drained from the night before, and still hadn’t gotten any real sleep, so I was forced to make an early night of it. After my usual Chicken Gyro dinner, I headed back. I was in bed by 1:00 AM or something.

The next day, I was refreshed, relaxed and ready to go. There was a big mall by the train station so I figured I’d go there and pick up some food, water and snacks for the long train ride. My MP3 headphones, which I bought new in Belgium just a few weeks ago, were tripping out on me, so I got me a new pair of those too. So I covered all the essentials. I got to the train station with plenty of time to spare, and within an hour I was on my way to Croatia.

When I get to Croatia, I will have to find my way to an island called Veli Losinj on the Adriatic coast. There, I will be volunteering for the next 2 weeks with a group called the Adriatic Dolphin Project. This project researches the population, migration and preservation of the Adriatic’s unique bottlenose dolphins. It seemed like fascinating stuff when I read about it online back in Amsterdam, so I signed up on the spot. So we’ll see just how interesting it turns out to be.

Stay tuned…

Comment from: Martin Tse [Visitor]

Must be nice to live like your back in High School and ‘Partying’ all the time. Like the “Good ole” days!

2005-08-15 @ 15:47

I had all kinds of expectations about Prague before ever setting foot there. Hearing about it from people who’ve been there, seeing it as the setting in various movies, reading about it in books and magazines, has caused me to conjure up my own strange image of this very eclectic city. The neat thing about it was that I was pretty dead on about some things, and way completely off about others.

The things I were pretty dead on about:

1. Absolutely incredible looking women roaming about everywhere. We’re not talking uppity supermodel attitude types. These were mostly just regular girls working at the local pizzeria or shop. I thought I was going to go blind.

2. The stunning views, architecture, and old city beauty. Something that even when captured on film, does not do it complete justice. The way Prague lights up its city at night is really something to drop your jaw at.

3. The friendliness and sincerity of the Czech people.

4. How Czech beer tastes better when you are actually there.

5. Did I mention the absolutely incredible looking women that were everywhere?

The things I were dead wrong about:

1. Czech cuisine, (it’s just ok).

2. There are armies of pickpockets out to rob you on every tram (there aren’t).

3. The city is clean and well maintained, (not always, but sometimes that adds to its charm).

4. It’s not a good idea to eat Czech hot dogs off of one of the street vendors (It’s not a problem).

I arrived on a Monday night from Hamburg. It was fairly late when I got off the train. I had booked a room online before I got there, but had no idea where in town it was, so it was going to be fun asking directions. The first “tourist information” guy I asked at the station said he would tell me but only if I bought a map from him for 250 koruna (about $10). I politely told him to stuff it and walked on. I did find a REAL info guy and he gave me directions and which metro and tram line to take to get there, no map purchase required.

The main train station was nothing to write home about. Not the best looking train station I’d been in. It was dank, old, and in need of a major facelift, as many other buildings in Prague were I would later find. Being summertime, there was a huge influx of backpackers and tourists coming off the trains. I wasn’t surprised by this at all. It was common knowledge that Prague had become quite “touristy” in recent years.

The thing I did realize when I got there was that I didn’t think I was going to play the tourist role. Yeah sure, I wanted to check out the Charles Bridge (An incredibly ornate bridge that was built in the 13th century and is still used), and Prague castle, but as far as other attractions and tourist sites, I didn’t find myself jonesing for any other points of interest. To me, Prague was a living, breathing creature and in a lot of ways just needed to be taken in as a sum of its parts, at least that’s the way I saw it. So I was going to be a wanderer of the city, an observer, a “lurker”…

After checking into my hotel late, I wandered around where the hotel was just to get a feel for the area. I was supposedly close to the center, but I didn’t have a feel for the city’s layout quite yet. Even with the help of a map (that was free, btw).

I ended up hopping a cab and heading to Wenceslas Square (which is called “Vaclavske Nemesti” in Czech), which was supposedly the major city center. I figured that this would be as good a place as any to start venturing through the city.

Like I said, it was late, past 11 pm on a monday night. Not much was going on, there were a few bars and clubs open, but there didn’t seem to be anybody there. There were all the barkers on the street, trying to get you into their “nightclubs” (read: strip clubs and in some cases, glorified legal brothels). Needless to say, it was a colorful crowd. There were the occasional group of drunk teenage guys staggering their way through the square to catch the tram home or wherever they were going next.

I was walking pretty blindly through the side streets going off the square, just wondering what were in the blocks behind. Most of the time, everything was shuttered. Occasionally, there was a street that had a popular “nightclub” that was all lit up, usually the only thing on the street lit up. Plenty of street girls lined the streets on these surrounding blocks as well as the square. But to my relief they weren’t uber-aggressive like the infamous Hamburg “gauntlet girls”.

I stopped by a couple of pubs and bars in the surrounding streets, mainly to get a taste of one of my fave beers on earth, Pilsner Urquell. This is the original Pilsener beer, coming from a Czech town called “Pilzen”. All other Pilsener beers simply imitate Urquell’s own special brewing process. It was nice to have it in its native land for a change. At one of the pubs I visited, I met a bartender named Tom. He was from a city called Ostrava, and had been living in Prague for about 3 years. He told me alot about the city, where to go, where not to go. It was a relatively slow night, so we had plenty of time to chat about lots of stuff.

So at the very least, I knew I’d found my de-facto watering hole for my time in Prague, I had made a new friend at the bar, and there was an endless flow of Pilsener Urquell, and Budweiser Budvar (the ORIGINAL Budweiser, only about 700 years older than the American Bud, and a LOT better, trust me). Which by the 2nd night I stopped by, Tom was giving me for free. I love that guy.

Tom even invited me to head out to Ostrava with him on Friday for a weekend road trip. He said that the town goes nuts on weekends during the summer and the scene is absolutely unmatched, even in Prague. I was sold on the idea, and signed on. I was supposed to get a train on Friday to Ostrava and meet up with him, as he would have already been there because he was taking an early morning train. So we had a plan, and it was a good one, because it was going to give me an opportunity to see more of the country than just Prague.

The hotel room I had left some things to be desired. Sure it was cheap, only about 35 Euros a night (about 40 bucks), had hot water, and a TV with no working channels. But there was a problem. The floor of the room appeared to be a bunch of loose sheets of plywood with carpet draped over them for covering. The floor moved, creaked and sagged with every step I took in the room. It was disturbing and I doubted it was very safe. I asked them for another room the first morning, but they said that they were now booked, and I was stuck with that room. Since I’d prepaid the room, they were exactly right. So I made the best of it, and walked along the walls and on the furniture as much as possible.

After my third night, I requested a different room, only to find out that they didn’t have any rooms at all for me. So I was out on the street. I managed to find another hotel that was a bit more, but MUCH MUCH nicer, and a little more central in location. And no creaky loose plywood floors, to my elation. So all in all, things worked out.

Over the next couple of days, I slowly ventured around Prague. Starting again from Wenceslas Square, only because of familiarity and ease of access, I worked my way outward. On my first try, I found the Old Town center. This is where the REAL Prague is.

It’s a grand, old traditional cobblestone square, surrounded by some of the most amazing architecture you’ll ever see. On some of the smaller side streets, deep in the Old Town, you can actually get a feel for what life was like hundreds of years ago on these streets. On the east end of the square, there is an old medieval church that has a working astronomical clock. It tracks time by instead using a star map than an analog clock face. Pretty cool, though very cryptic.

On the hour, its bells sound, and a little “performance” ensues, when two little doors above the clock open and these different figurines row by. Each sticking his or her head out during a little musical number. Crowds of tourists and locals alike gather at the clock before the hour strikes to witness the event. Which oddly, doesn’t always happen, sometimes you just get the bells, but no show. Not sure why that is.

On Thursday night, I ventured into some of the larger discos and dance clubs to get a feel for what kind of music is really popular in Czech. I went into one place that seemed especially attractive because it was on the roof of one the large bulidings that bordered Wenceslas Square. I went up to the top, paid the somewhat ridiculous cover, and took a walk around, and checked out the awesome view of the city from its terrace. I was definitely one of the older people there, but no biggie.

This club, called Duplex, had several levels to it, with the dance floor being split level connected with catwalks and other stairs all around. It seemed to be an interesting layout. But then it occurred to me that the music was brain-bleedingly loud, and it was really starting to hurt, maybe I am too old for these places. Well, anyway, I headed straight for the elevator, because now it felt like a serious migraine was kicking in. I made it out of the club, and just kept walking until I couldn’t hear that horrendous skull-shaking throbbing beat anymore. It was too late, I had a full blown migraine, and it was almost debilitating. It was actually the first time in a long while, more than a year or so, that I got hit with such brutal migraine episode. I barely made it to my tram stop, and when I got there, I found my tram wouldn’t get there for another 20 minutes or so. Those were the longest 20 minutes in my recent memory.

The tram finally showed up, and I jumped on, just hoping it would go into warp drive and get me to my stop in nanoseconds. It wasn’t to be. I did get there in a reasonable time however, made it to my hotel, staggered up the stairs, made it into the room, and became violently ill. After a horrendous porcelain god-worshipping session, I crashed.

I woke up feeling ok, but pretty hungover. Bad migraines will do that to you. I managed to get out of bed and start functioning normally. I then realized that I was supposed to meet Tom in Ostrava, and I was supposed to catch a 4 pm train. I unfortunately needed to back out of that, because the last thing I wanted to do was get sick again on the 4 hour train ride, or in Ostrava. So I sent Tom a text message with the bad news. He was quite nice about it, and told me that he’d see me Monday.

The rest of the day, I took it easy, ate light and just let myself recuperate. By evening time, I felt good enough to at least head into Old Town to see what was going on. I walked by a nice looking bar called Tretter’s that seemed to have a nice crowd. I went in and had a beer at the bar. That’s when I met Lucie and Teresa, two local Prague dwellers at their usual Friday after-work bar. Lucie works for a large British law firm in Prague, and Teresa works at one of the better hotels in the city. After some chatting, they invited me to come along with them to another bar, which was bigger and had dancing. It was just down the block, so I said why not. We ended up hanging out there until at least 3 AM. Good fun, no doubt.

Lucie had the next day off, so she offered to show me Prague Castle and the surrounding part of Prague called Zone 1. Couldn’t possibly turn down an offer to be shown around by a local, especially someone as cool as Lucie, so I was all for it, especially since I was planning on hitting the castle that day anyway.

After the tram ride to the castle, there was a little bit of a walk up the hill to it. which gradually unveiled a nice wide view of the rest of the city. The castle itself is actually a very large walled-in “mini city”, that has for its center a huge 13th century gothic cathedral. There is a small district of shops and old tiny houses called the “Golden Lane”. These were the houses where the common people and laborers who worked in the palace, and for the royals used to live in the old days. Franz Kafka lived here for a time while he wrote some of his classics. We actually saw his old house, which is now a bookstore, selling Kafka of course.

From there, we walked on past an area called “Little Venice” because of its Venice style canals, that served as access to many of the houses and pensions that line them. Absolutely stunning. Then of course, there was the Charles Bridge, which was quite interesting to see, no less walk on. Spanning the Vltava River, here’s a bridge that is something like 8 centuries old, built in the 1300’s, and still used every day by pedestrians. There is a huge gate tower on each end of the bridge that once served as guard gates for the Prague Castle and its surrounding regal city. Back then this bridge was pretty much the only way to it. You can climb the towers, but we didn’t. All of it very ornate and stunning. There are dozens of wonderful statues of Czech Royals, knights, and other dignitaries. One in particular, if you touch the woman’s body on its pedestal plate, guarantees your return to Prague according to legend. And yes, I touched it, legend or no legend.

Lucie and I enjoyed some beers at several of the pubs in the area. Boy, those czechs sure can take down some beer. I was having trouble keeping up. Then we had a nice Czech dinner at one of her fave restaurants. I got to enjoy roast duck, with sweet cabbage and dumplings. It was wonderful, though I think I’d get bored eating that every day.

That night included another pub crawl back in Old Town. Teresa couldn’t join us because she was working late, so we proceeded to pub in her honor.

The next day, I slept in, and tried to get caught up on some online stuff, and writing. I did manage to get a lot done, especially considering I had been putting off alot of stuff the whole time I was in Prague.

Lucie and I got together again for a nice dinner on the evening I was leaving Prague. We went to a nice Italian place in Old Town, that was quite reasonable for the food we got. After that, she wanted to show me Prague’s oldest pub, called U Fleku, which has been in business consistently since 1499! Yes, you read that right. This place is over FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OLD and still packed every night.

We had a round of beers that they brewed right at the pub. It was a darker beer, but smooth and light to the taste. I enjoyed it immensely and would have had more if I didn’t have a train to catch. There was a roving accordion guy playing some of the favorite Czech folk tunes, and the place was quite festive. I can’t believe I didn’t see this place sooner! I still had my bag at the hotel, and I still wanted to swing by Tom’s bar to say goodbye to him before heading on to the train station. So after dinner and the impromptu visit to U Fleku, I bid goodbye and gave my thanks to Lucie, who really made my visit far more fascinating, and hopped on a tram back to the hotel.

Now, before I go on to my next anecdote, I know I always say that it really is a small world. And still some people don’t want to believe me. Well, tell me if this will convert some doubters.

On the very tram I hopped after dinner with Lucie, sitting directly across from me, was a guy named Ondrei. Ondrei is a Czech guy I met back in Utila about 4-5 months ago. I did tell him I was going to Prague, but he made it sound like he was not going to be back in Prague before the end of the summer. Anyway, not only was Ondrei back, he was on my tram. I had my MP3 player going, so I didn’t hear him right away calling my name. The guy behind me nudged me and pointed at him. It was quite funny. It took me a minute to recognize him, and when I did, we both laughed out loud.

Anyway, we hopped off the tram, and ran into a nearby pub to have a quick beer and chat awhile. I didn’t get to talk to him too much because I seriously had to go and catch my train, while picking up my bag on the way. Unfortunately, that chance meeting caused me to not be able to meet Tom, but Tom was ok with that as well. Ondrei did tell me how he had been back a little more than a month because he got called back early to his job as a film production manager. I did promise him that I would let him know well in advance the next time I’d be in Prague, and went on my way. So, yet again, you see, it really is a small world.

So I made my train, and off to Budapest I went. It was a heck of a week. It made a believer out of me when it came down to all that is Prague. I have a feeling I’ll be coming back here again. I also want to know more of the rest of the country, which is a good incentive to come back again too. Too bad I can’t bring Andiamo up the Vltava River to it! Dammit!

Oh well, that won’t stop me from coming back though.

Comment from: mietsie [Visitor]

I just have to say this,
what a lucky guy you are, 🙂

not flat, captain, not flat at all…

mietsie

2005-08-14 @ 13:07

I made it out to Hamburg last Thursday after what was a great stay in Berlin. I really enjoyed hanging out with Miriam and Tobi, and all the friends of theirs that I met in the short time I was there. It was far more fascinating being in Berlin than I could have ever imagined. To cap off the visit on my last night in Berlin, Miriam, Tobi, his sister Andrea and I walked over to a local bar called “Tabou”. This was an authentic Tiki Bar in a nondescript Berlin neighborhood, with no tourists to be seen. Interestingly, it´s run by an American named April, who also hails from California. I was most impressed by her fine collection of tikis and other Hawaiian and Polynesian art. I haven´t seen a finer collection outside of Hawaii. The other thing that impressed me was their drink menu, which included the authentic Painkiller! Which was my drink of choice during my time in the Virgin Islands. It was a most enjoyable night. My only regret is that I forgot my camera so we couldn´t pictures of us drinking down our super-sized (and super-charged) concoctions. Each in its own gaudy tropical tiki style mug or coconut shell. Maybe if I go back to Berlin on my way back from Croatia, I can get a pic of the place then.

I started off my time in Hamburg getting to my hotel, which was a bit away from the city center where I came in with the train, thanks Orbitz! The metro got me there pretty painlessly, and I checked into Panorama Inn in a part of Hamburg called Billstedt. It’s a bit suburban in relation to the City center, but I got a really nice room for only 35 euros a night (about 40 bucks). It was a pretty good deal, despite the somewhat out of the way location.

I got a hold of Maike, my new Hamburg friend who I met while I was in London along with her friend Juliane. We were supposed to meet that evening after she got off work, but she ended up sending me a message that she had to stay until 11pm, so she wouldn´t be able to meet me that night. She felt pretty bad about it, but I told her no worries.

She told me about some places to go that night, so I hopped the metro into town and went to the part of Hamburg called the Reeperbahn. It’s fairly close to the harbor, and is considered the place where there are lots of pubs, bars, and such. The place is also… ahem… vice-laden. In fact, on my walk to the Reeperbahn, I had to literally fight my way through a live gauntlet of hookers. Who were all standing along side the sidewalk, in almost precise distance from each other. As you walk by each of them, they step into the middle of the sidewalk and grab your arm, or try to pull you towards them. I had to go into my kung fu stance a couple of times to ward em off. Wild stuff.

Despite all the sleaze, the hookers, the drunks passed out everywhere (LOTS of them) and the crackheads in this part of town, it still managed to have its own pulse. It also held a valuable piece of history.

Ok music history lesson time:

See, the Reeperbahn is where the Beatles got their chops in their early days. They got their first real paying gigs playing at clubs on the Reeperbahn as the “Silver Beatles”. The club where they garnered all their local glory was the Star Club, which is where a Thai “Lauf Haus” parlor now stands. It burned down in the 80’s. They played 5 nights a week at the Star Club for months at a time, building their sound and identity along the way. In fact, they replaced their drummer Pete Best with Ringo Starr while they were jamming in Hamburg, and they lost fellow founding bandmate Stu Sutcliffe while in Hamburg. He instead decided to stay behind in Hamburg and live with a local photographer, Astrid Kircherr, and become an artist. He died in Hamburg of a brain aneuryism not long after that. So you can pretty much thank the Reeperbahn in Hamburg for nurturing the Beatles into the super musical force that they later became. Ok, history lesson over.

I did finally find the spot where all the pubs and bars are. Because it was midweek, it was fairly quiet. But there were a couple of places that were rather hopping. I found an Irish Pub called Molly Malone’s that was jamming pretty good. They had a DJ playing retro and oldies, so it was an interesting mix, and everybody was dancing. It turned out to be a really friendly crowd, and I ended up staying until about 3:30AM. The place was still going nuts when I left with no sign of letting up, but I needed to head back and that was going to take a nightbus.

On my walk back to the bus station, I got hit with another hooker gauntlet. It was really late at night, and I guess business hasn’t been too good, so they were extra-aggressive if there is such a thing. While I was trudging through the street, I caught up with a bunch of American football players who play for the Hamburg Blue Devils in the European league. They obviously are out at the Reeperbahn all the time, and know the game pretty good. We talked as we walked along the street, and they were telling me about what they’re doing there, where they were from, and so on.

Considering I was the smallest guy in this group, they kept me more or less in the middle, so I was effectively “blocked” from the hooker gauntlet. The girls could not get to me no matter what they did. It was cool, I had bodyguards. Once we got through the gauntlet, we hung out by the bus station and talked for a bit. They offered to comp me for their upcoming game against Berlin that weekend, but I told them I was going to still be in Hamburg then. But I guess I could have hopped a train to check out the game and still been back in Hamburg later that evening. Oh well, now I think about it!

The next day, I toured the harbor. They have a tall ship museum, the “Rickmer Rickmers”, which was a typical steel-hulled freighter square rigger that was in service in the late 1800’s until it was seized by the Portuguese during WWI. They then put the ship into service for a short time, and then mothballed it for decades. The ship was given back to Germany and then meticulously restored by a maritime society in Hamburg. And it stands in Hamburg’s Landgsbrucke harbor as a museum to Germany’s glory days in merchant shipping. The rest of the day, I spent checking other parts of Hamburg’s waterfront, and the Elbe River.

Maike is on the temporary staff for a major international bicycle race that´s happening here in Hamburg. So she has been slammed with that all week, so we wouldn´t be able to see each other very much. We did manage to meet out in town the next night, and we went over to a local bar that had a great special on caipirinhas. Not only were they cheap, but they were doubles. So needless to say, we had a few of those. I met a few of Maike´s friends there, including Miezi, Mirka, and Asja. The place was slammed packed with partying hamburgers (hey that´s what they call themselves). We stayed there for awhile but then Maike had to leave on account of the fact that she had to be up at 5AM the next day, poor thing. Mirka and Miezi hung out for a little while, then they had to leave as well. So again, I was forced to continue on through Hamburg on my own.

So I stuck to what I knew and took a metro back to the Reeperbahn and hit Molly Malone’s again. This time, however, I was wise enough to get off at a different metro stop so I didn’t have to walk through the live hooker gauntlet again. All I had to deal with was a small gaggle of hookers who were practically daisy chained across the street entrance where the pub was located. That was easy compared to what I had to deal with the night before.

Good crowd at Molly’s again, stayed there until about 3 AM. Had a great time. Even saw a couple of the football player guys, and had a lot fun talking to them about life in Germany playing American football.

The big bicycle race was brewing up, so things started getting really crazy in town. There were tens of thousands of people in town for it. This was a race that was on the same competitive level as the Tour De France. Poor Maike was going nuts with her work at the race, so I didn’t get to see her that much over the next couple of days. We met up during one of her breaks, but that was about it.

The weather the next couple of days were iffy, so there wasn’t too much to do outside. So I would find a nice cafe somewhere, and just hang out and read up on Hamburg. I usually hung out at a very eclectic neighborhood that had a strange mix of Turkish restaurants, shops, and bars. Again, lots of drunks walking around at all hours of the day. Especially by the train station. It was a tad disturbing seeing all of the people who just basically drink themselves through each day. Not that I haven’t seen this kind of thing in other cities I’ve been to, just not at this level.

Oh, and then I got kicked out of my hotel. They got fully booked, and they said I either had to pay 120 euros a night, or give up the room. Well, I said screw that, so I checked out, and spent a good half day back in town looking for a place. Of course, with my luck, there was nothing really available because everything was booked because of the bike race. I did manage to find a room at a very seedy pension in the Turkish neighborhood where I had been hanging out, but it was only 25 euros a night, and I was only going to be there 2 nights, so I made do with it. It turned out to be not too bad.

On Saturday night, I met up with Miezi and Mirka at another part of town called the Schanzenstrasse. Maike couldn’t meet us because of work. This was another district that had lots of cafes, restaurants and places to dance. We all met up at a nice bar, and had a few drinks. We then walked over to another bar that was absolutely packed with people, and very very hot. But they were playing a good mix of music, so we hung out for awhile. We then went over to the Reeperbahn and met up with some more friends of theirs over there. From there we went to a cool club called the China Club, and that’s where ended up staying until 5:30AM or so. It was strange when we left, because the sun was coming out, but there were still thousands of people partying in the streets, not necessarily going home or anywhere. Many of the bars and clubs were still open too. I haven’t seen anything like that since I was in Spain or Greece years ago.

Sunday was mainly recuperation day for me. I slept in until very late, then went online to make arrangements for my next stop in Prague. I didn’t do all that much, except go to the train station to make my train res for the next day.

I said my goodbyes to Maike, and her friends via phone since I was left by train early Monday afternoon. I got to Prague a few hours later, and didn’t take long to get situated. And what a city this is, but that’s a whole other posting…

Comment from: mietsie [Visitor]

I guess you’ve enjoyed those ‘hamburgers’, 🙂

Good on you!

Keep it up!

mietsie

2005-08-05 @ 08:15

Hamburg was an interesting contrast to Berlin. It’s a port town, and much rougher around the edges than Berlin. I had a great time with Maike and her friends, though I didn’t get to hang out with Maike too much due to the fact that she had to work alot during a major bike race that was going on at the time. But good times nonetheless.

Gotta say that I had an excellent time getting to know Berlin. Miriam and Tobi were phenomenal hosts (who I continue to thank profusely), and took lots of time showing me around. I just got so much more out of being there than I could have ever expected. I look forward to seeing Berlin again soon.