I wish

Wow Christmas Eve already. I now know what Santa should be bringing me tomorrow: an alarm clock radio that plays MP3s and can double as a digital picture frame (all uploaded via USB or some memory card format). Of course, I have not seen nor heard of such an amazing product in existence... yet. Enough greediness for the year, I really just want some form of gratifying employment. After seeing Elf (which is a decent holiday film I have to admit) last night, "the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear."

The Google Supremacy

I'm a happy slave in Google's ever-growing empire - e.g. I don't email people, I gmail them; this blog, Picasa, and Hello (the latter three which are very well-integrated and free I must add). After having spent days uploading pictures onto my Imagestation in a painfully slow and manual process, there must be a better way for creating online albums with hundreds of images and captions...

Now online: Eurotrip of 2004 Album

Well it wouldn't have been a trip through Europe without photos... so view my first album, "London, UK" along with my 20 other Europe albums here: Eurotrip 2004

2004.10.20 in Frankfurt to Toronto

Arrived in Frankfurt/Main just after 06:00 and noticed the night skyline of financial skyscrapers in the distance. This was the only city in Europe we saw that had a visible skyline. Very Toronto-like but missing the CN Tower. Once again, Germany's rail system is remarkably integrated all over the country and this central city is no exception. (We heard that the Swiss rail system is the best in Europe, however). From the busy main train station, we took the regional S-Bahn that goes straight to Frankfurt Airport. Now here's an international airport that Toronto's Pearson and many others can only hope to mimic. Take the Sky Line monorail to go from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1, for instance. Seriously.

I spent as much of the remaining Euro currency I had at the airport's duty free shop. Cheap liquor and chocolates - gotta love travelling by air!

Our plane left an hour late but an unusual tailwind made up for that on our 7+ hour flight home... Touched down safely in YYZ ahead of schedule with some cheering and clapping from passengers. I hate it when people do that on flights.

Ahh, Canada! The cold weather, the useless SUVs on roads, the additional taxes on prices, the could-be-better public transit, and now, the prospect of starting a career. It's good to be back in Toronto again =)

2004.10.19 in Prague

Last day in Praha and this meant saying goodbye to the fall colours along the Vltava river and one last amazing meal at Pravek Restaurant. Along with trying a new main course once again, we also ordered the Alaskan salmon caviar appetizer (came to roughly $10CDN) and some ice cream for dessert. 4 pints of Staropramen beer, caviar, 2 desserts and 2 delicious main courses came to a total of $50CDN including tip. We're going to miss this restaurant when we go back to Canada just doesn't say enough.

BTW, the owner of Banco Casino is a Canadian and seems to live quite well in Praha. We actually played poker against him the first time we had found the casino back in September - no wonder he had so many 10,000 Czech koruna bills to lay on the table!

It was past 18:00 and had a night train to Frankfurt to catch, but we decided to see if our friendly dealers were at the casino by now - Fabrice, the poker room manager, was there and he kindly gave us 2 "old" Fournier plastic playing card decks as a parting souvenir. Finally... our Fournier quest is over!

2004.10.16 - 2004.10.18 in Prague

I'm not going to delve into little details (like how we washed our clothes in the bathroom sink and hung-dried them all over the room) but basically these 3 days consisted of the following routine (more or less*):
1. Wake up in early afternoon
2. Head over to Internet cafe and kill an hour or two
3. Walk to nearby Pravek Cave Restaurant for "lupper"
4. Head over to Banco Casino after 20:00 and play or observe texas hold'em for hours
5. Go back to hostel in early morning

*On 16th, Saturday, suprisingly no other tourists had shown up to play poker the entire night and the two of us did not want to play against this one regular local who has money to burn apparently. We chatted with the dealers but eventually the poker room was closed for a change that night.

Of the 4 nights we were at Banco, we saw Czech-born NHL star Jaromir Jagr 2 times - gambling away thousands of Czech koruna on 'his' roulette table as he played (i.e. lost) this impossible game of random luck. He should learn hold'em - it's slower but there's more skill involved.

And of the 4 times I actually did play some poker, I unfortunately always ended up busting out - so I had lost roughly $400CDN in the 6 nights we were at the casino. Le on the other hand fared better by breaking even after his forays on the felt.
We played against and saw many tourists and local regulars play limit hold'em but none compared to the last game Le would play on the 18th. He played until 05:00 against an American college student (who had no idea what he was doing but had somehow beaten a bunch of other Americans the night before) and an Irish businessman where he made back ~$200CDN he had lost earlier that night against numerous other players. We learned a lot about playing limit hold'em over those many hours and looked forward to bringing that knowledge to a local casino (Rama?) in the future. Ka-ching!

2004.10.15 to Prague

So now we're finally on our way back to Prague to end our Eurotrip in style - hopefully as big hold'em poker winners! We've been impressed with zee Germans and their Deutsche Bahn rail transit system from our previous 3 trips: efficient, modern, and most of all, always-on-time trains. They even had trip schedule brochures placed in every row detailing all the stops and the accurate arrival times. Our route to Prague would involve a transfer in Dresden with a very small window to catch the earliest transfer. Sadly, DB let us down. The Dresden main station was undergoing renovations and our train (from Amsterdam) was delayed upon arriving and so we missed our next train (to Prague). We killed a few hours in and around the station - it was pretty cold here as we weren't feeling the fall temperatures versus the summer-like weather we had a few days ago in Barcelona.

Destination: Praha (aka Prague)
Arrived in the late evening to our dismay as we again faced the same situation as before: all the hostels we had tried were booked solid. Things were looking grim for us. Jam! indeed.

Thankfully our good experience with the only backpacker we toured with, Janelle, provided another benefit: she told me about the hostel she had stayed at while visiting Praha. We were at the Golden Sickle hostel once again as our last resort and their very helpful reception made a phone call to Hostel Tyn and informed us they had vacancy! Count it! Hostel Tyn turned out to be a very nice hostel (one of the better ones we've stayed at actually) located in the heart of Old Town near the Astronomical Clock tower. We would book our dorm beds for 4 nights and then headed off to Banco Casino for poker once again...

2004.10.14 in Amsterdam

Freakin' eh. We checked out in the morning as we were going to stay in Amsterdam for just one night. But whaddya know - a nationwide transit strike took place today and all national and international rail traffic came to a halt. There goes our plans of reaching Prague tonight! Quickly left Centraal Station and went back to the hostel to try and get accomodation as other travellers were realizing they were stuck in the city as well...

Since we were kebab/shawarma/shoarma/doner/gyro connoisseurs from our many European travels*, we ended up having shoarmas (as they're called here) for lunch and dinner at different places. They were subpar at best. The beef that was trimmed off wasn't even cooked and the cutter had to grill it in a separate pan. The rotisserie was red and moving but looked like it was there for effect. Not to mention they weren't good values as they were at least 5 euros each.

*I neglected to take pictures of all the different shawarma vertical grills and meats we've tried. From what we've experienced, the best meat (beef/lamb/chicken) to be had is actually being cooked and grilled while the upright rotisserie slowly spins around. The meat should appear juicy, fresh, and hopefully constantly being trimmed off from all the other customers!

2004.10.13 to Amsterdam

After we had checked in our bags, we went to the security gates and after being motioned aside, I then realized I forgot about my Swiss Army knife still left in my daypack. Oh crap. Guess I couldn't pull a fast one on these Catalayans... Luckily I was still able to check-in my daypack as a second item with no penalty fees, but it was really weird not wearing the daypack.

Slept during the 2 hour flight and awoke to another overcast day this time in Belgium. Since we flew via Ryanair, the Brussels airport was not the main international airport, but the "other" Brussels airport, "Brussels South Charleroi." We followed some other passengers and backpackers to a coach outside that would go to Brussels Midi rail station and paid the 10 euros fare. This is exactly what a 'low airfare' flight gives you - a low ticket price but incidental costs that quickly add up! Argh.

At least we were back in familiar territory. This layover to wait for the next Amsterdam train reminded us of our similar layover way back in September. We'll miss Brussels as the city we never saw in the small country that recognizes the French, Dutch, English (and sometimes German) languages.

Hello Amsterdam! (Then Prague and very sparse travelog entries in the future)

Checked into our favourite Dutch hostel The Flying Pig again. The bar with cheap but good pints of beer. The scratched-up burned DVD movies but tight home theatre system in the basement. The busy but free Internet access on 2 computers. The lounging area filled with pot-smok- what? Nevermind... The sweet, sweet stroopwaffels; the delicious appeltaarts; the infamous RLD; the onion and mayo and ketchup topped frites; the Venice-like canals; being outnumbered by the sitting-up cyclists; and those rampant coffeeshops. It's good to be back again 8-)

2004.10.12 in Barcelona

Today's weather in Barcelona: overcast with chance of light rain. That ends our streak of crap-free weather for some time. But we checked out Placa de Catalunya (this public square is nothing great IMHO) and again cruised down La Rambla. We had tapas for lunch in the fantastic fresh food market, Mercat de la Boquería, located near Liceu Station (Metro Line 3). The assorted dishes were good; I asked for a 'menu' which isn't a listing but an actual 3-course meal and drink.

We killed some time at easyInternetcafe again and later went to L'Aquarium de Barcelona where I bought a cute stuffed penguin souvenir for my niece. From there we walked back up La Rambla looking for a place to eat for a cheap supper - decided on a pita place, since it's been over 72 hours since we last had one. We ordered, ate, and were walking out and away when one of the employees chased us down - we somehow forgot to pay since they never asked for money while we were in there. If we just walked faster and crossed La Rambla and blended into the crowd- nah, it's wrong not to contribute tourist spending to the local economy!

After that near-theft, we picked up our packs from the hostel and made our way to the Barcelona/Gerona Airport bus provided by Ryanair. Okay so now we know why Ryanair is a low fare airline: to get to the damn "Barcelona" airport we paid 11 euros each for this one-way shuttle (and would end up paying another 10 euros at the "Brussels" airport for the shuttle to the main train station). The Gerona airport was really small and filled with annoying smokers ignoring the posted no smoking signs. Our flight was at 06:30 and I tried to sleep on the uncomfortable chairs near the arrivals area (check-in was 30 minutes before departure so we couldn't go to the departures lounge). I couldn't sleep at all with arrivals coming in after midnight still and the only highlight was this young British boy who asked his mother (in that Harry Potter-ish accent) why the people here don't speak English and then stated everyone should speak English. Couldn't agree more :-)

2004.10.11 in Barcelona

We had planned on going on a mini side quest for those Fournier plastic playing cards but today turned out to be a national holiday (Columbus Day) and most everything was closed. At least the rail station Passeig de Gracia was open and found out that taking trains to Brussels via Paris was expensive; as was going to Zurich and then Brussels. So we decided to go with the low-fare airline Ryanair and just fly to Brussels. Ordered the tickets online at the local easyInternetcafe and had Subway sandwiches (every easyInternetcafe is partnered with some popular food chain). Screw-the-tourist recurred when we ordered our subs - the "sandwich artist" asked if we wanted cheese (in addition to the normal veggies and sauces) and we both said 'sure' - turns out the cheese was an extra cost... It was partly our fault in delaying the purchase, but we could've booked our flight to Brussels for 29 euros back in Paris, instead of the 49 euros that we now had to pay.

Spent some of the afternoon again just chillaxing on Rambla de Mer as my digicam battery was charging back in the hostel...
Barcelona's public transit is inexpensive so we metro'd over to finally see La Sagrada Familia. It's truly the most eclectic and fascinating design for a cathedral (or any other building) we've ever seen. We weren't feeling the admission fees so we then metro'd over to another incomplete Gaudi masterpiece, Parc Guell. *Note: If you feel like trekking up a very steep hill to reach the park (as we did apparently) get off at Metro Vallcarca Station. This way to the park involves having to take stairs instead of the many (non-working) outdoor escalators. This route brought us not to the park's Gaudi museum and official entrance, but allowed us to reach the park's highest point for some spectacular 360° city views. Just keep going up the winding paths until you reach a lone cross atop a stone pillar will stairs. We wandered around and finally found the plaza with the famous mosaic serpentine benches. Ate another cheapie-cheapie meal of white bread and canned fish and fruits before it got dark. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to take any good pictures of the mosaic lizard greeting the main entrance or the room of a hundred columns as it was already dusk. From here we walked the slightly longer (but easier) route to Metro Lesseps Station...

We then went back to Casino Barcelona. The poker room is located with the other card games but in a separate area. 2 hold'em and 1 omaha tables were going on but the buy-ins and structure were too rich for blood. We stayed a couple of hours observing the various players and styles. As for our quest - the Casino does use Fournier cards of course, but doesn't sell any modded decks unfortunately.

2004.10.10 in Barcelona

Enroute to Barcelona our rail tickets weren't checked either. WTF. The Spanish countryside was beautiful as we were following the eastern coast from Port Bou on. Unfortunately we passed the Pyrenees mountains overnight... The train stopped at Barcelona's Passeig de Gracia station but we decided to go to the next stop at Sants. Turns out de Gracia is closer to where we wanted to go but no worries.

Our potential hostels are all along La Rambla (or is it Las Ramblas?) and we were being cautious with our bags - we've heard too many pickpocket stories occurring on this street. So many tourists were here shopping and eating that you couldn't tell you were in Barcelona until you saw something with Gaudi's designs or restaurants serving tapas and paella. We tried a couple of hostels but seemed overpriced and settled on the #4 choice on my list - Arco Youth Hostel (note: they close at 13:00 for cleaning and re-open after 15:00 - we checked-in right before 13:00 luckily). The receptionish dude warned us to watch out for kids and don't play football with anyone that asks you to; along with not to bring our daypack or passports. Apparently he's tired of telling visitors where their consulates are - thanks for the tips we told him, but we still carried our daypacks anyway. We normally switch into 'combat mode' when paranoia sets in.

Headed over to the very close Placa Reial to eat our gourmet lunch: mystery meat deli sausage and the most soft, buttery, fattening loaf of bread we've ever had (all brought from Paris). This bread was amazing and reminded me of eating really soft Filipino ensaymada or sweet brioche. This market square is also where the Europe's Famous Kabul hostel is located. We didn't bother checking in there since they were expensive and all booked.

Walked south along La Rambla past all the human statues, street artists, souvenir vendors, and restaurant patios with their overpriced tapas and paella dishes towards the Columbus monument. Walked further south to the Rambla de Mar boardwalk/bridge and saw all the recreational/leisure space that's been developed along the city's amazing waterfront. There's movies, malls, an expensive aquarium, and lots of parks. The actual boardwalk is made of some plastic composite material (not wood) and lots of people were sunbathing or just chilling as it's situated right over the harbour water (and no railings). While I worked on catching up on this travel log, it's an awesome 28C temperature here!

Ate dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant that our hostel's receptionist recommended - good value and satisfying to have some naan bread and chicken tikka. Afterwards we walked for over half an hour to Vila Olimpica. Here we found Casino Barcelona - unfortunately we couldn't go past the check-in desk while wearing shorts & sandals & no passports. We'll be back tomorrow night...

2004.10.09 in Paris

Decided to make reservations and buy rail tickets for our night train to Barcelona at Paris Lyon station. We didn't want to get screwed over on not having a seat/bed or pay hefty supplement fares... At the station we bought some stamps and upon telling the "Tabac" clerk en francais I wanted X number of stamps, he said my French was good (take that Le!) since I also asked first-off 'parlez vous anglais' and he replied very little. From the station we transferred over to one of the Metro's 14 lines to reach the Eiffel Tower once more. But not before stopping into a really cheap supermarket chain for a baguette, hot dog weiners (which are really expensive in Europe it seems), fruits, and pre-packaged crepes for lunch.

It was overcast all day and when we reached L'Ecole Militaire it began raining hard. Not so great for pictures but we decided to go up the tower anyway. At the base of the tower was a big rally of Irish football fans singing and drinking boisterously. Police and military patrolled around but were there the last time we came. After a month of backpacking we finally had to use our $2 plastic ponchos as we climbed up the tower's first two levels. Waited in another queue to take an escalator to the top (third) level - it was really windy so climbing up the rest of the way was dangerous as they had closed the stairway. The views were great as you notice how flat and spread out the city really is.

Not surprisingly, we were offered to eat dinner at the homestay even though we weren't staying that night. Enjoyed the curry chicken and kimchi for the last time. The only korean food I've had before Paris is all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ - which pales in comparison to the variety and flavourful dishes we've had the past few days. I miss the real, home-cooked kimchi already!

Our couchette car was much better than the Italian train we had. However, we were on the top beds of the 6-bed compartment and it's clear the higher centre of gravity on a wobbly train proved to be no help in getting a good night's sleep. We probably should have moved to another compartment - there were so many empty ones in the car - since our tickets weren't even checked on the train! Our trip was much less than the 59 euros since we'd be connecting at a small border station in Spain...

2004.10.08 in Paris

While Le slept off another korean breakfast, I wasn't tired so I worked on this travel log and chatted with some of the korean girls staying in the homestay. They had learned English many years ago in South Korea but if you don't use it, you forget it (just like my French). It was fun trying to interpret what they were trying to ask me to translate into english from their fluent french or korean even.

Had gyros for lunch on our way to the Sacre Coeur. Unfortunately the weather was crappy for a change and so the city views from this high vantage point were underwhelming. We then went to Notre Dame and chilled in cathedral #2 of 2 for today. Since it was Friday, we went to the Louvre afterwards - it's free for students under 26 starting at 18:00 - and we zig-zagged our way to get to the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Thankfully the musuem has signs everywhere indicating where these two popular exhibits are located. Sorry, we're not big on art or museums in general, but I can say we were tired from walking here from Notre Dame and all around looking for these two art pieces. We didn't look at anything else as the Louvre is just massive in scale and content.

Paris is the city of lights and we walked along the Seine afterwards to take some night shots of the Eiffel Tower. It's nicely lit up and for 10 minutes on the hour, the entire tower is buzzing from these bright white flashing lights. We headed back before 22:00 for a late korean dinner and gorged on the (all you can eat) rice and kimchi once again.

2004.10.07 in Caen

Woke up early to head to Caen which would lead us to the Juno Beach Centre (JBC) - a total of ~4 hours of travelling one way. Caen is a very nice, clean, small university town that has a very modern transit (trams and buses) system. The tram stops indicated when the next tram was arriving and commuters could use smart cards to quickly validate their fare on the tram/bus.

JBC opened in 2003 and is in Courseulles-sur-Mer, a pleasant coastal town where every other light standard seems to have a waving Canadian flag. They're more patriotic about Canada than we are from the looks of it... JBC is situated right near the beaches and the actual beaches are nice but empty. Local fishermen and sailors took advantage of the sunny weather this day. JBC employees/guides were bilingual Canadians and were happy to see some fellow Canadians, as we were.

While waiting for the bus going back to Caen a vehicle that looked like local police drove by us and I noticed the driver motion over to us to his partner. They came around and stopped right in front of us while we were eating our canned tuna and white bread for an early supper. They asked us where we're from and how long we're in town for and left with a 'bon appetit' remark. That was suspicious. Sure we were the only asian guys in a 100km radius, but I guess my Canadian flag sewn on my backpack just wasn't big enough.

We bought some kebabs (aka shoarma (aka shwarma (aka shawarma (aka gyro)))) back in Caen for 4 euros each. They were the most expensive kebabs we've paid for yet, but believe me - they were also the biggest and overflowing with so much juicy chicken that we were already full before finishing. Even after that huge pita, we still gladly ate our korean dinner past 22:00 since we were offered some... Gluttons we're not! How can you say "No" to delicious and free food??

2004.10.06 in Paris

We were again offered accomodation getting off the train and were actually considering it outside when another offer was suddenly presented. It was for a Korean homestay for 20 euros/night or 18 euros if 3 nights. The guy had a mini photo album and showed us pictures of the place and how to find it. What really hooked us were the services included: breakfast and dinner (!), internet & CD burning, and laundry! Amazingly we could save a lot of money on all those other services we'd end up having to pay for in the CIty of Lights... The location of the homestay was in a quiet suburbs and at least 30 minutes away from downtown. But this minor detail was offset since Paris' Metro system is inexpensive, clean, efficient, and has abundant subway stations. The Metro has a lot of lines and you'll often have to transfer similarly to London's Tube. The homestay was a row house and it accomodates a lot of people with a lot of bunk beds. I counted at least 20 different people (mostly Korean) staying there along with 5 others who live and work in the home. It was nearly 11:00 but breakfast was still being served and we gladly ate the generous servings of korean hot soup, japanese rice, and assorted kimchi.

Spent the afternoon hanging around and shooting the Eiffel Tower (of course), bought some prepackaged crepes and other foods for the next day, walked to Arc D'Triomphe, and cruised down Champs D'Elysses before heading back for dinner.

A few of the workers/residents at the homestay knew Mandarin as well as Korean so Le was able to converse with them easily. They mainly spoke Korean or French other than the guy who found us. Dinner was good but didn't have as much meat or Korean bolgogi as I had hoped...