Jun 2008

As we rode the train up into the alpine region the small villages with May Poles soon gave way to a snow capped mountain vista. It was quite surreal to see green fields flashing by and in the background massive picture postcard mountains looming over us. The houses seemed to be built at the very base of these steep mountains and in danger of being swept away in a slightest land slide. I was later assured that this was merely an optical illusion and that in fact there aren't that many landslides...

We had four days in Innsbruck and thanks to Cousin Heidi we had a free place to stay in her friend Wolfgang's house, which was actually being rented/lent out to his friends Marcus and Nicole at the same time. This place was right in the middle of town and had an old charm to it (Emily just called it old). Our adopted hosts (Marcus and Nicole) were really kind to us and made us a fantastic breakfast on our first day and then an Italian feast that night. This was followed by an adventure across town to a concert under the rail way that was interesting. Think bjork meets rage against the machine meets arcade fire (it was just like the three 2008 Big Day Out headliners were on the stage together, only they were tone deaf). The lead singer could sing but choose to whine and scream randomly. We were informed that she had in fact lead another band that were quite successful in America but were more mainstream, she quit to concentrate on her true passion, making horrible noise! You go girl!

We waited until the dusty haze that had blown over from the Sahara had cleared before going up to the local mountain peak. This was all very convenient (but obscenely expensive for tight budgets) done by a series of cable cars running smoothly and effortlessly over the heads of climbers that had started many hours earlier on their tracks to the peak. As we ascended the views were amazing and got better with altitude. Once at the top of the cable we climbed to highest point feeling the air becoming thinner and your effort increasing with each step. It's hard to capture the view in a picture but check out the couple below.

The remainder of our time was spent checking out central cafe and taking stock of our journey so far, hardly believing that at every street corner you're faced with a beautiful mountains in the background.

After Prague we spent two nights in Munich and had a ball sampling the local beers at the various beer gardens - our favourites Augustinerkeller and Hofbrauhaus, the latter was also a popular hang out of Adolf Hitler's. After the war the owners had to paint the ceiling twice to cover the swastikas that had adorned the place (after the first coat they were still obvious). The beer hall also had a big vomit trough in the men's bathroom. Vomiting is an acceptable way to keep the party going, just not in the beer house as it will cost you a cool fifty Euros. Another idea which seemed very civilised to me but not so much to Emily was that in the old days there were drains running under tables for those who felt the need for relief. Very medieval.

We did learn a bit about May Poles though. Apparently they are everywhere in Bavaria (we saw heaps on our next train ride) and if one gets stolen from a village then in order to get it back the village has to throw a big party for the thieves and it will be returned.
This tradition caused bit of a furore not so long ago as the Munich Airport's May pole went missing (yes the airport at Munich is also a brewery). Rightfully so they were a little concerned that a 10 meter tall pole could go missing from a "secure" airport and so approached the police in confidence to see if the matter could be sorted out quietly to avoid media scrutiny. The police flat rejected this proposal as they were the thieves! They promptly informed the airport that the only way to get it back was to throw a party and the media would help ensure it happened. So the May pole was returned and the police got their booze up. I'm not sure if the story is true but we also heard that the May poles are also Bavarian "pick up" poles, if a young lad fancies a local lass then he would head out to the forest and cut down the biggest straightest tree, remove its branches and then stick it in the front lawn of the object of his affection's house in the middle of the night. In the morning if she likes the cut of his pole she'll come out and dance around it. Then you can take her on a first date! Too bad if it the wrong sister!

We also did a walking tour of the city that basically consisted of Churches and Beer halls/Beer gardens with the odd unremarkable memorial to those that suffered in the war. It was an expensive and strangely prosperous place with all that beer drinking and leather short wearing going on. We left early in the morning to avoid blowing our budget on beer again :P

Juilet statue, put a flower in her arms to be lucky in love

The Germans are so neat and tidy, this is a market stall

A May Pole

Emily excited as me to be in Hofbrauhaus

Mmmmm leather pants...

We left Krakow in a hurry as we had an 8.00am train to catch and half way to the station I realized I had left my ultraceticals cleanser at the hostel. I started cursing Prague – I had bought a brand new bottle for the trip and had convinced myself that it would last till Christmas when my mum could bring over further supplies. (Jeremy has failed to understand the gravity of this event).

Having been forced to buy a substandard cleanser called Bebe (its only saving grace is that it's manufactured by Johnson and Johnson) I jumped onto the train and started the journey from hell!

For those who haven't travelled on trains in Europe, let me explain the set up so you can truly feel our pain – you're put in a compartment with six seats and you're literally sitting on each other with little leg room and limited space for luggage. There is also a door to the compartment which Europeans seem to like closed so you literally feel like you're squeezed in like a can of sardines when the compartment is full.

We boarded the train and went in search of our seats and came upon a darkened compartment bearing our seat numbers and leeching the stench of stale alcohol and cigarettes. We found inside our compartment two drunken Poles who we hoped were at the end of a long night and would sleep through the rest of the journey. Unfortunately after we left the station and tried desperately to open a jammed window to release some excess alcohol vapour, for fear that a mobile call may spark an explosion, one of our companions un expectantly leant over and reached between Jez's legs to reclaim a can of beer, that was hidden under Jez' seat. His mate then cracked his own stubby and so the 7 hour binge began. These two drank non-stop for seven hours and by the end of the journey could barely stand upright - in fact one of them nearly fell on top of me as he was trying to grab his bag and instead hit his head on the window rest! They spoke only Polish and so luckily left us alone but they happily pestered the other passengers in our compartments with rambling stories that involved their mobile phones and its various ring tones or involved stroking people's faces. When they finally departed, the compartment took a communal sigh of relief (and enjoyed a fresh breathe of air).

Thankfully, things looked up once we exited the train station and we eventually found our hostel - Let's Go (get another guide book) gave us the wrong directions to our hostel sending us to the wrong side of the river! However, once we found our hostel I fell in love with the place, it was run by a pair of motherly czech ladies who made the most delicious dinners - czech goulash with potato dumplings yum!

Unfortunately, we weren't too keen on Prague itself, it has become too much of a tourist hot spot which made it really difficult to get around to see sights as you always ended up getting stuck in lines behind bus tours We think it's a small taste of the mayhem to come in Italy. That said Prague is a very beautiful city and we could see how it was a favourite of so many people. The old town with its cobbled streets and skyline of church steeples and palaces really made your realise you where in Europe. Once you get past the fact that it has been discovered by the mainstream and may have lost a little of its original cache it's a great city...

Emily and I also took a short trip out to a town called Kutna Hora. This town had a phillip morris cigarette factory (which was actually joined onto a massive church!?) but we were not there for smokes this town had a chapel decorated with bones (unrelated to phillip morris, but the result something with similar death counts). These bones were from the local victims of the plague. There were so many casualties and no room in the local cemetery that a "creative" monk decided the best thing to do with them would be to turn them into decorations. Personally I would have just built a new cemetery (in fact there was plenty of room over the back wall of the church. It wasn't so much fascinating as gruesome to see thousands of sculls stacked into pyramids and chandeliers made out of every bone in the body. It's hard to imagine what type of Christian mass would be held there. None the less it was interesting!

This poor bloke was just hanging there and no one would help him

We left Berlin after four days and it seemed like we left the warm weather, the killer euro and clean train toilets with it. I'll give it to the Germans, their cities and facilities are clean, organised and rather fancy in that cool European way so it was really obvious as the train hurtled towards Warsaw that we were heading towards an Eastern European country - even the German train conductor jumped off at the border maybe I should have taken this as an omen???Arriving at the Warsaw train station we were greeted by a group of drunken British men who were here as part of a stag night (supposedly this is quite common in Eastern Europe - they have such a bad reputation some places have banned them altogether.) Anyway, this bunch were wearing matching t-shirts with the English flag draped across the front, they also had nicknames printed on the back. I had the unfortunate experience of being wolf whistled by "sweet cheeks" while another of his mates struggled to cross the street with a pint in one hand - this was 2pm. I could see that Warsaw was going to be a tough place especially after Jez and I had to walk around the working girls that had marked their territory on the steps of the railway station.

Thinking that our hostel would be a refuge from the harsh reminders of communism, we arrived at Hostel Tamka and who were shaking up in a room next to us? Another group of British Stag boys, I could tell that this was going to be a long weekend. The place was revolting, words cannot describe the state of the toilets and showers, and needless to say I nearly passed out while trying to have a shower as someone had mistaken it for a toilet - perhaps one of the stag boys? The hostel was fully booked, which didn't help matters, unbeknownst to us a big break dancing comp was on so we were swamped with Russian versions of Ali G - it was scary believe me.

Because our hostel stay was turning into a nightmare we tried to spend as much time out and about so we visited the Uprising Museum which was pretty new and learnt more about the atrocities of the Nazi's and the Red Army after them. While in the Museum it started to rain, and didn't really stop after that. One of the interesting things about Poland is that the Government sponsors milk bars to provide cheap meals. This being exactly what we were after we decided to try it.

We finally found the one recommended to us and it was styled in communist minimalism. In trying to order we ended up with two of the same meal (and worried that there were another two of the other meal we thought we ordered on the way) one coffee, one hot chocolate and a cup of warm milk (we have no idea how we got the milk but it was nice!) Although it's no fault of Warsaw it is really a depressing looking town. It was all but completely destroyed in WWII and then was rebuilt by mad Russians. We were kind of glad to leave and after a lot of difficulty working out which train to catch (timetables had changed) we were on our way to Krakow, hoping that surely it would have to be soooooo much better than Warsaw and it was!

Krakow is a beautiful old city that amazingly survived unscathed from WWII and was also able to maintain its beautiful castles and churches under communism (no mean feat). We spent the first day exploring the old city, even though it was raining most of the time we managed to get around and soak up some local atmosphere with some pub grub. The next day we headed out on the public bus to visit Auschwitz- Birkenau.

It was an hour and a half drive out to the concentration camp and it rained the whole way - as we entered the museum we were invited to watch a 15 min film that was shot by the Red Army as they liberated the camp in 1945. The voice over was done by an English actor and the film was shocking in its matter of fact description of genocide. We saw children who had been victims of Nazi medical experiments, men and women who were being slowly starved to death, victims of torture and abuse. The film concluded with the announcer asking the rhetorical question whether the perpetrators of such crimes had gotten off too lightly? The film suddenly cut, the lights were back on and our tour guide was waiting for us.

The guide took us through the torture rooms, the extermination camps, crematoria and the work shops. We also saw what was left of those who did not make it to see the liberation of the camp -suitcases, shoes, spectacles, kilos upon kilos of women's hair - the sheer enormity of the holocaust came into focus and that of the twisted nature of the Nazis. The Nazis kept all these items and anything else of value that belonged to Holocaust victims – for example gold teeth and artificial limbs were collected and used to aid the war effort, hair was used to make blankets, the SS even used the ashes of holocaust victims as mulch for their gardens. Words cannot describe the horror that was unleashed in this place and as Jez and I walked along the train tracks - the same track that delivered millions of people, mostly Jews to their death, I couldn't shake the heaviness that surrounded this place. As we made our way to the gates which read, " Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work will set you free) I took one last look at Auschwitz and quickly jumped onto our bus and headed home.

The tower in Warsaw called Starlins Finger, strategically placed next to the model of consumerism McDonalds

Castle in Krakow and Emily singing in the rain

Auschwitz

Birkenau

Best meal yet at a weird little place called Kuchina U Babci Maliny