found my way.

i just reread my last two posts. sammi sounded angry. sammi´s not angry anymore.

after getting the hell out of prague, i headed to krakow, home of the bagel and my first official couch surf. no more australians, plenty of doughy goodness. krakow appealed to me immediately; on a chilly, foggy morning i was greeted by bagel (obwarzanki) stands on every corner, a beautiful town square and smokey student cafes. did you know the bagel was invented in krakow? these are so my people.

i mostly wandered in krakow: the main square with its old churches and the cloth hall, the old jewish quarter (no longer very jewish but full of great cafes) and wawel castle. i´ve been pacing myself on the church/castle sightseeing front so far, so they still have an air of grandeur for me. wawel castle looks like a mixed up jigsaw puzzle of a castle. it seems to have every era of architecture represented in its various towers and courtyards. apparently that´s what you get from hundreds of years of invasions and political unrest. every invader leaves their mark.

then on to warsaw. now, warsaw, she may not be the prettiest girl at the party, but she certainly knows how to show you a good time. the city itself is pretty much as bleak and grey as i had expected, but i stayed with great people (total strangers, i was introduced to justyna through a girl i met for, like, half an evening in prague) who fed me and entertained me all weekend long. best memories (mostly food memories. of course): the view from the university library rooftop garden, discovering oskypek (smoked and then grilled chunks of goat cheese with cranberry sauce) in the old town square, doughnuts (rose jam filled heaven), radek´s feasts around the small kitchen table, and a night out of vodka and pickled herring, beer in an old-timers smokey bar and shisha. great times had by all.

now i´m in budapest, and it´s sunny and beautiful and i don´t want to leave. my god this city is fantastic. i´m sure it will become one of my favourites.

egészségedre! (that means cheers! in hungarian. so far it´s the only thing i can say).
-sammi

spin the globe and point....where should i go next?

so i'm in krakow now. i think this is a very cool city. i like it much better than prague, thank you very much. but after i've eaten a bucket of pierogies and thouroughly depressed myself with a trip to auschwitz, where do i go next?

tentative plan that failed. krakow to stockholm to helsinki then back through and around the baltic countries...but nowhere to stay in scandinavia now so that's been postponed.

new thoughts: krakow to lublin (weekend trip with my couchsurfing hosts) to warsaw, skip lithuania, down to romania, hungary, bulgaria...then back to the west for a bit.

or: maybe eastern europe is just too fucking depressing and i will be lame and just go to italy.

or: maybe eastern europe is too fucking depressing and i'll just go to turkey. thoughts on turkey in the off season?

help.

fuck you prague.

that's what i wanted to call this post about 5 hours ago, as i walked through the soggy streets of prague composing an angry rant in my head. too many tourists. too many dumb fucks in my hostel. too much rain. what do people do here? a church is a church is a castle is a church. that sort of thing.

needless to say, i've mellowed out a bit since then. i've been in prague for about three days now, and i gotta say...it's beautiful, beyond picturesque, haven't seen a city like it yet...but it's not really doing much for me beyond that. it feels almost like a cartoon city. too many pastel coloured buildings i guess. too many tourists. do any czech people actually live here? maybe i just can't shake off berlin.

that being said, i am determined to make the most of my next few days. i will eat goulash. i will go on a day trip to kutna hora and see the Church of Bones. i will go to the ballet. i will drink pilsner in smokey bars with old czech men. and goddammit, i'm going to like it.

sbohem,
-sammi

quick update #1

More things I like about Berlin:

-cold cuts for breakfast
-beer (large bottles, dirt cheap)
-nadja
-kaffee und küchen
-bodemuseum (lovely lovely sculpture museum)
-berlinische gallery (amazing modern art museum)
-helmut newton. nudes nudes nudes!
-imme
-happening upon special places, always while eating a röstbratwurst. i think they bring me good travel karma

2 things i don't like about Berlin:
-bed bugs
-currywurst

...in two parts, entitled: minor annoyances - pubcrawling Australians who think they're the most "cultured" travellers. And bed bugs. Sigh.

As a side note...This is an experiment updating my blog from my iPhone. Did not work. Therefore, I present you the longest blog title without post...

bestill mz heart, berlin.

ok, to preface this post, i have to apologize for the spelling. im on a strange german keyboard where the z and y are switched and i have no idea where to find an apostrophe. so grammar be damned. also, ive had a complaint that my posts are too long, and as someone who also has the attention span of a 2 year old, ill try to tighten things up, post less more frequently or something. not that anyone is reading this blog other than justin and my mom...

paris, which i loved, and was very sad to leave, is now but a distant memorz in the wake of berlin being so damn awesome. i thought id be tired, grumpz and disoriented when i got here (no sleep and an absurdlz early flight make sammi an unhappy traveller) but i arrived in the city and was immiediatelz swept up in its bizarre charms. first thing, i wandered around alexanderplatz to get mzself oriented and stumbled upon a parade where a giant mechanized marionette was being maneuvered by a group of french puppeteers, followed behind by a band plazing strange 60s-ish pszchadelic rock. people were going nuts for it, following along behind and beside it, taking pictures and cheering. zoung people, old people, families...i thought it was so strange. i had no idea what it was for at the time, though ive since found out its part of the celebration for the "reunion/reunification daz". i decided to follow it and the throngs of people through the streets, not reallz sure where i was going, ending up in bebelplatz about 45 minutes later. when we got to the square the music crescendoed and thez put the marionette to sleep (literallz, snores and all), and all of a sudden the cold, grez clouds cleared and the sun came out. i stood there in the square, a rostbrätwurst in hand, and thought: berlin, huh? i think i could get used to this. heres to getting more used to it. i fucking love it here.

tschüss,
sammi