Budapest and Prague

Well I don't have much time because my battery is running out on my computer.

I'm sitting in small square in Prague having a Pilsner. The centerpiece of this square is a sculpture of two guys peeing in a little pond. They are wagging their pee pees around as they go. People are taking pictures of themselves drinking straight from the "faucet." Quite amusing.

It's my last day here and I'm off to Amsterdam tonight on an overnight train. I'll try to paraphrase both BP and Prague but it's going to be difficult. I'll put the BP pics on bottom and the Prague pics on top.

BP - Gorgeous city. It has the most amazing architecture I have ever seen. Of course I'm only half way through my trip but it will be hard to top. I stayed with a very cool girl named Lilla. She's an attorney in BP and had to work during the days but we had great times at night hitting the BP bar scene. She made sure to feed me authentic Hungarian food with Paprika a plenty!

I spent most of my time in BP soaking in the many different buildings with influences from all over Europe. It seems every culture in Europe has occupied Budapest at one time or another... the French, the Mongols, the Germans, the Turks and who knows who else. It has provided for an incredibly culturally rich city. I toured castles, visited the National Museum and soaked in the natural spring public baths. Don't get the wrong impression though. Budapest is a very modern and clean city. In my explorations, I ran across a very contemporary "billboard art" exhibit straight in the middle of Hero's Square. The exhibits were mostly critical of the Hungarian government as well as global social issues like global warming and the like.

I enjoyed BP so much, I decided to skip Vienna and stay an extra day. Vienna has so many places I want to visit, namely the multiple music halls, museums and the Jung Museum. There was no way to fit in all in one day. I'll be back for that.

I moved on to Prague two days ago. I have no host here in Prague so I stayed in a hostel. I found a very nice place with a perfect location near the center of the action. I checked in and walked in my room (of six beds) to find only one person....score!!!

This one person turned out to be Mauricio. He's a super cool guy from Santiago, Chile. I was meeting some Couch Surfers (couchsurfing.com If you're a traveler, check it out. You might like it.) that night so I invited him to join. He accepted and off we went. We navigated our way to Old Town Prague to find this bar and were happy to find around 15 CSers there. One American guy had organized the whole thing. There were several Czechs, three American girls, and Italian, a Ukrainian, a Slovak, a Scottish girl and a couple others I'm sure. We all proceeded to pound Pilsner Urquells for less than a dollar a piece. After a couple hours of lubing up, about half of us hoped on the subway to head over to this club called Cross Club.

This place is like nothing I have ever seen. It was incredibly industrial with gears, moving parts, mysterious lighting and eccentric people. I felt like I was in the Star Wars Cantina Beyond Thunderdome. The music was electronica mixed with hard hitting hard-core rock. Maybe I could describe it as Rage Against the Machine with serious drum and bass. This was Bohemia. Faux-hawks and dread locks were the fashion. Tattoos and orifice piercings. Shots of Absinthe were flowing. This place was bad ass.

Of course I had to have shot of Absinthe. It seriously burned, not only my throat and stomach, but my brain. Many more of these and I might cut my own ear off. It was so fitting to my surroundings. I took several pictures but they really don't do it justice. I could go on and on about this place but my battery is at 11% right now and I want to upload some pics.

The rest of Prague is gorgeous. It is quite touristy as you might imagine, but there is good reason. Prague is way more edgy that BP. You have to be alert at all times, count your change, negotiate your cab fare... not for the faint at heart. I'm sure a lot of people spend twice what they should in this city. But I love shit like that. Keeps you on your toes. It only makes perfect sense in the land of the Bohemians.

I'm off to Amsterdam. I can't wait to smoke all that coffee...