When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel.
- Harold Kushner

• Sneha and I couldn't stop "Wow" and "Waw" -ing as soon as we got out of the Underground station (or perhaps it was just me...)
• Definitely couldn't stop spotting random stuff on the streets!
• Prague has quite a tricky underground station to figure out, the fact that none of us speaks any Czech (not even Hello or Thank you) - makes it even worse.
• If you love the Victorian style buildings of Budapest, you will be amazed on the details of the buildings in Prague. This city is truly a heaven for any architecture students.
• This deserves a special mention - the cobbled-stone streets. It's everywhere! Never wear jandals. And it is especially hard to drag a wheeled suitcase around the city trying to find our hostel.
• Prague is densely populated with... tourists. Especially around the Old Town area - the Astronomical Clock/ the square, its surroundings and all throughout to Charles Bridge leading up to the Castle.
• The tourists not only the backpackers from the westerns countries but also many of them are those guided tours from the eastern countries as well as (what looks like) school trip kids from the US and Germany.
• Sneha and I met so many Kiwis in a day. Six out of 10 people at our free guided tour in the morning were Kiwis and a couple at the Beer-tasting session in the afternoon.It seems like the Kiwis were just flocking to Prague.
• On the day we got there we managed to catch the Astronomical clock as it strikes on the hour. Many people were there to see the famous clock and many were disappointed as well. The little windows next to the dial opened and the saint figurines popped out in turn. While the Angels and Skeletons next it it shaking heads and nodding respectively. The secret why this Astronomical Clock is famous is actually the history behind it!
• Some part of the Charles Bridge was under construction and was quite packed. Like any other tourist spots there were street performers and street vendors along the bridge. It is a beautiful bridge still, only slightly less romantic than I thought.
• Everything is Prague is either old or older. Even the so-called New Town is a few hundred years old (making you wonder how old is the Old Town?). So the old, somewhat historical-looking buildings now being used for modern shops - like McDonalds.
• In Prague, I finally felt "Now I am in a European city for a holiday! Woo hoo!"
• Came under prepared, Sneha and I were depending on the free tourist map, some scribbles Sneha made prior to the trip and my lame short-term memory. It turned out quite well actually. Thanks to the excellent navigation skills she has, we managed to find the places we want to go without much hassle.
• ... without much hassle that was until at one point we would like to take a trip off the beaten path, outside of the touristy area. Got on to an underground and tram hoping to land somewhere close to "Pavlova Street" to take a picture of the street sign but then realised - when we saw a big as mural that's supposedly near our hostel - that... we actually came back close to where we started! Hah- so much for an adventure!
• We hung out quite a bit at the square. Spending some time people-watching while enjoying a festive season at the Square with the many food and drink stalls around (They were celebrating some important day on the weekend!).
  
• Finally got a chance eating Lángos (LAHN-gosh) . The Hungarian crew told me it's one of those after-drinking eats. Did not have the chance to taste it when I was in Budapest, now I was trying the Czech version with garlic, ketchup and cheese (another version is with Nutella!). I can definitely say that the deep-fried dough is not my favourite. :/
• One thing that I found really strange here is the paying toilet almost EVERYWHERE. At the bus terminal or even McDonalds! Depending on your proximity to the center of a tourist attraction - the price ranges from 5 Kc to 15 Kc.
• Seeing number of expensive cars parked on the street, Prague could easily have the most expensive cars/capita.
  
• The Pope was coming to town! We were lucky to be there a couple of days before he arrived, otherwise there will be nothing to see since they will close the Prague Castle during his stay!
• We shared the hostel room with two Brazillian guys for the 2 days we were there. Traumatic experience seeing a naked (woman's) butt at 8 o'clock in the morning - yuck. Aaaaawkwaard! Good god, get a (single) room, boy!
• Night life should have been good I suppose. They have (what they claimed) the largest pub in Central Europe. There were people approaching the youngsters (like myself and Sneha hehehe...) at the square, inviting us to go to the Pub Crawl. With bigger crowd, we probably would have gone.
• So, we were in Prague - a city that is famous not only for its scenery but also for its beer. One mandatory thing that we both felt compelled to do is, of course, beer tasting. We were missing out on its night life/pub crawl after all - we'll treat this as the compensation. After tasting 7 small glasses of beer - I decided that my favourite is this hoppy tasted beer called Bernard (in contrary to popular believe that the best Czech beer is Pilsner Urquell!), which happened to be the Beermaster's last name. One of the beer-tasting participant, jokingly said, "You scored a brownie point there!" *smiles* I have to admit the polite young man who kept on referring 'Miss' to me was kinda cute...
  

Labels: europe, holiday, prague

• Upon leaving Ferihegy airport, it gave me a chill and unbelievable excitement. I was on the bus with Sneha and saying "I cannot believe that I'm actually back in Budapest and that you're here!" " It doesn't feel like I'm in some European city for holiday - more ilke I'm coming home, maybe because I've been here before."
  
• I kinda forget how sucks services are in Easter Europe, more specifically Budapest. Well, I suppose the people here are quite depressed and bitter about the war. Although arguably I know a Hungarian friend who is just honey-dripping sweet.
  
• The city never cease to awe me with its building architectures. The really nice sunny Autumn weather also contributed to the mood.
• Walking along Andrassy ut a UNESCO world heritage site and they were closing the street down as they have a few events along the street.
  
• Searching for the cafe along Andrassy for the cafe I went to the last time to eat Somlói galuska ("SHOM-LO-I GAL-OOSH-KAH"). Couldn't find it - then our mission slightly changed to find any cafe that serve the dessert. Hmm, funnily enough not all cafe serve the Hungarian dessert. Finally found it at Cafe Vian and it served excellent Somlói. (Yum!)
  
• I was supposed to sleep on an air mattress, lent by Sneha's flatmate. BUT, there was no pump to blow up the bed. And I, for certain, will never blow it up manually. Ended up sharing bed with Sneha. Oh well.
  
• Met up with some SELTI people on my first night for a pre-town drinks. It made me realise how much I miss *that*. Just hanging out, chillin' , drinking, talking about random things, then head into town. My jetlag and feet gave up on me. I know I'm gonna regret this for the rest of my life, folks. Sowwie... :(
• During this time as well I realise that my beer-intake capacity has dropped quite significantly. I cannot even finished a bottle. WHATT?!
  
• The corruption there is as bad as in here. Approached by some sort of authority and was nearly fined for breaching the liquor-ban area. Lucky expats! Sneha got reaaaaally pissed off though. How dare he, eh?!
• Went to KFC to get a bucket with James and Ryan. It's a tradition and though shall not break tradition. My capacity for the finger lickin' stuff has dropped quite a bit.
• Did the most stupid, ultimate idiotic thing I have ever done in my whole entire life perhaps. There you go my 80 Euro, gone in 60 seconds. James and I are not the people with much sense apparently. Hehehe... lesson learned, never again.
• Did the Danube River cruise with Sneha. Budapest is still as pretty at night and even more so from the river. A very romantic cruise indeed .... and Sneha was the perfect partner at the given time :) Hehe...
  

Labels: budapest, europe, holiday

• 17 days
• 4 + 1 countries
• 4 + 1 cities
• 3 flights with 2 connecting flights
• 2 cross country bus rides
• Uncountable number of tram/underground/bus rides
• Too many Kms of walking
• Sh*it loads of meat, mustard and stale breads
• A dozen of good friends
• One helluva good times

Labels: europe, holiday

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Okay. Is this the impact of global economic crisis? Or just plain bad timing for me to go? I booked my VIE-BRU flights many moons ago when they had the flights on special. Who would have know that they're going to file bankruptcy anytime soon, eh? I started having a feeling that there is a conspiracy against my trip to Europe...

Although I'm very impressed with how fast other airlines picking up the pieces and turn them into fortunes. My alternative route is a lot less convenient since I have to go to Bratislava, but I suppose that gives a peace of mind knowing that I won't be left stranded in the middle of Europe without knowing how to get to my port of embarkation.

No matter what, I'm still looking forward to my trip!

Labels: europe, holiday

Labels: thoughts

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Labels: random

Labels: inspiration, thoughts

Labels: jakarta, random