The Gremlin's Grotto

Okay, now you will really have to bear with me. My M,A,W, period, comma and various other marks are in different places here. So, need you guess where I am? Spending the day traveling through France, trying desperately to get to Madrid by tomorrow, it just isnt easy. So, I have some amendments to make: first, I did see the vatican, Sistine Chapel, Raphael,s School of Athens as well as the ancient stuff. We managed to see the Acropolis, the National Archaeological Museum and a very nice park in Athens... in fact, me and Joe borrowed a soccer ball and managed to get some kicks in at the park. So, last night, since we were bored, we took a count of how many people we met: 62 people that we exchanged names with. Not bad in a month. Also, I have offers to go to a few places and I just may do that while I am around here. The hostel in Athens rocked!!! Free shots every time a new person entered the room, and on our last night, some of the staff took us out and paid for us. We went to a Greek restaurant and turned it into a dance hall; even the other greek patrons joined in. It was exactly what I pictured greek parties to be. Anyway, besides that, we are traveling constantly right now, making our way west to Spain where some friends are waiting for us. Sigh, so many stories, but some just cant translate here... I will try a complete story once I hit England. Got more to say but it will have to wait, this has taken a very long time already.

Sitting in a French Cafe,
the Desk Gremlin

PS I had a conversation with a french guy on the train today and I actually understood!!! Woot me!!!



Any problems or comments for the Grotto should be directed to a dark place, or if you really must, daiunus@yahoo.ca

Any problems or comments for the Grotto should be directed to a dark place, or if you really must, daiunus@yahoo.ca

Any problems or comments for the Grotto should be directed to a dark place, or if you really must, daiunus@yahoo.ca

Heya folks.. okay, little disappointed about my lack of comments this time around *Sob*. So, where did I leave off? I think we were in Rome... well, Rome was fun, nice city... that's right, nice. I really liked Rome, in fact, I almost took a job as a tour guide, but decided to finish this trip before I do something like that. So, we left Rome, and we headed west. Gotta waste time before the Barce game, so we decided to go to Greece! Yup, that is where I am right now, sitting in the cheapest country I have been in yet. We took a boat, 19 hours, but it was like a freakin cruise ship, had a sleeper, and only cost 6 Euro, so we actually saved money. So, last night we arrive in Athens, find a crazy hostel and have a crazy time until 7 in the morning. Today we managed to go see the Acropolis and surrounding areas... it was amazing. Rome is old, Greece is ancient!! It is hard to fathom the age of these buildings. Anyway, Athens itself is noisy, and a bit hectic, but the people are very friendly, the crime rate low and the hostel is the best one yet (free shots of Ouzo all night, that's right, my decision is based on free booze hehe). The hostel is cheap and we have a private room. So, we are here for a few days and we will see what comes up next. Oh, and Greek is messed up, holy crap, I mean the letters etc make directions pretty hard to figure out, even with a map.
So, let's sum up the last month (a month already!): Germany is friendly, beautiful women and clean. High on my list of places to go back to. Czech Rep is beautiful, the people are rude as hell and everyone is over 6 freakin feet tall!!! Not high on my list of returns besides Lisa and Tomas's Wedding. Austria rocked, same as Germany, I would definitely go back to Vienna, it was beautiful. Needless to say, I would go back. Switzerland, GD expensive, nuff said. Never going back. Italy, well, besides Venice and Padua which sucked rocks, I would move to Florence or Rome in a heartbeat. People were okay, food is amazing, sites are beautiful. Greece, I think besides the dirty city, is a great place, people are awesome, and the sites are great. I hope that gives everyone adequate feedback. If you have any questions or I am leaving too much out, let me know.
Oh crap, I forgot, went on a cheap pub crawl in Rome, met some mates from England and got invited to play Rugby in Rugby!!! How cool would that be??? So, anyway, I am making friends everywhere!!! Take care folks, keep me updated on events, and keep reading ;)

So sits, in a cafe in Athens,
the Desk Gremlin

Any problems or comments for the Grotto should be directed to a dark place, or if you really must, daiunus@yahoo.ca

Well... here we go. Just got into Rome today, and this Hostel is a little steep, which is to be expected of this city. This keyboard sucks so excuse any mistakes hehe. I am feeling better, and all is good. Ok... where to begin. Venice... yeh... Venice. Besides having alot of interesting art and architecture, the city itself kinda sucked. Too many tourists, too many couples... and definitely too many americans (excuse that comment my American friends but the americans in Venice were old rich farts... lets say, ¨typical americans¨). Anyway, on to the story. Venice was definitely not as expensive as Switzerland... trust me, the swiss are professional ripoff artists. We stayed two nights in Venice to see the sites, but we went to bed early and did nothign in the evenings at all. I did get to have my Gelato though :) We found a hotel to stay in that was cheaper than the hostels actually, and the people were nice, but overall, I will never go back to Venice. So, with that behind us, we moved on to Florence.

Now, Florence was a different story altogether. The hostel was very good and not too expensive, the city was a bit cheaper and the sites were AMAZING! Brunelleschis Dome, Giottos Tower, the Uffizzi Gallery (not going to bother naming artists, although Botticellis' Birth of Venus was there), and of course, Michelangelos David. It was very cool. We met 3 cool people that we hung out with... two spanish girls and a BC dude who was living in Switz playing semi pro soccer ( he is hopefully going to try out for EPL and Canadian National next year apparently). Anyway, we are heading to Madrid on our way through Spain to see the two girls who have offered to be our guides there... that combined with some friends in Granada, we should have guides for days in Spain. So anyway, St. Pattys was a bust, Florence wasnt that good for that, but overall I loved Florence. So, we came to Rome today, we are set up, saw the Colleseum, and hopefully we will be able to see the big things within the next few days... oh, and we are going to see AS Roma v AC Milan on Sunday. We worked out our sched to see a Barcelona game too!!! hehe, I love it. Anyway, I know there is more, and I left some out purposely for now, but this should give you a fix ;)

On the Road constantly,
The Desk Gremlin


Any problems or comments for the Grotto should be directed to a dark place, or if you really must, daiunus@yahoo.ca

Well here I sit in Venice... yup, Venice. I have spent the last 3 days sick as a dog (head cold, nothing serious), so not too much that has been entertaining.. well mostly. After we left Munich, we headed to see Neuschwanstein castle (the one that Disney built his castle after), so we ended up in this little valley-town in the alps called Fussen. The castle was amazing but the tour lacked something bad. I wanted to see the dumb waiter table, but that part of the tour wasn,t even shown, or mentioned!!!! Miserable. I may apply as an English tour guide there, Fussen is a beautiful spot, even if it is small as hell. Anyway... so we leave Fussen after a trek up the mountain and back, and get on a train, hoping to make it to Switzerland. So we go to Buchlau (see the theme yet? if not, you will get it soon), and wait for a train to somewhere west. We figure we can get on a train to Lindau and get a transfer to Zurich or something from there. Umm... nope!!! No more trains leaving Lindau until the morning. So, it is pitch dark, in a small town and no clue where hostels are. We go into a hotel and ask, and the lady says, " first, you have to get off the island"... ok... at this point I am totally lost, " what do you mean island?" She doesn,t speak good english, so I let it go and listen intently. We manage to find a hostel (remember, I am sick as a dog at this point), and that was about a 45 minute walk through the town, over bridges (islands... sigh), and to the hostel. The guys at the hostel were nice, even going as far as making us sandwiches to eat for free.

Next day, we get back to the train station and manage to get to Zurich, where we get on another train to go to Bern. Joe wanted to see Bern because of the Einstein house, apparently he discovered relativity there somewhere... guess what? the house was closed!!!!! Well, so much for that, and I am sick, so I stayed in bed all day. The next morning we went to the local gallery where we saw a Pollock, Dali, Mondrian (my fav), and Gertch (spelling is prolly wrong, but he was amazing and worth mentioning). Anyway, we finished up in Bern... oh by the way... EXPENSIVE!!!! not a little, nope... ALOT!!! don,t go, it is not worth it. Cost us 12$ CAD each for a Mcdonald meal... almost 30$ for a meal at a restaurant. Yeah, that was insane.

So, we moved on quickly and ended up in Padua, nice town, but holy shit, nothing happens there. The hostel closed at 11, we go there at 10 59. So, he gives us a room and basically tells us to go to bed... there was nothing to do anyway. So, we do and the next morning we went to see St. Anthony Basillica, where they said they had Donatello pieces... I didn,t see any!! I am not sure if that part of the cathedral was shut down, or if I just overlooked them, but regardless the cathedral was amazing. The interior was great, lots of reliefs, statues etc. We then went looking for Giotto,s frescoes... yeah right, I think it was closed anyway (fox meet grapes), but we couldn.t find it at all. So, we basically gave up, knowing I will get my fill of art in italy at some point. We got to Venice, but so far, no hostels are open until later, so we are lugging around our packs trying to waste time until we can get in. Venice is a stinky stinky town... reminds me of Korea in the morning. So, you see, nothing as exciting as Munich to report, but the little crazy adventure continues. By the way Lisa, yup... Austrian girls=German girls, hot hot hot. It must be a German speaking thing. So, off I go, since I am paying my left nut to write this. Keep the comments coming, it really does make my day.

So walks with calloused feet,
The Desk Gremlin

Any problems or comments for the Grotto should be directed to a dark place, or if you really must, daiunus@yahoo.ca

Well folks, I am taking a moment to write this even though I am totally hung over... I will get to that, but first, let me explain what has been going on. Umm.. hmm... I can´t really remember the last thing I wrote about offhand, but I am pretty sure it ended with me saying we weren´t sure where to go next, or when. We ended up staying the extra time with Lisa and Tomas to watch his first playoff game. It was fun, but Tomas´team lost, which kinda sucked. After that, we decided to head on to Vienna. In Vienna, we managed to get lost looking for a bloody hostel... two hours of walking around in the freezing cold, I was not a happy camper. However, it ended up being worth it. We found a cool hostel and ended up bunking with some Japanese guys who were hilarious. Only one spoke English, and the guy that didn´t was traveling with a Japanese girl who didn´t speak English either. We went out to an Irish Pub, and drank a bit. The Japanese can not hold their liquor at all!!! The English speaking Japanese got smashed and ended up leaving us early. Well, apparently beer replaces language, because we still managed conversations with the other two through teh night. Ok... that didn´t sound nearly as funny as it actually was.
The next day we went to a major art gallery, the Kuntz. It was amazing honestly. I saw a dozen paintings I actually studied, saw a Carravagio, Bruegel, Rubens, and a ton more that I can´t remember right now... but I bought the gallery catelogue, so I have reference. We then got lost again in Vienna... a theme for that city, and ended up buying tickets to a classical concert for 25euro. It was a short concert of Mozart and Strauss, but it was amazing. Later that night, we went back to thee hostel and sat around chatting to yet another German from Hamburg (a theme of the trip for sure), another Japanese girl ( a cute doctor), and an artist from Romania. It sounds like a leadup to a joke honestly hehe. They were all cool people and we had a great time just sitting around for hours on end.
In the morning, we moved on to Salzburg to see a major Austrian castle for a few hours (it was cold and miserable but we still went), but it was a massive dissapointment. The tour sucked, the castle view was obstructed from the literal snowstorm going on, and we couldn´t find the bloody tram to get back down, so we had to walk( which is how we got up). After wasting a few hours on the castle, we got back on the train and came to Munich, and that is where I sit. Now, that was two nights ago, so let me explain what we have done here. First night, sat around the hostel and chatted with a girl from Vancouver, the hostel attendant (girl from Australia), and a Dutchmen... notice a theme, always the right amount of people for the beginning of a joke hehe. Anyway, that was a mellow night, which I really needed. Next day, we took a tour of Dauchau, which was the first concetration camp of the Nazi regime. It was not an extermination camp like Auswitz (my spelling sucks), but it was just as brutal. It was a very good tour and incredibly interesting. During the tour, we met a 28 year old retired editor... strange one huh? We decided to go drinking and went and grabbed the dutchmen from the night before as well.
We first went to the biggest beer hall in Germany; let me explain something... you cannot understand how HUGE this place is... I mean it took us about 10 minutes to walk around to all the different parts until we found a seat. It could hold a few thousand people easily. Now, why I have a hangover, in case you can´t guess. They sell beer by the litre only... meaning 1 beer= alot, but we had 2 beer which equals drunk. After this drinkfest, we decided we wanted to go meet some locals and party some more. oh oh oh, wait... I forgot a very funny part, the soccer fans who read this can appreciate this the most, but it is definitely a good laugh. the night before Arsenal played Bayern Munich in Champions League... Arsenal won, but not enough to win the two game series... so what do I wear to the club? Yup, my Arsenal jersey!! Oh yeah, fear nothing!!! So, I am in the can, releasing roughly a litre of beer, when a very large German looks at me and says, in a mean voice... 'Arsenal'. So, I smiled and said, 'yup, Arsenal'. He then smiled and we kinda talked about the series... he didn´t speak English and was pounded, and I definitely don´t speak German. I complimented Munich so I could not piss off the large drunk German, and he grinned and said, ' Arsenal Sheitzer', which means, ' Arsenal is shit'. I laughed and he put his arm around me and tried to drag me back to his table of rabble rousing drunks, but I slipped under his arm, not hard considering the size difference, and waved my goodbyes. Needless to say, I was scared at first, but it ended up being a good idea wearing the jersey, only since Munich won of course.
So, back to the story, we moved on to a dance bar, but apparently they would not let us in, either because we were four guys with no girls to bring into the place, or because we were English, which actually seemed more likely this time. So, we looked around for another bar and found something called the Cattle Corral, or the Fat Cow or something like that.... well, we just HAD to go in. It was small and uneventful, but when I looked for a bathroom (which I had to leave the tiny bar to find), I think I ended up in someone´s private apartment... there was a bathtub, and such... it was funny as hell. We did go to one more dance club, where again my shirt was commented on by some german girl. It was hilarious, I think in total, 4 people stopped me to talk about Arsenal... 1 Englishman and 3 germans. Freaking hilarious. So, here I sit, the morning after, hungover from roughly 3 litres of beer and trying to decide my next move... which I think is Switzerland for a night... Bern maybe, or we may go to Uhm, or hmm... ah hell, you get the picture. So, in conclusion, meeting lots of people, having a great time, and seeing some very cool stuff. I try to write more about the adventures than the stuff I see mostly because it is hard to convey the beauty of alot of this.
Hey Burton: does that make up for not seeing some Prague music scene? I hope so ;)
Freaking German keyboards are different, this is really hard to write... so I end it here for a few days at least. Keep commenting on things folks, I love to read them, makes writing this all worth while.

So moves,
The Desk Gremlin

Any problems or comments for the Grotto should be directed to a dark place, or if you really must, daiunus@yahoo.ca

Well, this is the first picture that I am trying to post on the blog since getting Chris to help me. This pic is Prague from the Astronomical Clock Tower... nice view huh? The tower itself has a little clock that, when chiming (every hour), has 12 mechanical figurines of the apostles which cycle through open windows. It was kinda funny to see a hundred people standing around every hour to see them come out.

Alrighty, so me and Joe are still in Prague, sitting here at my sis's place, and still not sure if we are leaving tomorrow or waiting until Monday so we can watch a playoff game of Tomas's team. I have to say... Czech Rep has alot to see. We managed to get to St. Mikolaus Cathedral, a Baroque cathedral. Not as nice as the gothic cathedrals, but has its own grandeur, since the statues and frescoes are golden outlined. We also managed to see a castle of Charles IV (Karlstein, yeah, I know, doesn't have Charles in its name) in the mountains, St. Vitus Cathedral (gothic), the Museum of Torture (freakin cool stuff), and the museum of natural history (where I actually saw a Willendorf statuette from 6000bc- around that anyway).

Another awesome view is Charles Bridge.. the statues and the view from it are amazing. There are statues you are supposed to make a wish on, and I did... however, my wish didn't come true!!!! Damn it all. We went drinking one night in this crazy "samoan" club called Zanzibar. More "girly drinks" than you can shake a stick at, but the shots make up for that! Yeah, that's right.. I drank margueritas and Daquiries.. screw you all!!!! ;)

Oh, and of course, we got to see the Bone Church in Kutna Hora... what can I say, it was fascinating. Not nearly as morbid as I thought it would be. The church is decorated inside with the bones of 40,000 people who died in/around the church... 30,000 of them were black death victims, and the other 10k were during the Hussite wars.

Lisa and tomas have been great guides, and tomas's sister and Lisa's friend helped to show us around. Not much happened here that warrants a funny story unfortunately. It has been a smooth trip up to this point. We have some friends we met in Berlin that are living in Spain (they are americans), and we plan to go and visit them so we can have some tour guides around there too.

Oh, hey soccer boys: saw a "history of Futball" exhibit here in Prague too... that was pretty cool. Nedved's personal trophies, his footballer of the year, his MVP for a Champion's League match etc were all there too. Arsenal had a "Gunner" statue there as well, which was pretty amazing to see.

So, how do I compare Czech Rep. to Germany? Well, Prague is a beautiful city for sure, nothing in Germany can compare to that from what we saw, and the food here is much better than damn sausages. The people here are not so nice however... definitely not as polite or helpful as Germany, and even the service in Czech is pretty damn rude. Also, remember my comments of the German women's soccer team? Well, it doesn't apply throughout that country. Whatever man-drugs they serve their athletes, they must serve pretty-pills to all the other women to make up for it. The Czech women are... well... hmm... tall mostly, and I will leave it at that. ;)

I had to edit this post to make it sound more exciting per my sister's instructions. Apparently, "cool" and "fascinating" don't cut it with her. Don't get me wrong, I thought this place had alot of scenic views and great architecture, just don't want to bore you people with constant descriptions. Now we are staying until Monday... that has been decided in the last two hours since I originally wrote this post hehe.

So, next... whenever next is, will be Austria, and after that... who freakin knows??? We will figure that out as we go. So, until next time folks.



So moves,

The Desk Gremlin