Dingaling, hear them ring. Soon it will be Christmas day

Sorry for the delay between posts...been a busy couple weeks. Sorry, ladies of Sir Wil (I'm told I have a fanbase there).

Budapest was great. It's a very big city, so getting around is slightly trickier than some of the smaller cities I'd just been to, but I managed. I'd heard really good things about a hostel in Budapest (from a guy who had tattooed its name on his ass – I had to at least check it out), so I gave it a try. It was definitely the friendliest hostel I've ever stayed at, with everybody knowing eachother's name, and a very social atmosphere. We went out on small pub crawl every night, which was a good way to see the nightlife, even if some of the bars were kinda crappy. The only downside was that about 95% of the hostel guests were Aussies (I'm telling you, there's none left in Australia) and younger than me, so I felt like a bit of an outsider. Nonetheless, it was a great time. One night at the pubs, I was wearing my Oakland A's ball cap and a couple Hungarian guys game up to me and told me they were the “Hungarian Baseball Freaks”. I quickly discerned this meant they just really liked baseball and wanted to talk to me about it. I haven't followed pro ball in years, but I gave it my best since they were buying the beers. I think they appreciated it. At some point on this night I also met Alice the Kiwi, another backpacker staying at a sister hostel. She said she was heading to Prague on Sunday, and that had been my rough plan too, so we decided to head there together. I met some really cool people in Budapest, and I'm very glad I went.

So, Sunday morning Alice and I met up and caught the bus to Prague, which was long but pretty comfortable. We explored the city by foot the first couple days, taking in the Christmas markets, their elaborate bridge (name escapes me), the castle, and pretty much everything in between. Our second night there we met up with my South African friends, Marcel and Anton for a pub crawl along with a couple other people from our hostel. I'd been hearing whispers of this particular pub crawl since getting to Eastern Europe. This pub crawl's claim to fame is that for the first two hours, you have unlimited access to beer, vodka, and absinthe. Yeah. Shit got messy. We weren't even in the second bar for 10 minutes before Alice said she wasn't feeling well, so I went upstairs with her for some air. As she was redecorating the side of the bar, I saw another of the girls from the hostel being thrown into a cab too, unconscious. I was feeling fine and wanted to keep pub crawling, but unfortunately responsible me took over and put Alice in the same cab and off we went back to the hostel. The cab driver dropped us off pretty far from our hostel, so I had to carry the passed-out one over my shoulder as her friend was freaking out and Alice was drunkenly screaming for an ambulance. Fun times! I had originally planned on going back to join the pub crawl once everybody was back home safe, but I was so worn out from lugging the girl around (she was dead weight...completely unconscious), that I decided I'd just call it a night. Unfortunately the next day the girls, who had left their jackets out in the common room overnight, both discovered large sums of cash missing from their pockets. It was a good reminder to be careful with your things in hostels, cause you never know.

Our final full day in Prague was fun, but chilly. We met up with the South Africans along with an Aussie (see?) from our hostel for a walking tour. This was a bit of a challenge since it was snowing hard – you've probably heard of the blizzards rocking Europe the last few days – and it was pretty cold out. To boot, the normal tour guide was sick so it was an office manager doing the tour, who was very rushed and didn't have the best grasp of English. He still had lots of interesting info to offer though, and it was cool to learn of all the different empires that have ruled Prague. Afterwords we made some dinner at the hostel and found the prague beer museum, which was really just a pub with a bunch of different beers. They weren't quite as good as the Belgian beers, but I'm now definitely a fan of the Czech beers.

The following day Alice and I parted ways and I headed for Berlin. Now there's a city for history buffs! I did another walking tour of Berlin and saw a bit of everything from the Brandenburg gate, to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the old Luftwaffe headquarters, and the hotel where MJ dangled his baby by its leg over the balcony. On the tour I met a couple cool people so we decided to meet up later for drinks. Unfortunately when we met up later I realised too late that they had a dance club in mind, not a pub. Fack! I went along with it, and actually had a decent time. It was a huge old warehouse that had been converted into a club with different styles of music on each floor. They had a rock floor, an electro floor (I'll never understand why they love techno so much), and a “blackmusic” floor. This turned out to be r&b and hip hop, but the name came off as a little politically incorrect. I mean I'm white (sorry for the shocker), and I enjoyed that floor more than the others...as did most people there from what I could tell. I dunno, just one of those cultural things I suppose.

The following day was awesome...I went to a hockey game! The Berlin Eisbaren (polar bears, but doesn't that sound cooler?) were playing Sunday afternoon, and I decided I'd been away from hockey too long. So I finally figured out how to get there (turns out it was literally right behind the club I'd been to the night before) and took off. While waiting in line at the box office, somebody came up to me and offered me a free ticket cause their friend had to cancel, so that was a bonus! I made sure to buy him a beer with some of my money saved. It was really fun being there. The quality of the hockey on the ice itself was kinda crappy compared to the NHL (or even OHL...but not Delage), but they make it lots of fun for everybody to draw the crowds. I was surprised to learn that the arena seats 15000 people, and they were just shy of being a capacity crowd – not bad for a Sunday afternoon. There were fireworks, lots of chanting, and singing. One thing I thought was really cool was when the announcer was announcing the home team line up, he would only say the player's first name and the entire crowd would should his last name back. There was even a Canadian in the line-up. Go Steve Walker! The Eisbaren ended up losing 2-1 in a shootout if you missed SportsCentre.

Ok, so I've been really slack on taking pictures (gimme a break, it's freezing out), and just as slack at posting them. So, here are some pictures from Amalfi, Venice, Prague, Budapest, and Berlin.

My Christmas plea:

I hope everybody has a very merry Christmas and get to spend it with the people they love. Being away from everybody I care about is going to be tough for me. It really makes me realise how much family and friends mean over the holidays, and how little everything else (gifts, money, etc) does. So I've got a favour to ask from you. Send me a Christmas email. Let me know how things are going with you. Do you have any questions about my trip? I'll write you back. How desperate does that all sound? I dunno, I'd just love to hear from everybody, so if you're reading this, drop me a line!