Pretty scary stuff


Sarajevo :: Bosnia Herzegovina

The war tour.

Places: Sarajevo

Coolest thing I did: Witnessed "sarajevo roses", the impact marks of shells on the pavement, filled in with red rubber.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The common link between the warlord Arkan and the murder of the Serbian Prime Minister this year is a pop star called Ceca.

I know this one comes pretty quick after the last entry, but it's something I had to get out of my head. This place is pretty unique in both it's ancient and modern history, and it's history of tolerence and intolerence at different times. I took the war tour today, and learned a whole lot about the breakup of Yugoslavia that I didn't know. Despite having watched the whole thing on TV and read books on it since, I was shocked at how little of my knowledge stood up to the light of day. I like it when I get taught things and humbled a bit.

I will start by saying that the ministry of bastardry for crane placement is as good at it's job here as it was in Croatia. Everytime you want to take a photo there's a crane in the background. However, here there's a pretty good reason for it. Everything is slowly being rebuilt, from the heart of the old town outwards. In the main shopping street there are very little in the way of signs of the war left. Go back a street at the windowless shells line both sides, only broken up by the occasional rebuilt shop or hotel. I tell you what, if you are a window glazier by trade, now is the time to be here. Nothing has unbroken windows that don't need replacing. A tradesman's paridise.

Just a note on where I'm staying. There are no hostels (the closest thing to one mentioned in the good old LP is now a car park) so you are best to do the whole private room thing. The travel agency put me in touch with a bloke whose house is covered in fold out couches. I'm sleeping in his kitchen with another bloke, who is on a fold out armchair. It's sort of more like a backpacker flophouse than a hostel. Still, he's a nice bloke, dosen't speak a word of English, but chainsmokes and makes a mean turkish coffee for everyone at the drop of a hat. Drinking coffee so tarlike you can stand a knife up in it is screwing with my sleeping patterns a bit, but it's still nice.

The war tour takes you through the city and the important sites of it's 4 year seige. The bloke who does it has patchy English, but manages to not give political opinions on something he feels very strongly about, which shows patience. He is also my brother's age (25), which means he saw the whole thing first hand. Pretty scary stuff.

By the time the referendum for independance in 1992 had been counted, there were Serb forces already ringing the hills around the city. Despite UN presence, the seige began on the announcement of independance and remained until 1995. The Serbs expected a 15 day campaign. The tour took us down the street to the airport, dubbed snipers alley. The reason for this? Walking the street down here, in clear sight of the hills got you a bullet in the head. Here is the first joke the tour guide told us: A Bosnian is sitting on a swing, going back and forth like mad. His mate comes up and says "what are you doing?". He repies "fucking with the snipers". The jokes here are pretty dark.

The street goes to the airport, which the UN moved in to secure in 1994, two years into the seige. This allowed the Bosnians to dig a tunnel to the outside world under the airport, the remaining section of which I visisted. Engineered from two sides, dug with spades and picks in 4 months and the two halves managed to meet right on target, first time. Smart blokes, these Bosnians. This tunnel kept the troops inside alive until the embargo on arms was lifted and the Bosnians could buy proper weapons.

There is a joke. A Bosnian soldier is under fire, out in the open, digging a hole. His mate yells at him "what do you think you're doing?". He replies "Digging for oil". This was how the tour guide explained how the Bonsians felt about the UN and NATO at the time of the seige. What changed it all? The Serbs shelled a marketplace in the middle of the day, the single worst atrocity during the war. The NATO airstrikes knocked out the serb artilery in 5 days. This is a bit of a sore point after 4 years of living under the threat of said artilery with the Bosnians. People here don't like to talk politics with the tourists, and you can see why. It takes alot of discipline to hold your tounge in such circumstances. Politics is a messy business and the decisions made very rarely effect those in suits that make them anywhere like those on the ground that see the results.

The troops of SFOR (Stabilisation Force) still walk the streets and patrol in vehicles, but these days you don't see them do so with assult rifles over their shoulders. The locals explain it like this "They come here, they spend money, they eat in resteraunts and they look at pretty Bosnian girls. They are tourists in uniform".

The people here know they need tourism. Bosnia wasn't the richest part of Yugoslavia, and there is alot to rebuild. They are nice to you, try and speak all the English they can, and accept any money you give them. It's alot easier to tip waiters in places like this rather than the snooty bastards in Paris. You know they really need the money here. The dual effect of seeing just how resilient the human spirit can be and to realise that a brutal, genocidal war happened two hours flight from London is worth the visit here alone. Add to that you will be helping these people rebuild a country more than foreign aid can ever hope to also helps.

This part of the trip has been one of the more educational bits. All I knew about this place was intolerence and war. However, it's been dubbed the European Jereslum because it's the only place on the continent where you will see Mosque, synagogue, Catholic and Orthadox cathederals within 100m of each other. When the turks took over, they tended to not try and convert those who wanted to keep their own religeon. The Jews here came from Spain, fleeing the inquisition. For all the talk these days of how intolerant and violent Islam is and how peaceful and brotherly Christianity is, this is a good lesson to learn.

So will the peace hold? It's hard to be optimistic under the current agreement. While the Bosnians and Croats are living side by side in a federation, a seperate serb republic has been formed for seats in the power sharing goverment, that borders Serbia proper. The ease at which racial tension has been stirred up in the past shows just how easily it could happen again. The only bright spot is the youth here seem more sick of war than their parents are. These are the young men and women that will have to shoot at each other if it comes down to it, so let's hope they are not willing to do what the angry old men tell them this time. If the messy compromise of the Dayton agreement is to hold, that's very important.

Tomorrow, I go to hear the other side of the story. Joy of joys, a 9 hour bus ride to Belgrade. Man, do I love busses. Not. My sleeping patterns are also a bit off due to the call to prayer that comes from the mosque down the road. They come at 5, 9, 13, 17 & 21 oclock, but after that 5am wakeup I just can't seem to get back to sleep. I think the well oiled machine that is Stevil on Tour has been falling apart in the last week. This being by myself again thing is taking some time to readjust to.

Of Svetlanas and Gorans


Sarajevo :: Bosnia Herzegovina

Two big bits of the Yugoslavian puzzle.

Places: Zagreb, Opatija, Pula, Krk, Zadar, Dugi Otok, Split, Hvar, Dubrovnik, Mostar & Sarajevo.

Coolest thing I did: Walked down the former frontline between the Croats and Muslims in Mostar.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: I have the classic signs of dyslexia.

I will start by saying the biggest change from my routine over the last couple of weeks has been the fact that I have not been traveling with strangers for a change. In Zagreb I met up with my companion through all of Croatia, whom I'm not going to name to save her from the gossip harpies. From now on, she will be refered to as YB. Everyone who needs to know knows who she is and why we met up in Croatia. If you are spesh, you may find out in due course.

Right, public service announcement over.

Croatia appears to have become the new Greece. Just about everywhere you go on the Dalmatian coast you find hordes of backpackers from the UK and her former colonies sitting on docks, waiting for ferries. This is about the 3rd or 4th year in a row I can remember alot of people talking about going to Croatia, and in stark contrast to Slovenia, the locals appear to have become a bit blase about the whole thing. It's not yet the land of hostels and cheap food, but it's getting that way. Having a traveling partner helped a whole lot with avoiding alot of this early on. In Zagreb, YB had the spark of genius to decide we should hire a car and drive around the northern coast, on the bit of Istra lower down than Piran, where I'd just come from in Slovenia. This is a good idea and it got us to see a whole lot of the country we would never have seen.

Driving on the other side of the road takes a whole lot of getting used to. I started out by driving the wrong way down a one way street and habitually hitting the mirrors of cars parked on the right hand side of alleys. The hardest thing is working out how wide the car is on the side you aren't sitting on. It's not something you have to remember when the steering wheel is on the right. I also increased my bad passenger status by visibly flinching everytime we approached a corner when YB was driving and quite often inexplicibly swearing like I had torrets syndrome. The only time she really deserved it was when she almost hit a boat being towed by a car she was overtaking. Like a sailor, I proceeded to swear at that point. Still, it was a bit of fun, and I've forgotten how much I missed driving.

We also had the joy of organising private rooms as hostels were few and far between. This seemed to net us the company of old women who were either slightly deranged or very grandmotherly (they all seemed to find it cute that YBs rucksack was almost the same size she was). The digs also varied alot in price and quality, but every place is going to hold a special place in my memory for one reason or another. The choice pick was the one in Dubrov, right in the middle of the walled old town where the old woman gave us ice cream. I'm a sucker for bribery of this kind.

What's Croatia got to offer? Well first of all, it's on the sunny side of the Adriatic so all the same reasons you'd go to costal Italy, you come to Croatia. Hundreds of islands with beaches. The beaches don't have sand for the most part. The most common makeup is small pebbles, but in some places you end up with huge slabs of stone thrusting down into the ocean at funny angles. The water is crystal clear, and you quite often mistake the depth as you can see the bottom clearly.

The history of the coast makes for insteresting old towns too. The Greeks, Romans, Slavs, Venetians, Austrians and finally Yugoslavs all had a bit of a rule over Croatia and they all left their mark, sometimes right on top of each other. My favorite example of this is in Split, where the Palace of Diocletian still stands. Dioceltian I will come to in a minute, but for now all you need to know was he was a Roman Ceaser who decided the best spot to have his retirement palace was Dalmatia. He built quite a palace for himself, and all the other Roman emperors used to use it as a holiday home. After the fall of the Roman empire, the locals took refuge in the walls and built up a city inside it. The layers of different architectures built on top of each other makes for a strange effect. The later Venetian walls were knocked down after WW2 to reveal the original Roman ones, right on the sea front. They also at one stage turned the temple of Jupiter into a cathederal. I didn't know this at first, and when the church service started inside I expected them to start singing "Hallelujah, for Jupiter is Lord!". Not to be.

On the island of Hvar, I rode a bike for the first time since I was drunk in Germany. I don't know why I thought that was worth mentioning.

We built up a habit of refering to all male Croatians as Goran and all female Croatians as Svetlanas. It's hard to explain, but I found it funny, despite dragging the joke out for two weeks.

Dubrovnik deserves special mention as being the place that lived up to the hype. Dubrov was an independant city state through much of Croatia's history (only Napoleon changed this by capturing it with the rest of Dalmatia) and to protect this, it established thick walls all along the seafront. It's a unique city, and the mix of stone and light at sunset makes for an awe inspiring effect. It also looks new for a very good reason. One of the two frontlines during the 1991 war of independance was the southern Dalmatian coast and Dubrov took the brunt of the Serb forces attack during a 7 month seige. There is a map inside one of the walls showing all the damage done by direct hit by shelling, shrapnel and fire and not much of the city made it out unscathed. There are very few places that haven't been restored, giving it that new car smell. The difference some tourist euros can make on the impetus to fix one place over another is apparent. I didn't appreciate this until I went further East.

Besides seeing Kat in Gottingen, Joerg in Munster, Anita in Berlin, Lisa in Berlin and Grantos in Prague all breif encounters, I havn't seen anyone I knew during this trip, and no one for more than a few days. Traveling with YB was a bit of an experience as I haven't been together with one person in and out for 24 hours a day in this entire trip. I think we both took it all in stride and it was a definte winner of a time. I also got to take a break from forcing myself on complete strangers, and in the other times, a break from my own self. I needed to have proper conversations, out loud, with someone who I didn't have to start all over again with. It gets grating asking everyone the same questions and talking mostly about where you are going and where you have just been. I liked talking about real things again. It's been hard to readjust to being in my own company again. Thanks for letting me in on your holiday, YB, it was a blast.

So, early in the morning, I left the safe arms of Croatia and entered into the unknowns of Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH to it's mates). You can see the difference money has made to the reconstruction efforts of both countries almost right away. BiH took the brunt of Yugoslavia tearing itself appart, the 4 year war being a territorial struggle with Croats and Serbs trying to integrate bits of the country into their parent provinces and the Muslims being caught in the middle. Whilst Croatia has had the tourism to restore itself for the most part, BiH has suffered from a lack of tourist sights people want to see and the bad press only a genocidal war lasting four years can bring. And it's all Diocletian's fault.

See Dio was a bit of a bright spark. He decided that this whole Roman Empire thing was a bit big to manage in one chunk and split the thing into too. As fate would have it, he decided the line would go smack bang down the current border between BiH and Serbia Montenegro. When the Romans adopted Christianity a bit later on, the Western half (Slovenia, Croatia and BiH) came under Rome and the Eastern half (Serbia and Macedonia) came under Constantinople. This made the western half Catholics and the eastern half Orthodox. Not a problem, except it's one of the only things that defines whether people are Croats or Serbs. Add to the mix the Turks took a whole bit (BiH and Albania) and converted them to Islam. This left Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs all sharing the common land of BiH. After the Ottoman Turks Empire broke up, BiH went to the Austrians, who weren't real popular. This led to a Bosnian Serb called Princip, a member of the shadowy nationalism movement called The Black Hand, to kill the heir to the Austrian Empire in Sarajevo. After that, we had this thing called WW1. Whoops. Talk about unintended consequences. After a bit of Yugoslaving, BiH ended up with 3 distinct racial groups in one place. When the Serbs started to rant nationalism in Belgrade, BiH decided it wanted out. This left it rife for ethnic tension and the 4 year war that resulted.

Mostar gives you some feel about just what happened. This is a Muslim and Croat town. The very name means "guardian of the bridge" refering to the Turkish garrison that built up around the bridge in the middle of town, Stari Most. It divided the Croats and Bosniaks during Yugoslavia, and when the civil war started, was the target of Croat shelling. It is now slowly being reconstructed with World Bank money and Turkish engineering. The loss of the bridge left the community seperated by the river, and much of the ethnic tension remains, though at a lower level. There are still UN peacekeepers walking the streets, however most do so unarmed.

If you want to see what happened though, you should walk the former frontline. Appartment blocks line both sides of the streets, windows smashed, walls either destroyed by shelling or pock marked by small arms fire. There are warning signs all over the ruins to stay away, due to the possiblity of landmines or unexploded ordinance. This is pretty real stuff for someone who as only seen a real war zone on TV. This isn't a war that happened in West Africa, or the Europe of my grandparents, I was in Uni when this war ended. The guys my age drinking at the cafes saw this with their own eyes, and may have participated in it. That's even more scary.

So, what do people do in a recovering warzone on saturday night? Much what people do everywhere. Young women walk the streets dressed like JLo and the blokes circle the blocks in their hatchbacks pumping 50 cent out of their stereos. I did have the heartening experience of watching young Croats and Muslims all sitting in a cafe by the ruins of the bridge watching the BiH football team playing Norway to get into the European Cup. The only shirts they were wearing were the yellow and blue of BiH, not those of their ethic origins. At least they can forget their differences in a common football team.

I just arrived in Sarajevo, so more on that later. I've been typing a while now.

A little bit of everything really


Ljubljana :: Slovenia

I know, I'm still here.

Places: Bled, Postojna, Piran & Ljubljana .

Coolest thing I did: Watched everyone go orange as I swam in an Adriatic sunset.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Slovenia has a lot of good stuff in it.

Bled is what you would call a dictionary definition of picture postcard territory. What you get is a glacial lake, surrounded by pine covered forrests, a castle perched on a rocky cliff face looking over it, with an island with a monestary in the middle of it that can only be reached by gondola. Any one of those things could be anywhere in Austria, but nowhere has the whole thing all mashed together, in a handy, photosized area. Very thoughtful, these Slovenes. Thanks to the fact the lake is very shallow, you can go swimming in it in the middle of summer and it dosen't offend even those as ill prepared for the cold as us Aussies. I spent half a day walking out to a nearby gorge, which, with all the water around, seemed almost tropical in the heat. Again, a stark contrast from Bled itself. The Austrianess of the place is not too surprising, when you consider the pedigree of the place. It's the setting (or near to) the war bit of A Farewell to Arms. The Italians in the book were fighting the AustroHungarians over the Julian Alps, all of which are located in present day Slovenia. This also explains the Ernie Hemmingway cafe/hotel/truckstop/supermarket/tollbooth you see all along the road. I would have stayed out there another day, but the Italian weekenders (the place is closer to Trieste than Ljubers) had it all booked out by Friday, so I had to return to the capital.

My next trip, to the nearby Postojna caves was, to put it lightly, not one of the better days I've had on tour. I started out badly, by loaning one of the girls in the hostel some money for dinner the night before. Not an issue, but had I realised how rarely the busses come on the weekend, I would have insisted she checked out before 11am to give it to me. My bad. So I had to wait until 1 in the afternoon until I could get a train out there. This itself, would have given me pleanty of time to make it to the caves then onto Piran on the coast, however, disaster struck. The board on the platform told me the train was off to Postojna, however they changed it just as the train was pulling out. I guess that's what the Slovene talking over the loudspeaker was telling me. So I was on the express train for the Austrian border. A four hour round journey took me back to Ljubers, far too late to see either the caves or make it to Piran with time to look for somewhere to stay. I then had to trudge around looking for another hostel to stay in (as the one I was in was booked out), which added to my foul mood. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, so I went off to the park to sulk. Just as I'd laid down to read, with my shirt off, a huge dog bounded up and slobbered all over my back. My mood took another couple of notches down as I went home for a shower.

Thankgod for 21 year old Irish blokes. I found myself sharing my room with 3 of a group of 7 Dubliners Eurailing around for their summer holidays. Whilst I turned down the offer to go out on the beers (I knew how quiet Ljubers is), they did cheer me up with their youthful enthusiasm. I was also happy to talk to them over breakfast about the resulting crapness of their night out, and how well they took it. It made me realise I was being a grumpy old man over nothing.

So, take two. Postojna is what mass tourism is all about. The caves themselves are wonderful, after all, mass tourism needs a product to sell. However, I knew something was up when we were ushered into the kind of little trains that take you around Disneyland. The trains whip you into the caves at breakneck speed, rushing past rows and rows of stalic-things. I found this funny. I kept asking when the bar was going to come down over my lap, but this joke was lost on the Germans next to me. Humorless people, they were. After 2km of this, we were hearded into 4 groups, based on language spoken and then led through the caves by a ranger. The poor woman. Everytime she told us the limestone was light sensitive, about 100 flashbulbs would go off. My favorite bit was the "human fish". These Anglosaxon coloured salamanders are the largest things they've since found living in the caves and they are totally blind. There was, however, a whole lot of the Mona Lisa Syndrome ("Is that is? I thought they would be bigger". Go to the Lourve, see what I'm talking about).

After the caves, I finally made it out to Piran. Piran is an old Venetian town that looks like Venice would, if it had less tourists and no canals. The second I walked off the bus into air so thick and warm you could spread it on toast, I forgot all the troubles of yesterday. The water is so warm, and there was a perfect sunset to swim under. While there is no beach, the girls all line up on the rocks over the bay and brown their breasts, something that can only add to the ambiance. Very impressed. I was ready to spend another whole day out there, except a storm rolled in off the Adriatic overnight and didn't let up. Instead, I'm back in Ljubers writing postcards.

Man, this country needs more vowels. It's like playing A Wheel of Fortune when you are reading roadsigns "John, can I buy an 'e'?".

Tomorrow, I'm off to Croatia, baby! (for some reason, I can't say the word Croatia without adding the word baby).

Exercise is hard


Ljubljana :: Slovenia

How to work with the Bosnians.

Places: Innsbruck, Graz & Ljubljana .

Coolest thing I did: Spent hours and hours walking along the ridge tops in the Alps.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: You can learn all about world politics from hostel toilet doors.

If the first near week didn't convince me that mass tourism was alive and well in Austria, nothing could have prepared me for Innsbruck on the weekend. It's a town on the Inn river (funnily enough) in between two arms of the Austrian Alps. Having never seen Alps of any nationality, I was quite excited to be going out there. What I didn't realise is a) just how close the place is to the Italian border and b) just how many Italians flock over for the weekend. Walking down the main street you couldn't move without bumping or shoving someone (by accident, I swear). After wanting to get away from the loud American tourists walking around Vienna yelling "gee, isn't that big/old/pretty" or explaining how they thought it was unreasonable to be charged 7 euros for entry to a museum when they (and I quote) "kicked your asses in the war and then paid to rebuilt this goddam country", I was hoping for some peace and quiet. Not to be.

However, thanks to Innsbruck being one of the biggest European ski resorts, the surrounding peaks are all accesible by cable cars. I took a couple of days to get up early, go up on the first lift and then walk along the ridges at 2000m + and leave all the hordes behind me. Some of the paths are a bit sketchy (in places, it's all on a 45 degree angle and covered in loose stones), but there's nothing like slowly crunching along just above the treeline before dipping down into a steep alpine forest on your way down to town. The fact that the only people I saw in 5 and a half hours were a guy walking his dog and two young girls was just what I needed. You keep trying to find the best place to take that perfect photo, fir trees in the front, peaks in the middle and glaciers in the rear, then once you've taken it, an even more perfect shot is just around the corner. I'm starting to think I'm wasting too much time in cities getting annoyed with the other tourists.

This was, however, the most exausting thing I've done to myself in a long time. Despite sharing a dorm with 11 other guys, I was asleep by 9 and having a good 10 hours every night I was there. I also regained my appetite, which was cut down a bit by the record heat Central Europe has been experiencing over the last week.

While I think of it, Austria must have the best tasting tap water in the world. It's cleaner tasting that anything you buy in a bottle.

So, a quick overnight stop in Graz saw me climb the hill to the castle to look over the city, and discover that the local soccer pitch is known as the Schwarzenegger stadium. That's all I learned in Graz. I then took the morning train to Slovenia. On the way, I read Franz Kafka's "The Castle". The guy is brilliant. In one of those strange coincidence moments, I happened to look up and notice the young bloke across from me was reading Kafkas "Der Schloss". It took me a while to realise it was the same book in the original German.

So, Slovenia. What did I know about it? I read a book just before coming away by a travel writer retracing a trip through Yugoslavia she made in the 70s. From this I learned that in the 1991 independence war, Slovenia fought for a mere 10 days before the Federal Yugoslavian troops pulled out. Apparently, the Slovenians, being far too European, prosperous and clever saw Milosevic's annexing of Kosovo in 1988 for what it was and made plans to be out of Yugoslavia before all the trouble started. Wise move when you see just how unspoilt this is compared to the pictures of Sarajevo after 1995. In it's pre-Yugo history, Slovenia spent most of it's time as a part of the Holy Roman/Austro Hungarian Empire. This shows in the architecture. You wouldn't know you had left Austria if it wasn't for the fact the road signs have far less vowels. In fact, if it wasn't for Napoleon splitting off the Hapsburgs Adriatic possessions for 20 odd years to land lock his opponents, Slovenia would have remained a little Austrian backwater famous for only being the southern fontier against the Turks. The French gave them an education system and stirred up nationalistic intrests that hadn't existed before, which led eventually to the Slovenians to seek protection from the Austrians after WW1 by becoming a part of Yugoslavia.

Ljubljana looks like somewhere in Northern Italy. Cafes line the streets on either side of the river, old white Austrian style bridges string back and forth over it to join up the cobbled streets. It's not got that much in the way of living history, but the cafe culture is nice for a few days. And sitting watching the pretty girls walk past is good for the health. So the locals tell me. Having only met cafe owners though, this may be a biased viewpoint.

In a small panic, I belived the Lonely Planet and some bloke I met in Graz and thought I had discovered I needed to get a visa to enter Bosnia-Herzegovina. So this morning, I treked into suburban Ljubljana to the Bosnian embassy, which is in someone's garage. The nice woman assured me in broken English that they were desperate for tourists to come and spend money and I had no need for a visa. Hooray. They were kind of more happily curious that I wanted to go, which is a good change from these countries where the embassy staff think their job is to discorage anyone from trying to visit them.

I really have to start thinking of the LP like it is, a guideline rather than gospel truth. It's the best solution out there, but research becomes so out of date so quickly.

Right, a week more of seeing the sights of Slovenia (which goes from alpine to beach in about 80km) then off to Croatia next week sometime.

The hills are alive with the sound of music


Salzburg :: Austria

Hapsburg overload.

Places: Cesky Krumlov, Vienna & Salzburg.

Coolest thing I did: Saw what is claimed to be the Spear of Destiny.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Arnold Schwarzenegger is running for govenor of California. Arnold Schwarzenegger! What is this, the twilight zone?

After Prague, the village of Cesky Krumlov was a whole lot of doing nothing. It's one of those rare tourist spots that was made by it's listing in the Lonely Planet. Walking down from the bus station you get the feeling every second building houses a hostel, internet cafe or cheap restaurant. I can also see why. It is a village that has changed very little since the 18th century, with a Bohemian castle perched on the cliff face over looking it. Besides that and a Dali museum, there is very little else to do tourism wise. This forces you into a endless cycle of cheap beer, cheap food, lying by the river in the sun or riding down said river on a tire inner tube. The last is made even more lazy by the fact the village is on the bend of a river, so you start at one point and nearly half an hour later arive at close to the same point you started at. It was all very relaxing.

I met up with a couple of English blokes (21 year olds, bless) and the 3 American girls they were traveling with. We decided that the 6 of us should have a few shots of absinthe before going into town. Let it be said that if you aren't aware how strong Bohemian absinthe is, it's the stuff that killed Hemmingway and made Van Gogh go nuts and cut his ear off. At roughly 70% abv, its not something to be taken lightly. So what did we do? Finish the bottle between 6 of us before going out. As you are required to carmalise sugar on a spoon and mix it into the drink before drinking it, we also managed to melt a hot spoon onto the table of the hostel. Not a very popular move. Anyway, the kind of madness you would expect from this occured. We managed to play one game of pool for close to 2 hours because we couldnt remember who was bigs or smalls, whose turn it was or even who was on whose team. One of the American girls managed to vomit inside the club and pass out so we had to take it in turns carrying her home. However, much fun had by all.

It was fun watching people a bit younger than be go about doing the silly things I used to do without thought of consequence. They didnt belive I'd been where they were going and I knew what they were going to see any more than I did at that age. Bless.

So, Austria it was then. I met up with a group of three Aussie girls and their pet Canadian (sorry Jase) at the bus stop and we all worked out we were going to Vienna. In a series of well meaning, but misguided moves, we managed to make a 5 hour journey take close to 14 hours. This is what happens when everyone is too polite to make a firm decision. Still, it was a fun ride and it's that kind of randomness that makes traveling fun. I did, however, refuse to get involved with charades. That's my perogative, and I chose to firmly exercise it.

Vienna is much of what you would expect. Palaces, churches and statues of people whose last name is Hapsburg. I felt a bit overwhelmed by just how much there was to see, and by the very high price of tickets to see anything. I managed to restrict myself to a good gallery viewing (lts of Rubens and Raffaels) and the inside of the Hapsburg treasury.

So, who are these Hapsburgs of whm you speak? After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Germanic states of central Europe were a bunch of barbarian hordes, spending most of their time pillaging and looting and whatnot. The pope at the time, being a srewd fellow, decided that the best way to sort these lot out was to set up an elaborate scam called "Catholicism" to scare the barbarians into thinking they would go to hell if they kept their pillaging ways up. He handed out kingships and titles to the warlords who converted, and many of the Goths, Vandals and Franks decided that having the ligitamacy provided by this "God" fellow was a good way to keep their unruly subjects at bay. This went all well until one of the Franks (French), a king by the name of Charlemange (Chuck to his mates) decided he wanted the whole ball of wax. He went out subjugating the other Germanic tribes until he was on the very steps of the Vatican. The Pope of the time, again with some quick thinking, told Chuck he would give him the title of "Holy Roman Emperor" if he would stop with the trashing and conquering. For some reason, Chuck bought this, and the Holy Roman Empire became the scam that held central Europe together for much of the middle ages. In the 10th century, the house of Hapsburg in Austria took over the title and held it for the next 1000 years. The got to elect Popes, tell kings what to do and kill Czech Heritics like Husso. If you are stuck in a pyramid scheme, it's good to be near the top.

So Vienna was the capital of Europe's biggest land empire for quite some time. This allowed them to get alot of treasure and build heaps of palaces and stuff. However, the coolest thing they have is the Spear of Destiny.

The legend goes that what they have in the Hofberg palace is the spearhead of the Roman soldier's spear that pierced Christ's side at the crucifixtion. It was said whoever brought it with them into battle would become invincible. Chuck had it, so did his grandpa who fought off the Islamic armies in Spain, Charles Martel. Napoleon tried and failed to get it. But the bloke for who it became an obsession was Adolf Hitler. Legend has it when the US soldiers captured Nuremburg and got a hold of the Nazi treasure horde (including the spear) was the exact moment that Hitler took his own life. Probably not true, but a cool story none the less.

So now, now I'm in Salzburg. Where they knocked down the city walls in Vienna 2 centuries ago to make ring roads around the city, Salzburg still looks like Mozart could be walking around here. Except for the fact it's full of tourists in tank tops and thongs.

A plan from here still hasn't fully formed yet. I think I'd like to go to the Alps, but I'm still researching that. Should that fail, I will make my way into Slovenia next.

Let the Czech-secution begin!


Prague :: The Czech Republic

And Grantos makes a cameo.

Places: Prague.

Coolest thing I did: Met an Italian bloke who's going to be working on restoring an old castle in the west of the Czech Republic over his Uni holidays. I just went to the beach alot when I was on Uni holidays.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: "Skall", which the Nordics say instead of "Cheers" means "lets drink from the skulls of our enemies". Still barbarians at heart, I love it.

I have now been in Prague 2 more days than I expected to be. I keep finding that I'm learning new depths of history, culture and nightlife I never thought existed here. It's like I either walked around with my eyes closed last time I was here, or it's become a bit easier for me to get beneath the surface. I did some of the same things I did when I was here last, visiting Castles, churches and that world famous 5 story (yes 5!) nightclub on the river. However, every day I come across some famous fact about Prague I should have known, or some ultra cool bar or cafe that seems out of place in a city I thought was nothing but an example of what damage mass tourism can do. If nothing else, I feel more impressed with this place than I was 3 years ago. It may also be that the last vestiages of communism are all but gone from here. You could be anywhere in Western Europe, except for the fact things are still reassuringly cheap here (except accomadation, which is now on par with places like Germany and Italy in cost).

I think it may be a bit to do with how much of the history of Europe I've learnt (and am still learning) all comes to a head in this city. It's a place that's now such a tourist mecca by virtue that the Germans didn't bomb it to the ground, but it's given so many cultural gifts to the world, and continues to be an inspiring place. Call me naive, but on this trip I learnt that Franza Kafka did his best work in Prague. I've never read him, but I have heard of him, and with the name plastered on tshirts in every gift shop, I have no idea why I never noticed before. Mozart? He premiered some of his most famous (apparently, I know little about classical music) works in the opera here. Havel, one of the leading intellectuals of dissident during the Cold War? They made him president of the country after the overthrow of communism. Everywhere you look, the stamp of culture is all over this city.

I'd never heard of Alphonse Mucha before this trip. He was a poster designer turned into every feasible kind of designer by his sucess. He was one of the early proponents of art neuvo, and as a result he was given alot of commissions here. Buildings, furniture, jewellery, so many things have his stamp on them. Even oe of the stained glass windows in the Cathederal here was designed by him. He was a nationalist at heart, when the Czech Republic was a part of the Austro Hungarian empire, and dedicated his later work to political ends. His collections of giant canvases called the Slav Epic are a tribute to the biggest events of all the Slavs, from Poland to Russia, to the Czech Republic and down to the former Yugoslavia. The fact he also does his work in a realistic fashion, that a layman like me who dosen't "get" modern art like me can grasp, also helps.

Where does it come from? It may have alot to do with the constructively rebellious spirit this place has always had, the spirit that gave birth to the very word bohemian (before it was the Czech Republic, Prague was the capital of a country called Bohemia). In the main square is a statue dedicated to Jan Hus, Husso to his mates. Husso was a Catholic preist who, after being influenced by the writings of an Englishman called John Wyclef, decided that alot of the things the church were doing were against the spirit of Christianity and protested against it. They called his followers the Hussites (funnily enough). The boss of the empire Prague was in at the time, Sisigmund, decided that this kind of thing wasn't on, so he decided to get a few prominent church heads, including Husso, together to "talk these new ideas out". What he meant was "give Husso over to the inquisistion to be burnt at the stake". This didn't go over well in Bohemia, and there were some fights to kick out these "protestants" as they were known. This went back and forth for a while, until some of the Bohemian nobles decided enough was enough. What they gave to the world was the political tool of "defenstration". What this means is if someone dosen't agree with you, you throw him out a very high window. The Prague defenstrations were protestant nobles throwing their catholic counterparts out the windows of Prague Castle. Ouch. This sparked off the 30 years war, tearing middle Europe to peices and causing the Austrians to gain control of Prague and enforce Catholicism at the point of a sword. There's nothing like liberal, rational thought to get this kind of reaction from the church and state.

This is the same spirit that caused the Czechs and Slovaks to be one of the more rowdy communists around. The famous Prague spring I've already mentioned, but the spearhead of liberal thought and writings against communism was here in Prague, Havel who I've already mentioned it's leader. Where communism was brought down by the unions and church in Poland, it was brought down by rational thoght here. It's a heartening thought.

I also visited the Jewish Quater, which I didn't do last time. I'd never heard of the Golem of Prague before, but I like the story. It's about one of the earlier mass hatreds against Jews in the 16th century, when for no rational reason, talk came about that the Jews were eating babies and whatnot. There were alot of hate killings and whatnot. The story goes one of the Rabbis, very faithful to God, took it upon himself to create a big clay man. He then inscribed words from the Torah the Jews consider all powerful on it's head and brought it to life. It then went of a killing rampage, defending the Jews from their persecutors. There's no happy ending, as the Jews still perscribe to old testament justice, rather than the forgivness Jesus taught. I like European tales that haven't been censored for our Anglo Saxon sensibilities.

The nightlife is also killing me. The Czechs make the best beer in the world, I'll stand by that conviction. They invented Pilsner, and know what they are doing still. It's dangerously cheap too. I think my liver needs a rest.

The strain of not sleeping a whole lot, on either side, showed up when I met up with my mate Grant. Grant has spent most of the same time I've been on this journey being a tour guide for Busabout. People who know Grantos will tell you he's exactly the kind of good natured bloke that would thrive in a job like this, and he looks like he's enjoying it. He was, however, at the end of an 11 day stretch without a break and did look a bit tired. It was excellent to see someone I know quite well from the London days, and to see him doing something he's enjoying. I was also happy to hear his uncoerced testament that Berlin is one of the best, if not the best, cities in Europe. I was starting to think it was just me. I have been thinking alot, however, how much I'm missing all the guys and girls from London on this trip. I'm having a blast making new friends, but you forget how much better it is to be with friends who you've know for a while, you tend to enjoy their values and opinions because you wouldn't have known them for so long if you didn't. All these very short term friendships give you a glimpse at what someone thinks and does, but you don't get to know many of them very well. I miss not having to make everyone's acquaintance from scratch sometimes.

I will probably have to physically drag myself from this place tomorrow, but it's time to move on. I'm heading to the village of Cesky Krumlov, which used to be an undiscovered gem, but is now a mecca for backpackers. I don't mind that so much, as it's off the tour coach route. I'm hoping the locals are still catering to the types of tourists that aren't into buying tshirts that say "was in prague, but can't remember" on them.

Hard to work out


Bratislava :: Slovakia

A whole lot of mountains.

Places: Zakopane, Kosice & Bratislava.

Coolest thing I did: Stood on the border of Poland and Slovakia at 2000m above sea level.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Slovakia is the world's biggest exporter of Semtex, the explosive most favoured by the IRA.

Zakopane in the Tatras (an arm of the Carpathian mountains that stretch across Eastern Europe) is one of the more favoured domestic destinations for Poles to visit on their holidays. Being in the middle of summer, the place was jammed with other tourists (though, I was pretty much the exception as a native English speaker). In winter, it's a large ski resort, but in summer, people come from miles around to do things like mountain climbing, bushwalking and rafting. I came as a rest from cities.

The scenery is nothing short of breath-taking. My first day was an easy-ish walk up the face of a rocky bluff looking over the town. From this vantage point You can seen the large cuts of ski runs through the giant pine forests, with chair lifts and funiculars making their way slowly up the mountains. I can only make comparisons with the only other ski resort I've ever been to (Borovets in Bulgaria....man, what a week!), but this looked far more set up for business. I think it may be worth anyone in London looking for a cheap ski resort this winter to keep it in mind.

I had originally decided to take the two cable cars up to the highest peaks in the range, but on arriving (foolishly) at 10am I found a 3 hour queue waiting for me. I instead decided to wake up at 6am the next morning (which is a first for this entire trip) and get on the first car up at 7. I'm very glad I did. The Tatras form a natural border between Slovakia and Poland and it's not easy to see why no-one would bother enforcing them. After two cable cars high over the pines you end up 1900ish metres above sea level. You are then able to walk to the ridge and have your picture taken with the border marker, one foot in each country. From either side of this you are faced with a sheer drop of no more than 100m on either side. I took the 1 and a half hour gradual climb up along the ridge following the border. The view on either sides (even with the morning mist restricting some visibility) includes rows of craggy peaks dropping off into glacial lakes and surrounded by dark pine forrests. Like Norway and Southern Germany, these are the kinds of landscapes you just don't get to see in Australia. Add to that the whole jumping back and forth saying "now I'm in Poland, now I'm in Slovakia" and it's a morning well spent. It was also the first sunrise after sleeping I've seen in probably a year or more.

I also walked, officially, across my first ever land border. I took the bus to the border with Slovakia (this time at a mere 1200m) and walked into Slovakia. I could have waited 2 hours for the next bus, or pooled in for a mini van with some Poles and Czechs waiting at the bus stop. This was enlightening because a) the bus driver was mad and b) people mostly drive on horses and carts around the mountain tracks. The sheer white knuckled terror of having this lunatic weaving around the mountains past donkeys in the wet was better than any amusement park ride. I was just waiting for the bar to come down over my lap first.

So, what about Slovakia? It's a hard one to define. It's surrounded by countries everyone wants to visit, yet it's hard to work out where it fits. This has benefits. It's by far less touristed than Poland (though I'm finding more English speakers in Bratislava than I did in the East) which seems to make the people more willing to talk to you. I think I've spoken to more Slovakians than any other native peoples of the countries I've visited thus far. They are quite often still at the stage where just practising their English is good enough reason to strike up a conversation. Those days are gone in Poland. However, I don't think the locals have a real strong grasp on their own nationalism. Most slip up and say they were born in Czechoslovakia (I guess technically true) and when asked what makes them Slovakian, they mostly reel off events and dates with a bit of bordem (as opposed to the fire you get in the Balkans at the same question). I think it has alot to do with the fact not many people really cared whether they were independent from Prague or not. Like most things in the world, the politicians were the only people that really cared about an indepentent Slovakia, most of the younger people I've met don't seem to care either way.

The other seems to be the history. I went to Devin castle near Bratislava to look at one of the last strongholds of the Great Moravian empire. In the 800s and 900s, the Slovaks were the centre of a Slavonic state covering most of central Europe. That was the last Czech-Slovak political entity for 1000 odd years. The Hungarians took that over in about 1000AD, themselves being taken over by the Austrians and the Slovaks remained in this state until 1918. After WW1, the Czech and Slovak nationalists decided to unite together now they had been freed from the Austro-Hungarian empire and to form Czechoslovakia. In WW2 the Nazis took over the Czech bit and set up a puppet facist state in Slovakia. This was the first Slovakia for about 1000 years and the only one to bear that name. After WW2, communist Czechoslovakia came about and there was again, no Slovakia until the divorce in 1993. This must make it hard to point at some contribution, hero or event and say "that's Slovakian". Then again, many of the Balkan states make claims to land that are far more tenuous than this, with far more passion. They do, however, seem quite proud of their part in the Prague Spring uprisings.

The Prague Spring is what happens when you were in the Warsaw Pact and didn't want to be. The Czechoslovakian government decided to make things better for it's people and introduced democratic reforms in 1968 that would make people's life better. This wasn't seen as good in Moscow and the Red Army drove tanks over people and stopped these reforms. That's cutting it short, but you get the drift.

Bratislava looks like the Hungarian capital is was built up to be. After the Turks took over Budapest and besieged Vienna, the leaders of AustroHungary decided it was a good idea to move the capital inland. The good thing about there being less tourists is I've been able to walk around palaces and castles pretty much by myself sometimes. It's also the most cosmo part of the country, but even that is relative. You can sit in a cafe as nice as any in Prague and get a coffee or beer for about 20p. And the wine is something else. Whilst most of the beer is Czech, the local wine is both cheap and good. Not as thick on the reds as Bulgaria was, but none the less, an experience.

The east shows the scars of communism a bit more. There was a big move to industrialise East Slovakia and very little of it made good sense. Now the rusting factories of steel mills line the skyline, and the cities in the East are just that, ugly cities. Kosice has one restored old street, but most of it is a grey, post-communist wasteland.

However, the surroundings are dotted with fortresses and old towns. In the 1200s, the mongols decided to take their ravaging and pillaging on the road, but realised that after doing a number on Central Asia, needed more manpower. So they subcontracted much of their raping and looting out to the turkic tribes they'd just conquered, which the Russians called the Tartars. After carving up Persia and Russia, the hordes of Mr Kahn (you should always refer to anyone who feasts on the remains of his enemies as Mr) turned their attention on Eastern Europe. The Hungaian invited some Saxon knights to set up shop in the east of their empire (much in Eastern Slovakia) to build castles and slow the barbarians down. To some degree, this worked, and there are still many castles left from this period. Most are in ruins, however, as a few hundred years later, Napoleon's troops decided blowing up AustroHungarian castles was good fun and did alot of it.

I have to say, I've been suprised by Slovakia. People are quite willing to talk to you at very little pretense. Whilst the number of English speakers in the east is limited, those that do are still excited to have a chance to practise. I've got this feeling Prague won't be like that.

So, I get my Hungarian visa today, then I'm off to Prague tomorrow (yes, I know it's not in Hungary...I'm planning ahead!). Prague is the first place I've visited before on this trip (I went there for New Years Eve in 2000) so it will be interesting to see how much it's changed. It was still quite cheap then, and you still saw lots of 1970s Skodas driving about. The fact I've seen none of these in the poorer Slovakia makes me think I'm about to walk into the new Vienna or Munich by entering Prague. Three years is a long time in post-communist Eastern Europe.

Never again


Krakow :: Poland

Jews, Poles and a country that just won't let itself disappear. Again.

Places: Warsaw, Gdansk, Malbork, Krakow & Auschwitz.

Coolest thing I did: Was taken aback by the sheer scale of the horrors of Auschwitz.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trails, Sir Hartley Shawcross lived to be 101. He died just last week. Guess he outlived most of the Nazis he tried.

I have to admit to having known practically nothing about Polish history (except the bits I learned in Russia that relate) before arriving in Warsaw last week. I had a good friend in High School from Poland, and I was also seeing a girl of Polish extraction before leaving Sydney. I've since been spending the last week seeing various features of all the Poles I knew in Sydney displayed on the streets here. I don't think I've ever been able to see so strongly the characteristic poses and gestures that people must carry in their genes. I wonder how many of these kinds of inherited features I'm unconsciously displaying from my hodge potch mix of ancestors.

Warsaw was a good place to see what modern Poland is about. Standing in the entrance to the castle in the old town, the gaurd noticed me looking at a black and white photo of an archway standing in the post WWII ruins of Warsaw. He pointed to the arch, grunted, then pointed to the same photo taken in 1994. The castle, the whole old town I was standing had been completely flattened, in all directions. This explains why the historical sites are all restored only on the town's old royal mile. It would have been impossible to rebuild the whole town because, quite simply, nothing was left. This is a common theme in Poland's history. Besides a breif century of glory when it (as part of Poland-Lithuania) was the biggest power in medieval Central Europe, Poland has had it's borders redrawn by foreign powers constantly. Russia, Prussia and Austria even managed to wipe it off the map (besides a brief respite when Napoleon recreated it as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw) for a couple of hundred years.Waves of foreign powers have tried to wipe this country out and like a cork it keeps bobbing back to the surface.

Modern Warsaw shows the recent growth of the 90s in the glass towers rising out of the communist style grey blocks that cover most of the city. It even has a proper Stalin gothic skyscraper that their good buddy Joe Stalin had built in the 30s. Out of all the Warsaw pact countries, Poland appears to have been the least happy with the benevolent protection of the Soviet tanks and secret police on their doorsteps. More on this later.

From Warsaw, I went north, to Gdansk (the annunciation marks won't show up, so I won't try and spell it correctly). Despite it's history as a prosperous member of the Hansatic League (those champions of protectionist trade and closed markets), Gdansk it's that important until the 20th century. Most of the action happens a bit further south.

An easy daytrip from Gdansk is Malbork, site of the largest Gothic castle in all of Europe. It's a lovely red brick colour, but besides that, it's pretty ugly. Functional is probably a better word. It was built by a group of blokes called the Teutonic Order, someone who the Poles probably regret asking to settle there in the first place. The Teutons were a bunch of German crusaders who, after being booted out of the Holy land by the Muslim armies, settled in Venice and helped them ransack Constantinople when they should have been killing infidels. With this stirling record intact, the Polish lords decided to invite them to come and convert all those pesky pagans they had living in the North of their country. The Teutonic Order had other ideas and took "converting pagans" to mean "take over all our lands and oppress the natives". Polish and German are very different languages, you see how these kind of things can happen. The Teutons then ruled the Northern seaboard of Poland until the united armies of Poland-Lithuania managed to defeat them. They did retain their holdings in what would become East Prussia, eventually forming the miltary power that would create modern Germany and inflict 2 world wars and the Holocaust on the world. Not the wisest decision to invite the Order, with 800 years hindsight.

Gdansk itself, it's famous for being the place which, by being bombed by the German, was where WWII started. More recently, it was the home of Solidarity, the movement that eventually brought down communism in Eastern Europe. As a striking labour movement in the 70s and 80s, they managed to bring about talks between themselves, the Church and the Communist Party that brougt about the first free election. Seeing as Gorbi in Russia wasn't going to continue driving tanks over people for this kind of behaviour, the election took place. The Communists won zero seats. Having proven their popularity in open competition, the Communist powers of Eastern Europe had to then watch a chain of events sweep over the continent and end the Cold War in less than 18 months.

Krakow is one of the more fortunate tales of World War 2. They managed to not have the large scale destruction inflicted on every other city in Poland, and it's old town and castle are still very much intact, with the restorations not being as obviously new as in other places. It's also, as a result, more of a backpacker haven, and I'm speaking more English to more people than I have in a week. I'm also drinking alot more beer and seeing the nightlife. There is also a Lenonardo painting here, which is of a noble woman holding some kind of ferret. Funny bloke, that da Vinci fella.

The main drawcard here, however, is Auschwitz. Having seen the monuments to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in that city, you get a feeling for just how hopless the plight of the Jews, Gypsies and other undesirables were at the time. The concentration camps take this to a whole new level. Never before in human history has Genocide been carried out on such an industrial scale before. It was truly a horrible crime to fit the age that spawned it. Justified by pseudo science and the twisting of big, philosophical ideas, it's hard to imagine how this happened, especially seeing as many of the survivors are still here. These were not the actions of derranged medieval lords, but of people of just the last century. You just don't get the scale of the thing until you see the rooms filled with shoes, clothes, fake limbs and get told that that is 1% of the shoes from the people that were killed in the short duration of 5 years. Only through cold hearted efficiency and division of labour could approx 2m people be killed in that one place.

I think it's a place everyone should go. If nothing else, it's a reminder of just how much evil, we as a race, can come to commit. It screams at us not to do it again. How much worse would the first genocide of the Information Age be? We can now see the double helix that makes us what we are, and are toying with the ability to change these genes. As scientists agree that race is nothing but a combination of chemicals in our DNA, how much tweaking can we do before we wipe out the characteristics of entire races through selective manipulation. We have to be so much more careful.

The news of the death of the cheif British prosecutor at the Nazi war crimes trials, Sir Hartley Shawcross, is also quite timely. In the aftermath of the largest, most horrible war ever perpetuated on mankind, the man making the case against the ringleaders insisted on trials based on international laws the Nazis had broken, rather than a kangaroo court of victor's justice. How then, can Mr Bush and co be talking about holding closed, military tribunals to "try" terrorist suspects they have just spent the last 18 months kept in cages in Cuba? The World Trade was a tragedy, but in comparison to the horror of World War II, it was nothing. Why can we just suspend internation law and civil liberties now, when they wouldn't stand for it back then?

I've found Poland a good way to start my brain working again. I think I'd let it shut down a little after Russia and in Berlin, I guess I was just a bit tired. I'm enjoying the fact that most people I'm meeting, both locals and travelers are open minded and want to have deep discussions about things like politics, history and the like. I admit, conversations with Austrians at 4 in the morning about right wing politics and the EU expansion may not change the world, especially when it's on top of several (very cheap I might add) beers, but it's good fun. And I'm learning alot.

Poland has also been good on the wallet too. After Scanders, and to some extent Russia, this week has seen a severe loosening of monetary policy on my part. You can cross the whole country for 12 pounds. You can't even get on a train for 12 pounds in Germany. I made the startling discovery in Berlin that I'd lost 10kg since April (and those who know, I was pretty skinny to start with) so all the stodgy, cheap food and beer is probably good for me. I feel alot better too.

Right, next I'm off to the mountain border with Slovakia to do my first ever on-foot border crossing. It's a bit harder in Australia. New Zealand is a hell of a swin.

Berlin part the second


Berlin :: Germany

The bit after Love Parade.

Places: Berlin

Coolest thing I did: Bask in the warming glow of what may be a dying tradition of dance culture.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Leonardo Da Vinci only painted 27 artworks in his entire life. I guess he spent too much time inventing aeroplanes and open heart surgery and whatnot.

I know I don't usually do direct narratives of what I've been up to, it makes far more sense this time.

After a fairly lazy day on Friday (which mostly involved sleeping in the sun) I met up with my former flatmate Lisa and her pals. For those who know Ms Halverson, she's just the right kind of person you want on an outing like this, and the group she brought with her (one having touched down in London from Australia the day before, talk about dedicated) were more of the same, fun loving kind. We had an easy Friday night's bar crawling in the current hipness of Friedrichsshain, which included a clothes shop who were giving cheap haircuts on couches on the footpath out front, and tex-mex resteraunts with Middle Eastern hookah pipes as a crowd drawing tool. We also made it back into town to sit in the bar on top of Tacheles, a bombed out department store turned art commune, where they project things onto the blank wall the bar looks out onto.

Well, so what about the Love Parade itself? Whilst it didn't feel it, the papers today are saying that about 500,000 people attended the street party this year, which is the minimum sponsors needed for the thing to break even. The peak of the crowd was also much earlier than previous years, but this may have had alot to do with the periodic outbreaks of rain throughout the afternoon. You also notice that the crowd, whilst most top heavy with 20 somethings, contained far more people in their 30s and 40s than in the under 20 crowd that must have dominated the event when it was reaching peaks of 1.5 million people in the late 90s. Add to that most of the people in outrageous or little clothing belonged to the older set (my generation are just plain too cool/uptight for that kind of thing) and you get the feeling that techno listening crowd are getting older, without the younger blood coming in to boost it up. More on this later.

The event itself probably benefited from the smaller crowd. The crowd pack themselves into the stretch of road from the Brandenburg Gate to the Victory Column in the Tiergarten, where mobile sound stages wheel their way back and forth down the street, each playing a different style of music and sponsored by a different club. The crowd seemed to be more made up of revelers and less of curious tourists that I expected, so it made for more of a spirit of community, as if everyone was there for the same reason. And there is very little like 500,000 people all having a good time together.

The aforementioned rain didn't bother us one bit. With that many people in such a small area, the downpoor cooled everyone off, which was most welcomed. There was also the added ritual of thousands of people raising their hands and turning towards the sunlight as the sun finally broke through the clouds. A special moment.

After a bit of a rest back at the hostel of my comrades, we moved on to the Tresor club in downtown Berlin, apparently the birthplace of Techno (though I'm sure I've been to at least three "birthplace(s) of Techno" by now...) for the afterparty. I was initially sceptical that somewhere that big could fill up, especially since we showed up just after the street parade officially ended. However, within probably an hour of our arrival, the three levels plus outdoor garden was packed to the brim. The party continued well on into the daylight, and it's here that you got to feel the international flavour the event still has. I'd seen Polish flags around all day (one of the few nationalities who felt it was necessary to openly show national pride at an event like this), so was not surprised to meet a few. I met lots of people from Central and Western Europe, plus quite a few of the ususal suspects (Aussies, Kiwis and Saffirs). Despite the heavy presence of the Poles, there seemed to be no real other representation from those who once dwelt behind the Iron Curtain. This may have been the small sample I met, but I would have expected at least a few Czechs or Slovaks, being so close.

Don't let the slightly negative undertone of this let you think for a second that I had anything less than an absolute ball. The 24 plus hours I was awake for the event and afterparty did require me to sleep for close to all of Sunday, but I enjoyed every waking moment. Thanks to the five who traipsed over from London for making it that much better.

I have to say, however, that this event, whilst it will still continue for some years yet, may be falling prey to an aging fan base for it's key component, Techno music. Having watched many of the superclubs in London change their style of music or close their doors more nights a week over the last three years, you got the feeling that Techno was dying in the UK. Whilst this wasn't necessarily indicative of what was going on on the Continent, you still got the feeling the kids just weren't that interested. However, with the size of this, the musical form's premier event, shrinking with each year, you wonder how long the older diehards will be able to keep it going. As the charts are now filled with pop that's basically watered down hip hop, not even containing the irritating eurodance rubbish that got the kids hooked on the Techo scene in the first place, you wonder where the next generation of Love Paraders are coming from.

Or maybe this is a good thing. Perhaps the lack of commercial interest in the future will help the parade get back to it's roots. If all this started with a hardcore of 150 people dancing through Berlin way back in 1989, perhaps a smaller, more dedicated group can resurect it. It's a unique event, and one I'm glad I've seen. Even if you aren't into the electronic music scene (which I admit to being fairly ambivalent about), it's an event well worth checking out.

So, I picked up my Czech visa this morning, and bought my train ticket to Warsaw for tomorrow. I've taken up Mike's floor for long enough and it's time to get back on the road.

As a final note (which just came to me) The Czech embassy in Berlin was the most co-operative I've ever had to deal with. Friendly staff, forms with pens to fill them out and glue sticks to put your passport photo on them, explanations of the forms in 8 different languages and a clear price list and policy on how long the visa would take to process (mine was even ready a day early). After dealing with several nightmare embassies in London, this is a refreshing change. Then again, London can do that to anyone.

Berlin part the first


Berlin :: Germany

The bit before Love Parade.

Places: Helsinki, Rostock & Berlin

Coolest thing I did: Went drinking in a converted squat where the beers were 1 euro a pop and there was free pool and table soccer.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The British weren't the only archelogical gold diggers of the early 1900s. The Germans have the other half of Greece and Mesopotamia that isn't in the British Museum.

I have to warn you at this point, I may start on like a gushinig school girl at this point, but man, I do so love this city.

Thanks to the always sharp forethought of Joerg in Muenster, I'm being put up and shown the better parts of the city by his (and now my) friend Mike. After a 40 odd hour train, bus, ferry, bus and train ride from St Petes to Berlin, he was more than welcoming to a complete stranger from some remote island in the South Pacific. As a rickshaw driver by trade he's given me a ride around town to show me the things I should be looking at, including the hotel where I was supposed to show up dressed like Robbie Williams so the girls waiting outside would mob me. This, however, didn't come off without a hitch.

Going out with him and his people is also a different experience. Much of what was close to the Eastern side of the Wall was almost immediately taken over by West Berliner squatters, as it was lying dormant due to issues with East Germany having no money. Thanks also to laws that favour squatters over landlords, it was also quite hard to throw these people out. These areas, in the past decade or so, have become increasingly more gentrified, letting outsiders like me have a peek into the cheap bars and pubs hidden behind the grafitti tagged doorways. There is also an outdoor art gallery (The East Side Gallery) located inside (and on) the largest remaining section of the Wall nearby. They are currently showing an excellent display of sand sculpture. I now really, really want to know how they keep the things from falling appart or washing away in the rain.

I spoke alot about the history of Berlin last time, so I won't repeat it here. I've been far more interested in the after effects of the last century on this place, rather than the causes.

The Norman-Foster-does-the-19th-century restyling of the Reichstag building has to rate as one of the best symbols of the new Berlin and of architecture as art. You can only go up to the new glass dome, but this is one of hte highlights of the city. As you walk up the twin helix ramps that wind to the top of the dome itself, you can watch yourself reflected in the multiple, mirrored surfaces lining what can only be described as the apple core that holds the thing up. The fact that the original outer walls have been retained despite the high tech interior only adds to the building's charm. If they can churn out more like this, instead of the new concrete and glass monstrosities next door, the new face of the city will be far more attractive.

Due to it's freak postition between the two Berlin's, Potsdamer Platz was left untouched since the Second World War. This was one of the first places to get massive construction in the 90s, and I'm quite impressed by the results. The highrise of the Sony, Daimler and DB buildings are awe inspiring, and laymen like me can only guess at how such structures of glass and steel cables are made to not topple over. I was also willing to waste quite a bit of time playing with Sonys latest toys in the multi-story Style shop. All, all those shiny things I can't quite afford.

The art galleries here are a welcome change from the over whelming size of those you'd find in Paris or Florence. About an hour and a halfs worth of 13th to 18th century masterpieces, without the millions of unknown (to me at least) pieces you'd have to trudge past to see them elsewhere. A few Michelangelos, some Rubens and a fist full of Rembrants. Perfect. Lourve, take note. The Pergaomon Museum, my other big cultural foray, is testemant to the level of archelogical theivery Europe embarked upon during the 19th century. Entire buildings excavated from Pergamon in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and large sections of Babylon (including the entire Ishtar gate) are all on display in the middle of Berlin. Whilst I don't doubt the scholarship and knowledge these finds have given us, or that the Ottoman Empire probably wasn't the best guardian of the culture of their subjects, but the level of imperial arrogance shown by relocating so much of this stuff to Europe would give George Bush pause. I think it's probably time that Elgin lost his marbles, possibly back in Greece where they belong.

Ok, rant over.

I mentioned in Estonia that the urban ruins from the Soviet era were quite something else, but Berlin takes this up another notch. Artists have taken over quite a bit of the bombed out ruins of WW2 that neither side had the money to fix. Besides the Wall itself, the most impressive is the way the last remaining wall of a department store has been turned into a gallery/cafe/bar right in the middle of town. Whilst it lacks the edge of some of the up and coming squats in the former East, the large scale (and mostly illegal) reconstruction of the last open wall shows just what's possible if you put your mind to it. It's the contrast between these places and the inhuman glass faces of Potsdamer Platz that gives this place it's unqiueness.

Whilst I feel the 90s were probably the time to watch vast changes overtake this once divided city, it's still and exciting place to be. You can see the natural progression as former derilict sections move to squats, bohemia, trendiness, yuppification and finally staleness before your eyes. As that unnatural barrier came down, both halves of the city have moved very rapidly to reclaim each other, and it's that bit closest to the edge that's more interesting. Give it another decade and this may well have changed.

So, I've been going pretty easy since I got here, having alot of sleep (very necessary after you lunatics punished me so much in Russia! Yes, you know who you are), staying off the beers and eating vegetables and things. I have a feeling I'm going to need all the rest I can get before this place turns into a lunatic asylum tomorrow. For what? Just this. See you on the flipside.

Borsch!


St Petersburg :: Russia

As my comrades Russia with hammers and sicles.

Places: St Petersburg, Novgorad, Metz, Moscow, Kostroma, Oxtrino & St Petersburg

Coolest thing I did: Embark on a night big enough to have both KFC for breakfast and return to the hotel at about 7am.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: St Patrick wasn't Irish. He's from the Isle of Mann (yeah, offtopic I know...)

I'd have to say that the last two weeks in Russia have been both the most draininig and most rewarding of my travels to date. Even though the good people at Beetroot have been ferrying me around between St Pete's and Moscow, the average Russian speaks not a word of English, and even my regular pantomime confuses more situations that it clears up. Myself and Carl from England had the women at the supermarket in stitches just paying for vodka.

The people here are like no one else I've met. Due to the extreme crapness of the weather most of the year, and the violent Shakepearean tragedy that is the last 1100 years of Russian history, people are conditioned to not smile, queue, or quite often even register your existance on the street or in shops. Having said that, the second you've toasted a vodka shot to someone's health, you've suddenly got a friend for life. They like nothing better than to tell you how good and bad their country is at the same time, a strage mix of pride and shame. You get the feeling that everything is very black and white here. People are either in adject misery or having the time of their lives. It makes them pretty intense to be around.

For some reason, everytime I encounter a babuska (grandma) in a head scarf she feels it's necessary to yell at me in Russian, despite the fact it's obvious I can't understand her. I'm getting used to it.

As for cities, I'll start where I did, St Petes. It's nothing at all like the rest of Russia. This is due to a few things. When Peter the Great founded it, it was roughly at the same time as Paris had it's big surge during the Enlightenment. So, while Paris (which is a similar style) had to build on top of a century of cruft, St Petes was a start from scratch. Wide streets, baroque and neo classical buildings mixed in with traditional Russian Orthadox cathederals. The Winter Palace, built in a similar style to Versailes in France makes it look like it was a pretty humble undertaking. The adjoining Hermatage art gallery also seemed to have gotten a job lot on Picassos, Matisses and Cezanes. This place was the capital of Russia at the very height of it's Tsarist power, and it shows it, especially since it was all restored for the 300th aniversary of it's founding this year. It's the cultural capital, where the poets, novelists and composers you've heard of come from. This shows in the snobbish attitude they give to the Moscivites. Thanks to the Soviets deciding to move the capital back to Moscow, it was left to rot, rather than destroyed, saving it from the other capitals fate.

My favorites. The Church of the Spilt blood is one of those ice cream cone topped Russian cathederals, perfectly restored after WW2 and the site of the assasination of Tsar Alexander 2. His son ordered it built, the Nazis failed to bomb it and the Soviets left it to rot. As a result, it's was in pristine condition when they restored it last year. I also liked the site of Rasputins death. A Siberian mystic whose influence allowed him to practically control the Tsarina (the Tsars missus) and as a result, was killed by some nobles. It took 5 times the human tolerance of cyanide, 2 bullets, 1 stabbing and throwing him into the icy river to kill him. When they found the body, he was frozen into a position like he was trying to swim to freedom. Way cool huh?

The nightlife is far less scary than Moscow. The tour group started out for a couple of innocent beers with dinner and ended up in a night involving much vodka, including a round bought at the icecream parlor, one couple riding home on horses, a club called Money Honey, missing all the metro closings and openings, KFC for breakfast and a 7am bedtime. My memory is a bit foggy on the details.

Moscow is in very stark contrast to St Petes. If the latter is the cultural heart of the country, the former is the cold heart of it's industry. Having been raised to the ground by the Mongols, Tartars, Poles, French, Germans, it entered the Soviet era as the new capital. Stalin, being Stalin, decided to knock down most of the surviving buildings and turn it into a Soviet paridise. Somehow, he had a bad taste in architects and we ended up with Metro stations built like the inside of cathederals (a most impressive sight) and streets lined with the ugliest, grey concrete monstrosities man has ever devised. The Kremlin has been left well enough alone, but the decay in the cathederals inside shows. The most famous landmark, St Basil's (Bazzas for short) is even now under reconstruction, however it managed to survive Stalin's 'lets blow all the churches up' plan. Red Square is the momument you expected, but there's not much history left besides that. The fact that the best examples of Soviet construction now ring the city (the Ghostbusters style Seven Sisters skyscrapers) casts a gloom over the entire place.

However, the Moscivites are a hardier stock than the St Petersburgers. I admit, it's kind of worrying you have to get buzzed through metal detectors to go into bars and clubs, thanks to the heavy presence of the Russian Mafia (all those blacked out Mercs in a place where everyone drives Ladas from the 70s is a giveaway), the locals here go a bit more nuts than their counterparts up North. They do, however, close their Mc Donaldses before 4am in the centre, commercial suicide in Sydney.

The inbetween bits are a bit of a mix. The decay in the monestaries shows, and the wooden houses with sunken foundations that people still live in show who takes it in the pants when it comes to the low average wage. The forrest that used to cover European Russia is now mostly built over with the remenants of the Soviet's failed industrialisation plans, big ugly factories and smokestacks to the horizons. However, beer costs 24p a bottle and vodka a stupid 2 pounds. The results when we were left in a summer riverside camp, after a sauna or three, involved wrestling, nudity, toasts to nipple tassles and jelly wrestling and skinny dipping. Again, details are foggy.

Russia has impressed me. It's been one of those big unknowns when I've been trying to figure out all the other bits of European history, and now the gear teeth are starting to come together. Lots of blokes with names like Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great make me wonder if the man on the street has a similar system 'hi, i'm Yuri the Landscape Gardener'. Ok, maybe not.

So tomorrow, I get on a train and begin a 2 day combo train, bus, ferry, train ride back to Berlin. Visa and timing issues mean it's time for me to go the long way around the baltics. I would have liked to see Latvia and Lithuania, but it's become impractical. Perhaps later.

Nokialand


Helsinki :: Finland

Where you can order coffee with a text message.

Places: Tallinn, Helsinki, Imatra & Helsinki

Coolest thing I did: Had a proper outdoor sauna and ended it with a swim in an icy lake.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The Finns managed to hold off the Soviet army with far less men for the entire cold war.

If Friday in Tallinn was about going to the many bars in town, Saturday night was all about going to the clubs. There are two big ones, one for the Russians who skip over the border for the weekend and one for the Estonians. The Russian one was a bit of a spectacle. It was moving along as you would expect and overly trendy Western club to, expect there were alot more blokes walking around in suits and leather jackets with no necks. Russian Mafia? Perhaps, or maybe just blokes who want to be. Then, for no apparent reason, the music stops and there are contents, including watching two girls race through punch bowls of whiskey cola a shot glass at a time (these people are sick), and watching two sets of girls from the crowd race to undress each other with their teeth (watching the blokes do it was far less compeling for me). The Estonian one was like the first without the strange contests, but the people there are much friendlier. This may not bode well for the comming couple of weeks in Russia.

Helsinki was a return to the well designed, clean future of Scanders. I think because of the influence of Nokia in just about everything here, the Finns are far more technologically outgoing than their other Nordic mates. There are far more cutting edge trendy cafes and bars here and most of them are full of people who look like they mugged people comming off the Matrix set for their clothes.
I have just witnessed a girl order a coffee by smsing the bar, which I think may be a step too far. However, it does seem sensible that you can pre-order practically anything with your mobile and just punch a code into the ticket machine at the station instead of lining up. Quite clever these people.

The Russian influence on Finland is quite visible in Helsinki. As it's only been a serious town since late into the Swedish rule and the early Russian one, alot of the town is modelled on St Petes (the city, not the Vatican). There are baroque buildings surrounding squares overlooked by Eastern Orthadox cathederals, and I've read that some B grade movie producers shoot Russian scenes here on the cheap (much like they will probably do in Morocco now the Muslims are the bad guys for hollywood). They haven't decided (which seems to be the norm with recently freed people) to drag over all the Russian monuments, and statues of Alexander 2 (the Czar) and the Russian imperial eagle (which has two heads) still adorn the main market squares. I think there is something to be said for leaving such things intact for histories sake, however, I come from a country that hasn't had to fight for it's independance (hell we just had to vote and we couldn't even do that right) so I probably don't know.

I took a night out from cities, as I was getting serious church/castle/bloke on horse lag and went out to a place called Imatra. There isn't much there, but the youth hostel is perched on the side of one of those idylic Finnish lakes you see in tourist brochures. This gave me alot of time to myself, and to do some deep thinking, which has helped alot. I was getting a bit harried about organising everything to do with getting to and from Russia, and I feel a whole lot more relaxed. A lot of that has to do with the sauna. The had a proper pine wood sauna on stilts over the edge of the lake, so you sit inside, breathing in stupidly hot, pine soaked air until you've built up a permenant sweat. Then it's right outside to plunge into the icy lake (12 degrees, a bit warm they said!) where you get a feeling of invigoration you're not likely to get elsewhere. I was quite breathtaken by the view, which was a mirror perfect lake, the sun still over the horizon at 10pm, it's red glow contrasting with the dark pines ringing the lake. This feeling of contentment lasts until you realise your feet are getting very numb and it's time to get back into the sauna. Whilst another one go was enough for me, the Finns like to go back in and out all day.

I've found out I'll be in Russia right when the start of the mid-summer festival starts. Whilst it's not a big deal over the border, it's the biggest day of the year for Scanders. They were already piling up wood on floating pyres to burn over the lake on Friday night. Apparently, all over Scanders people abandon the cities and go out for a nearly pagan renewal with nature. For so few people (24m in all the Nordic countries) to have so much beautiful scenery, it's little wonder they hold on to their nature worship. Kind of like Australians in a way, except we only worship the sun and sea.

I got talking to an older bloke standing by the lake about things and he asked how long I had been out of the army. He was taken aback that we have no national service at all, which seems inconceivable to a country that's been the buffer against the USSR since the end of the second world war. I just told he we didn't have much of an army because we had no one to fight (despite what Johny Howard seems to think, man, did he miss a good oppertunity to shut up when the Iraq war was on). He told me the province we were standing in (the Eastern lakes of Finland) is about 2 thirds in Russia, the bit they managed to take during the second world war. What had happened was due to the pact made between Stalin and Hitler (two of the most un-top blokes that ever lived), Finland would go to the USSR if the Germans could have Poland. Thanks to the "Allies" watching things in Eastern Europe without doing anything, the Finns had to fight a winter war with the Red Army to save their homeland. Vastly outnumbered, fighting in feet of snow with bad equipment, the Finns held most of their country for the entire duration of the European campaign and maintained a buffer with Sweden over the whole cold war. This old bloke was quite proud of this, even though Finns don't strike me as chest beating jingoists. He mentioned his wife's family come from the part that's now in Russia and they recently went back to see the house where here mother grew up. These are people of about 55-60, so we're not talking ancient history here. It reminds you just how mad the world had become last century.

So, off to St Pete's tomorrow. I've been getting tips from a couple of Aussie blokes who just got off the trans-siberian from China and have just been where I'm going. The stories of bad services and theivery are everywhere, so I'm a bit more cautious than I probably would have been. We shall see.

It's just like an Estonian disco


Tallinn :: Estonia

What it's like in the former Soviet Union.

Places: Tallinn

Coolest thing I did: Decided to have a night out without scrimping and saving.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: People here think I'm poor because I drink beer. Being flashy is very important in Eastern Europe. I even heard kids refering to their big cubic zirconia medallions as "blingers".

Estonia has taken me by surprise. I decided to come to Tallinn because it takes the same amount of time on the ferry to get to as Helsinki and I needed to get out for a cheap weekend. Scanders is nice, but it was getting on my nerves having to live like such a pov just to eat properly, let alone go out.

The first thing that strikes you about Tallinn is it's far closer to Sweden culturaly than to Russia, despite the fact it's been nominally ruled from there on and off for the last few hundred years. The old town of Tallinn has been restored to it's Medieval past, which is nice but somewhat fake. Eating out here (which I can afford to do) involves alot of people being dressed in Ye Olde clothes and serving things in gobblets and sword fighting and whatnot. It feels a bit like being in Medieval Estonia Land rather than a living city. It's only once you get out past the walls into the newer bits that the recent past is more evident. On the walk to the bus or train station, you see the same kind of ultra modern buildings that are going up all over Berlin mixed in with the ruins of the former Communist Bloc. Around the stations, you have people selling things at the local markets, which involves alot of bearded, head scarfed old women fighting over the price of cooking oil. It's definetly not there for the tourists.

I'm quite fascinated by the concept of modern ruins at the moment. Like Berlin, the locals here seem quite content to let the old Soviet edifices go into decline, trying to block that part of their history from their collective memories. My favorite is the ferry terminal for shorter hops. It's a big pyramid of steps, much like an Aztec step pyramid, except made out of grey concrete. As only a small part of it is still used, the rest is going into decline, with the steps cracked and alot of grass growing in the cracks. In stark contrast to the ruins of Central America, this was built within even my parents lifetime. It's amazing how quickly things go into decline if you want them to.

It's bizzare to see the contrasts of what's left here. The new parliament building is composed on 3 sides with a 12th century Danish Fortress, which is across the road from a North German style church spire and Russian Orthadox Cathederal. All this overlooks the train station, with it's decrepit trains and flaking paint, which could only have come from a Sovient architect's pencil.

The best thing about Tallinn, however, is the nightlife. In a bizzare mix of locals (yes, they do go out in the old town) and Russian weekenders I've finally found somewhere that my Australian accent actually sounds exotic. The drink prices are about half of what you'd pay in London, the girls are beautiful and the blokes friendly. Like most of Europe, nothing gets properly started until midnight, when all of a sudden everything starts to pump. I was adopted by some English Navy blokes on leave here, who had scouted things out the night before. There is no end of trouble to get into here. Being so far north, the sun was well up by the time I found myself knocking on the hostel door at probably the brightest 5am I've ever witnessed. No being able to rouse the owner, I did get one of the blokes alseep in my room to wake up and open up the window. Which was nice.

I was also promised that Riga in Latvia is a bigger city and thus goes 24 hours on weekends. In a mad dash on my way back from Russia, I may be able to get a Saturday night out there. I've decided to try and get into Poland as quickly as possible after Russia (as my visa there is pretty tight), and the research over the last days seems to indicate it will take a train, ferry and bus to get there from St Petes. A night out on the way will probably do me good.

Let's Sweden the deal


Stockholm :: Sweden

Sorry.

Places: Stockholm

Coolest thing I did: Got all the tips on how to finance an entire winter snowboarding in Austria from a bloke I met in the hostel.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Lego now has licencees. There are nba legos with little men with lego afros and goatees in one of the shop windows here.

Stockholm is a funny place. In the whole time I've been staying in the hostel, the most regular conversation I have with anyone is "what did you do today" and the usual answer is wander around a bit. For a city that is basically a whole lot of baroque buildings perched on an archipelago of close islands there isn't a whole lot of notable tourist things to do. Which I'm quite liking after the whirlwind of Norway, I don't feel an overwhelming feeling like I have to go and see everything, that I can just relax a bit and watch life go by. This would be an even better place to do it if the weather wasn't as bad as it is. A pity.

The city itself, the new one, seems to have faced a whole lot of engineering/architectural issues due to the fact that it's sitting on a pretty uneven lump of rock. The whole thing is an escher painting of overhead walkways, roadways, raised platforms and stairways that are wider at the bottom than at the top. It could be a nice effect, but for some reason most of it seems to have been inspired by late soviet architecture. The main square (Sergels Torg) for example, has a massive, ugly concrete edifice in the middle of it that wouldn't look out of place in from of Stasi headquarters in the early 60s. It seems that alot of the stuff built this century takes away from the effect of the good work done all around it in the two previous centuries, with churches and opera houses overshadowed by big ugly concrete buildings looking like from star trek.

Which is strange, for a country so renowned for it's skill in design. Whilst there is a whole floor of the national museum here dedicated to the subject of modern design (and you would be surprised at the number of modern mass produced icons that were designed in Scanders), probably the best thing about Swedish design is it's godfather, Carl Larsson. I saw some of his paintings in Gottenberg, but the murals he painted on the walls of the museum here show his true skills. His most famous work is his pictures of his house and family done when they were all still very young at the end of the 19th ceuntury. His missus (who was a bit of a babe, judging from the paintings) had done some inovative work on the interior design and furniture of the house, captured by Carl's paintings. This did (and still does) inspire much of Swedens modern interior design. Quite cool, seeing as no one would have ever seen it if it wasn't for her famous artist hubby.

I did also see the palace, which didn't inspire me a whole lot (all these northern European palaces all seem to be lesser copies of Versailles), it did fill in the gaps I have on Nordic history. Apparently, after the Scanders powers lost prestige at the end of the Viking days, they faced become puppet states of the Hanseatic League, a kind of political corporation that controled the city councils of many of the Baltic and North Sea ports. So the Queen of Denmark got all three kingoms (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) to become one country. This lasted for a couple of hundred years, then the Swedes tried to rebel for some reason no one seems to talk about. The Danes put this rebellion down rather harshly, causing the Swedes to all rise up, and claim independence. Then during the 30 years war, the Swedes (joining the Catholics) handed out a sound arse whipping to the Danes (who were Prots) and kicked them off the peninsula. Then the Swedes got a bit big for their britches a hundred years later and decided to take on the Russians. Europhile and general renaissance man, Tsar Peter the Great didn't take kindly to this. He'd just finished dishing out arse whippings of his own to Poland-Lithuania in the Ukraine and decided to smack the Swedes off Continental Europe. After taking the Baltic states from Sweden, he founded St Peterberg on a swamp. More on this when I go there. The Russians then dished out yet another arse whipping to the Swedes in the early 19th century and took Finland from them. The Swedes did manage to kick the Danes again and take Norway from them. The Noweigens apparently liked the Danes better, and tried to rebel. The Swedish army did a bit of harsh rebellion crushing of their own. Norway finally got it's independence in 1905 and then asked the king of Denmark to be their king, kind of a last spit in the eye of the Swedes. This may explain why then didn't mind losing to them in the soccer. It's funny how ancient fueds all come up in the soccer in Europe.

Speaking of Denmark, the Danish embassy here has big lego men in the window. This reminded me that despite it's proximity to Copenhagen, I didn't visit Legoland. When I was a kid, lego was my favorite toy (as the mound of lego festering in my parents garage somewhere will attest to). I remember going to lego exhibitions in Sydney to see mermaids and whatnot made out of lego touring the world, apparently all made in a magical place called Legoland. I probably wouldn't have got such a kick out of it now, as my appreciation for artistic works in the medium of lego has tapered off somewhat (sorry, for some reason I'm preoccupied with the idea of lego as a valid artistic medium. Very few people seem to agree with me that it is).

At the end of the day, Stockholm is a big city in a region of Europe where it's best attractions are it's natural ones. I like it here, but having to choose, I would take Copenhagen any day. I think more because it's less unwieldy. The fact you can pick up free bicycle and just ride around Copenhagen means nothing is too far (even the wee mermaid), where as the 4 islands you have to traverse to get around central Stockholm make even public transport a pain. Like I said, it's forced me to take things easy and relax a bit, which has been good for me. And we get a whole 4 hours of darkness here a night, so I'm sleeping better.

Right, I'm off to catch a ferry to Estonia, this trip's first dip beyond the Iron Curtain and the cheap beer that lies behind it.