WOUNDEDKITE // still. still. still.

i used to hate flying, seriously hate it. i think it was the result of watching too much aircrash investigations, and i was just not comfortable with being off the ground. i remember one time going down to visit adam i was so nervous about the flight and everything that i did seven shots of vodka before leaving the house and almost threw up during take off.

but now i love flying. taking off and leaving the ground is so liberating. it reminds me how awesome it is that i am on this trip, and how lucky i am to be starting another adventure.

ireland was so rad. i’m very glad that i did a tour. i was a bit worried that i was going to be the only person in the group travelling by themselves, but that wasn’t the case. and even so, most people were so friendly that it didn’t matter who they were with. my facebook friends list has about tripled in the last few days.

if i hadn’t done the tour, i probably would’ve just gone to belfast and derry. over the last year i’ve done a lot of reading about the troubles, and those two areas are where i wanted to visit the most. but on this tour i got to see everything i wanted to see, plus so much more, and so much beautiful scenery that i never even knew existed. it was also good to hang out with people and have dinner together each night, otherwise i would’ve spent three weeks by myself.

like i said, over the last year i have done a fair bit of reading on the situation in northern ireland, and whilst not an expert, i knew a lot more going into it than the other people on the tour. but even then i was not prepared to witness the divide that still obviously exists in some areas of derry/londonderry and belfast. it really hit home for me when we were just off shankill road in the protestant side of belfast. we were on a council estate where most of their side’s murals are, and it looked like where i grew up. sure a little more run down and covered in propaganda, but it could’ve very easily been anywhere in campbelltown. you don’t think of the war-torn areas we see on the news as places where people actually live, but there you go. we were standing there hearing from our guide about what had happened in the area and people were walking their dogs, taking their children to school or going off to work. living and surviving in what is still a very volatile place.

i can’t imagine having bus loads of people come and gawk at me while i was going about my business in my own neighbourhood. i guess that’s why we went in taxis and not in the bus. but having people come through and visit gets their message out there. there were 29 people on our tour who got to see first hand and hear about republicanism vs unionism in northern ireland, most of whom had no idea what problems even existed besides the fact that some times the ira blew up some cars. but if even one person in that tour was inspired to go home and read up on the history of what they saw, then i guess it’s worth it for the people for whom this life we can hardly even imagine is a reality.

tomorrow morning i hop on a plane and head to dublin, starting a three week long journey that ultimately ends where it all began almost a year ago; at terminal one of kingsford smith airport in sydney.

it’s weird. i was saying to my mum the other day that it feels like no time at all since i left. today marks exactly a year since my last day at work, and that feels like only a week or two ago. but my arrival in the uk, and those first two weeks i spent in london feel like a million years ago. i have seen so much since then, been so many places and made so many new friends. and i feel 10 years older than i was back then. i have grown up so much in the last year. and i feel like i am finally accepting of adulthood and ready to settle down.

in other news my domain mapping here runs out in the next few weeks while i’m on the road, and i can’t be bothered getting it all sorted out until i get back home, so if you can’t see this site from woundedkite.com, try woundedkite.wordpress.com

i’m sure i’ll post again during my travels, but if i dont, see you in sydney!

the scariest moment of our trip came in warsaw. not scary as in “oh god i’m going to be raped” but scary as in “no-one can understand me and if we can’t figure this out i might be stuck in this shithole.” as mentioned in the last post, we caught an overnight bus from warsaw to vilnius, which we booked with eurolines baltic. the bus was due to leave at 9pm at the main warsaw bus station. our ticket also mentioned 8:30 on it, and we figured that was the time we were meant to turn up at the bus stop. so we’re there and at 8:30 as predicted a eurolines bus shows up. i go to get on and the bus driver, who didn’t speak english wouldn’t let me on the bus. he pointed at his watch and then motioned for me to move away. needless to say i started freaking out.

rach talked to a mother and daughter to see if they could understand what was happening, but they only spoke very limited english, but still it was more than we knew in polish. it was getting to quarter to and i was really worried that we’d be left stranded in warsaw. a group of early 20 somethings came to the bus stand and stood around smoking. i went up to them and asked if they spoke english and if they were getting on the bus. one girl from the group offered to translate for us and speak to the bus driver. she reported back that the bus that had come in was run by eurolines polska, and that the eurolines baltic service was a different bus, and would be along shortly. i almost hugged our humble translator i was so relieved. sure enough, five minutes after the polska bus left ours arrived, after having started its journey at the airport at 8:30; what our ticket referenced. the rest of the trip you know.

speaking of eurolines, a special shout out is in order to the lady at the eurolines travel centre in vilnius who printed out our tickets after the lady at the ticket counter couldn’t understand when we were saying that we didn’t have a printed ticket, just a reservation.

in berlin, we ate quite frequently at a kebab shop around the corner from our hostel. if you’ve travelled in central europe, you’ll know that kebab shops are quite popular in germany and austria. and they’re a cheap, semi healthy and delicious form of nutrition. the first night we ate there, it was overrun by ugg boot wearing bogans. definitely from the shire and at least one was named bree. as you might be aware, especially if you are my mum, i enjoy beetroot. i’ve been known to quiz subway employees on the whereabouts of my beloved pink vegetable on their menu. but i’m europe now, and i realise that people here don’t share my passion for the ‘root. bree did not, and as we walked into the shop we were greeted with the most ocka accent i’d heard in months telling the guy behind the counter “awww, the guy last night gave me beetroot. i want beetroot.” and then just generally making an ass out of herself. girls like her are why australian backpackers have a bad name.

anyway, the guys who worked there were totes awesome. one serenaded us as we decided what we wanted, the other looked like chris taylor. it was the best. i miss germany a lot.

speaking of germany. our first stop there, and of our tour in fact was munich. on the sunday, we took a walk around town before heading to oktoberfest. we ended by the gardens and happened upon a man made creek. because of, i don’t know, science and shit, the pressure of the water running and the make up of the riverbed made waves, and there were these dudes surfing. it was crazy. they’d take turns jumping into the water and riding the waves back and forth. then when they fell they’d be swept away down stream and the next surfer took their turn as the other swam back. i took heaps of photos and could’ve stayed there all day.

at oktoberfest we found a table in one of the halls and sat down to drink our litre of beer. we were soon joined by about 10 italian men and their wives. well the men sat with us, and the wives sat on another table, when we motioned to swap, they didn’t want to. i guess they wanted a break from their husbands. my point of this story is that everywhere we went in germany, there were italians on holiday. then when we got to italy, especially in venice, we were surrounded by jack wolfskin parkas – the unofficial national dress of germany. what’s up with them swapping for holidays?

in florence we stayed at an awesome hostel called b+b maison. it was run by a couple called sharon and lorenzo. sharon was a scouser who had met lorenzo in rome. they hooked up and moved to firenze to run a hostel. lorenzo is an amazing cook who made us eggs and toast for breakfast every morning, and pasta for dinner every night. seriously the best pasta i have had. they also gave us free wine every night which helped the pasta go down.

in venice we stayed at, i can’t remember the name, i think it was called museum hostel, because it was in a former museum. which meant the rooms were big and drafty. it was an odd place. we kinda knew that coming in because one of the reviews on hostelworld had said that one of the employees was having really loud sex with one of the guests and then got the shits when people asked them to be quiet. so first thing that’s weird, the wifi was an unsecured network and only worked when you were near the window. obviously stolen from someone else. weird thing number two, guys were charged 10 euros more per night than girls, and their room was apparently small and grimy compared to the girls rooms. weird thing number three, when we got there, there was a bunk bed and a single bed in our room. soon another bunk was added and the single was turned into a bunk bed. then the next day they were taken down. the day after that we got back from our day out and rachel’s bed was gone and all her stuff was on the floor. they told us that they were going to paint so needed to move the bed, but ended up not. we soon heard from other guests that they were only licensed for 15 beds, but they had many more than that, so they would take them down during the day in case they were inspected.

this hostel was also where we met furry guy. furry guy is a canadian with long hair and a big bushy beard who is on a year long world tour. he writes a blog called oneyeartrip.com and i spent many hours reading his entries and comparing his viewpoints of cities we’d both visited to ours. we felt very superior to furry guy, especially when he said how hard he found it travelling to kutna hora [the bone church in czech republic] when we had no dramas at all.

our last train journey on the continent was from lyon to barcelona. throughout the trip we had been catching long distance trains, and travelling in first class, so we hadn’t been exposed to local nutbags. however on this trip, we caught the tgv for the first half, but for the rest we were on local services. heading down to the spanish border rach and i were having a chat, we weren’t being too loud or anything, and there weren’t that many people on the train. this old man came up to us and was like “OOGIE BOOGIE WOOGIE WOOGIE” and then started ranting at us in french. after a few minutes we figured that he didn’t speak english, and to him what we were saying sounded like gibberish. he then wandered off to scare an old lady before getting off at his stop.

now a few tips we picked up for anyone planning such a journey. hopefully they’re helpful. if you have any especially long train trips to do, if you can try and do them on sundays. in most places, even big cities like paris and berlin, everything is closed on sunday. so if you need to do a long train trip that’s going to take most of the day, you’re not really missing anything by doing it on sunday.

in the same respect, unless you’re one of those people who can sleep soundly anywhere, i’d advise against doing overnight trips. the trains are uncomfortable, full of loud polish people, and inspectors will check on you every 45 minutes so even if you can get to sleep, you won’t be asleep for very long. then when you get to your destination, you’re so wiped out that you’ll end up sleeping during the day, and any advantage you picked up from travelling overnight will be lost, so you may as well have travelled during the day and be well rested.

if you have a eurail pass, in france you still need to make reservations in advance to travel on the tgv. the kicker to this is that you can only do this at the station, and can only do it in france. they only keep a certain amount of seats on each train available for eurail reservations, i don’t know how many, but it can’t be a lot. everything we’d read said that in the summer you should book a week in advance, but we figured cause we were travelling in the low season we’d be right and only tried to book on the day of travel. not so. at lille flandres, we got the last seats on the train to paris, then in paris there was nothing left on the tgv’s going to lyon, and a two hour trip turned into six via regional trains instead of the express.

we didn’t stay in any bad hostels. for instance none of our stuff got stolen, there was nowhere where the hot water didn’t work etc. and apart from the strangeness of the place in venice that i mentioned above, and the place in prague that had bed bugs, they were all A++ would stay again. however there’s a few places that deserve special mention, and if you ever find yourself in these towns, i recommend you stay here. hostel aloha in berlin for feeling like we were hanging out at a mates house, and for the excellent salad they shared with us. mosquito hostel in krakow for the free vodka shots, and organising an awesome night out on the town. le village hostel in paris for its proximity to the montmatre, the excellent croissants and hot chocolate at breakfast, the endless madonna playing in the common room, and for upgrading us from an eight bed dorm or something huge like that to a three bed dorm with en suite, shared with our new friend alan who spent hours in the bathroom each night. edinburgh nights hostel for upgrading us to an en suite room by ourselves, and mostly because the guy running it looks like daniel craig. they’re all really friendly helpful people who have a strange obsession of sharing their dinner with you. stadion hostel in helsinki should also get a mention, but only because it is built in the side of the former olympic athletics stadium.

so that’s it for now. stay tuned for part three when i get back from my next adventure which goes a little something like this: edinburgh – dublin – liverpool – bratislava – vienna – budapest – london – sydney.

ps: rach, is there anything you think i’m missing from this list, or anything you would like me to mention?