Dublin & Northern Ireland 11/11 - 11/23

It was refreshing to enter a new city & country and see the face of my good friend Charlie...especially in Dublin, Ireland.  We dominated Dublin and the northern part of Ireland for about 11 days of non stop fun.  We started off in Dublin with 3 nights and 2 full days, where we got a good snap shot of the city and the people that live in and around it.  We were lucky enough to have made friends with the bartender, Grace, at a great bar called "The Palace Bar."  The Palace Bar has some deep roots in the Irish literary scene.  Grace was gracious (haha) enough to show us around Dublin the following night which was a fantastic tour of Dublin and of course some great Irish pubs.  

Following Dublin, we boarded a train to Belfast where good family friends of Charlie's, Tom & Marie, picked us up and showed us around Belfast.  Belfast is known to most for the ongoing Roman Catholic vs. Protestant conflicts, but is also the place where the Titanic was built.  After Belfast, we then headed farther north to Tom & Marie's house in Derry, which was our home for the next 3 nights.  Tom gave us a wonderful tour of Derry as well as County Donegal over the next two days.  We had some beautiful weather, which lets us get some spectacular views of the northern most tip of Ireland.

From Derry, Me and Charlie boarded a bus to Galway, where Charlie got his first experience of staying in a hostel.  Galway is a great little town that is very rich in Irish tradition.  It is also a place where it can be sunny and blue skies one minute then pour down rain the next.  Off the coast of Galway are the Aran Islands, where we decided to visit for one day and night before the sideways rain drove us off the Island.  It was also on the island where I sought medical advice for my black tongue, which the doctor jokingly told me it was from drinking too much Guiness (actually from taking Pepto Bismal before I went to bed.  I was treated for a stomach virus.)  We rounded out our trip in Northern Ireland by returning to Dublin for a few more days mixed with history and fun.  Traditional Irish music can be heard seven days a week no matter what part of the country you are in and the style of music will vary every time as well.  This makes for a very addicting night life scene, but bring your wallet if you like to drink.  Just because Guiness and Jamison are produced locally does not mean that they are cheap.  The average pint of Guiness goodness will cost you about 5 euro, which is about $7.50 and a shot of Jamison is not far behind.  I cannot put a price on the memories though, but I can always make more money!  

I got pretty tired of the wind and rain, so I decided to book a flight to Malaga, the south of Spain where I started my trek around the Andalucia region of Spain in the sun! 

The three pics that are side by side from left to right are:  The rocky land of Inishmore Island, the largest of the Aran Islands.  The middle is the northern tip of County Donegal.  The right pic is where "Bloody Sunday" took place in Derry.  

The last pic on the bottom is of Charlie and I drinking a pint in the back room at the Palace Bar, I won't tell you what time it was!

Budapest, Hungry 11/8 - 11/11

I arrived in Budapest, with little knowledge of the city at all but ended up loving it! Unfortunately, it was the one time in my trip that I had a schedule to keep as I was meeting a friend in Dublin, Ireland and I could not extend my stay.  With my late evening flight, I had a little more than 3 days and it was not enough.  One of the main attractions to Budapest are the natural hot spring baths that are scattered around the area.  You can easily spend the better part of a day relaxing and taking advantage of the amenities at one of these baths, as I did.  After spending a nice relaxing day at the bath, I decided to go "caving", which was an evening trip just outside of the city.  I had not idea what I was getting into, but I was craving some adventure so I decided to check it out.  Like I said, I had no idea what I was getting into.  This adventure ended up being a 3 hour expedition of pretty intense crawling,wiggling and sweating through the tightest spaces I have ever been in to.  It is hard to explain through the blog.  I was so damn sore the next day, I almost went back to the baths!  Instead, I decided to walk it off and take in the city.  Budapest is actually two cities Buda and Pest, seperated by the Danube river.  I spent most of my time on the Pest side, but there is a beautiful castle on the Buda side.  Unfortunately, with the shortened daylight hours, I just ran out of time.  I may try to make it back to Budapest before my trip comes to an end.

Vienna, Austria 11/5 - 11/7

From Cesky Krumlov, I took a bus to Vienna, Austria, where I stayed for 3 nights.  Vienna was a nice city, but not a place that grabbed my attention, but still interesting to explore.  I decided to check out the Spanish Riding School on the first day with two other people that I met.  We caught a practice session, which is a school for white stallion horses.  The training session was enough to satisfy my curiosity.  After a long day of walking around, we decided to check out a few local establishments and naturally wondered into a place called the "Bier Factory."  This place happened to be home to the 2kg (approx. 4 lb.) hamburger, a challenge that we, me and 2 other guys, decided to take on and successfully conquer.  

Vienna had a nice open

 air market on Saturday, which was a great place to grab a cup of coffee to warm up as well as enjoy some people watching.  Another site that I enjoyed was seeing the Hunder

twasserhause, it has no historical reference, just an interesting building with unique architectural features.  From Vienna, I headed to Budapest, Hungry.

Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

Feeling the need to get out of the city, I heard good things about this small town called Cesky Krumlov, about 3 hours south of Prague by bus.  Small it may be, but it is awesome.  Things are a bit slow this time of year, but still a very cool place to visit and take in some great scenery.  They say that if you spend more than 3 days in CK, that you will spend 3 years, I can see how this can happen.  The English guy in the same room as me was there to meet an American friend of his who is in CK for two months on a grant to paint pictures, so we all met up that afternoon at the Eggenberg Brewery.  It was real nice to get a tour of the town from someone that has been there a while to see what the locals do and where they hang out.  What exactly they do is run the shops, I guess, where they hang out, I can give you better descriptions!  Krumlov Castle is closed for the season, but you can still wonder around parts of the castle and much of the surrounding gardens for free, probably what I would have done had the castle been open.  The food was quite good and more resonable than Prague.  I would love to make a return trip in the summer months to take advantage of the outdoor activities.   

The night shot is Krumlov Castle from down below in the town.  The guy leaning over the fire is cooking the food that we are eating in the picture below it, very good as you can imagine.

Prague, Czech Republic 10/28 - 11/03

Often referred to as the "Golden City", Prague was like Krackow on steroids.  A much bigger mid-evil city that was virtually untouched by WWI, very beautiful.  I arrived in Prague on 10/28 from Frankfurt by train and bus which offered great views from the windows.  Prague is a pretty popular destination in Europe, so the hostile was pretty crowed and lively, which made for some fun times.  What also made it fun was that my sister Angela meet me in Prague after her week of work in London for 3 days in Prague.  Prague is known quite well for the Prague Castle, which sits high upon a hill.  To get to the castle, you can cross a couple of bridges, but the most well known and used is the St. Charles Bridge.  The St. Charles Bridge has many statutes, street artist vendors and great views which make it a place that you can spend an endless amount of time at.  Me and Ang did a day trip from Prague to Kutna Hora for a change of scenery, where the  Cathedral of Our Lady, or Bone Church as it is called, is the main site to see.  The church has chandeliers, pyramids and sculptures made out of the bones of over 40,000 people, its pretty amazing, yet creepy at the same time.  The exchange rate also makes Prague a nice place to stay, it is pretty affordable to eat, sleep and drink in Prague.