back to reality

and back in California, such a sweet and sour feeling. And all you
loyal readers can find me here, for some exciting new leads on my unruly American life...

dobry den, ahoy, jo napot kivanok!

Czech Republic:

sadly i was only in Prague for 1 night. I headed over from Austria to the east early in the morning as i had 3 trains to catch. i didnt take a close look at my ticket when i bought it and realized on the train that all my connections where within 5 minutes of each other, and ofcourse my train was late and i was so worried that i would be stuck somewhere on the border of austria and germany but i had good karma and managed to catch all the trains... barely. its good to yell something out when the conductor is about to blow the whistle as you are prying open the door to the almost moving train, ooops. so i get to prague and outside the train station its smelly and not so pretty and the people dirty and worn and homeless looking, but hey thats any train station right? i manage to find my hostel which turned out to be pretty cool, they have a free full breakfast and a rad lounge are with a bar and live music at night. i set my bag down and headed out to roam the city. unmistakably beautiful and imposing architecture. i saw alot of good stuff in prague but didnt know what exactly i was seeing because i was just there for 1 day. i did see a synagague which i didnt want to pay to go inside of and lots and lots of tourists, which were very annoying. prague was cheap, so cheap and the food pretty good and close to what im used to at my babushkas house. that night a hung out with some cool cats at the hostel and heard a really great argentinian band, tried some absinthe, and no i did not see little fairies, barely even gave me a buzz and headed off to the great land of slovakia in the morning.

slovaaaakia:

with pauline was ofcourse amazing. never thought i would be headed for slovakia but paulines family had a warm welcome for me in their wonderful home a few hours away from Bratislava. my trip to slovakia consisted of very creepy-going-to-break trains, lots of really good food, lots of sun, and ofcourse drinking. we spent most of the time with pauline's aunt, suzanna, and little brother just hanging out, eating lots of food that pauline's aunt kept feeeding me and trying her grandfather's cooking, delish! we went to a lake, a pool with sulfuric acid water, smelly but good for you, tanned by the pond, ate more food, walked to the waterfall by the house and had lots of watermelon in the 42 degree weather. i got to meet some more of pauline's family and we went out one night, never to be forgotten.... lets just say that its easy to get free drinks from random people at the bar. we started the night with about 15 of us at a restaurant eating tatarak, this raw meat and garlic mixture that u put on toasted bread, it was very tastey but raw! had about 6 beers, its impossible not to, somehow they just keep appearing in front of me when i didnt even order it! more than half of us didnt speak any english so it was a bit difficult at first but somehow i managed to use my russian to communicate. we spent the entire night at a bar drinking until about 4am then headed over for burgers. pauline you will laugh but i am still so impressed with the cheeseburgers! we walked into this joint and the people working there looked like they were about to jump on us, just staring and hating us. we were so loud and obnoxious and when nick put his feet on the chair they were about to kick us out. one of the guys we were with was hillarious and he ordered 6 cheesburgers for us (sex cheesburgers please)and astonishingly it was an actual cheeeeese burger, like... with cheese, this piece of deepfried cheese, no meat... nada on the meet. we went to another place a different night which had this super communist theme with pictures of Lenin and KGB posters everywhere and the USSR flag, i just was not sure if it was a joke or not and i didn`t mind to ask anyone. i still cant believe how generous paulines family was to me, i loved being in a real house with a traditional slovakian family and they treated me like i was one of their own, Patia even gave me a suitcase to take with me, as i am still stripped of all my things and all of Paulines family and friends were so so friendly and soooo so kind. so many memories, thank you guys for such a great time, and please come visit me in CA!!

Budapest:

was incredible and i only wish i stayed longer, much longer. i think this was really, this time my most most favorite destination so far. amazingly beautiful, undescribable and sorry that i can only squeeze in a few pictures on my camera as the battery is dead, and the charger is ofcourse in my yet missing luggage, but never mind that... Budapest for me was so relaxing although staying up till 6am might not seem to be, the Turkish baths definately made the trip worthwhile, i could have stayed in that open air heated pool all day if i didnt need to go do some sightseeing. Budapest is warm and freindly and although you will have a hell of a time understanding the language or even a menu for that matter (i cheated and went to subway) it is a wonderful place and im definately coming back soon!!


wish i can write more about my journey through the post communist eastern european countries but i will save that for when i see all your faces. counting down the days....

the hills are alive

but i am completely dead! its been a long long journey and somehow i ended up here in salzburg, austria home of mozart and the film "the sound of music" let me begin by describing why i am so dead. i thought i was doing well, not whining, not complaining, taking the punches but i think i am all spent and the weather definately has alot to do with i. i managed to conquor 4 countries extensively and i have nothing... literally! my flight from barcelona to vienna somehow managed to lose my luggage, and lucky me that on sunday everything is closed in austria so it was me and my sweaty jeans (pauline´s sweaty jeans) and my cousin anya who i met up with in vienna. if it wasnt for anya i dont know what i would have done!! i have recharged on clothes and toiletries and i am traveling light, very light! and the best part is that the airlines dont know where my stuff is!!! but nevertheless i am in a good mood. vienna was beeeeautiful, the architecture is very rich, very white and magnificent and royal. everywhere u look u see another huge building with amazing balconies and columns. its the kind of place with lots and lots of museums and theatres and educated people. we even got to see a bycicle marathon. the food in vienna is alot of kebab and pizza shops and u will be lucky to find an authentic austrian restaurant. the apple struddle though is on every corner accompanied by ice cream which melts right away because of the damn heat. but i said goodbye to anya who is in london at the moment and am taking in this charming city. this is by far my most favorite destination, despite the heat. the food is amazing (wanna try some weiner schnizle) the city beautiful and alps and the lakes breathtaking. the best part is of course the sound of music theme, it is practically everywhere you turn and today i gave in and actually took the official sound of music tour. it was insane and our tour guide made my belly hurt with his ridiculous jokes. i´got to see alot of city and the magnificent alps and lakes and churches, breathtaking really and of course all the sound of music spots like the gazebo and the Von Trap family house and the steps where they danced and the mountain that was alive, etc. it is 36 degrees outside, maybe more and im planning to live in my 2 outfits from H&M for the next few days until i meet Pauline in Slovakia. i love Austria, i never thought to come here but it is one of the most beautiful countries i have visited. im not sure what the plan is for tomorrow but i think i am headed up to Prague, to try the absinthe, and then some. hope u all in CA have august 3rd marked on your callendars.

ALHAMBRA!

its kind of hard to update as every day something new and exciting happens and i just cant seem to keep my mind in one place. im still in spain and just got in to Madrid from Granada. GFranada was lovely, although my first impression of it was polluted by a petty theft incident from which i got away(some dudes tried to steal stuff from my purse on the bus) i still very much likes Granada, its small and the people all seem to know each other. people eating tapas on the streets and the town is completely dead at siesta (3-6pm) at night there are big beautiful lights covering the entire city. the most impressive attraction and why i came to Granada was ofcourse the all famouse Alhambra. this is a massive Muslim castle situated at the top of a hill. it is incredible and the history behind it goes something like this: Muslims built it, settled... Christians came took over. but the Alhambra is impressive. beautiful carvings and paintings and tile. Granada has the best bars, you order a drink and you get a massive order of tapas free with your drink, every drink.... no frekain way, right? and its delicious! well after a 5 hour bus ride i ended up here in MAdrid, so far i frolicked but hvant really seen all of it. tonight im meeting up with noel, rafa's friend who does not speak any english but we had a good time in dublin so madrid should be a piece of cake!

mas mejillones!

ok super quick cuz i gotta head out and do some sigh seeing before siesta! went to portugal, porto was nice pretty picturesque. lisbon big city big buildings lots of tiles. lagos oh my god lagos i want to go back lagos! lots of young kids, lots of sun, pretty beaches, too much alcohol, not enough sleep. and i have arrived in seville, spain! last night i was casually talking to a girl from colorado at my hostel and turns out that she is from tajikistan and we bonded right away about our immigrant ways and about our friends and parents and russian music. so Ilina , a few others from the hostel, and i were buddies for the night and i love this girl! we walked around empty Seville, which is beeeeautiful by the way! got some sangria, chilled out, found a local bar which had daily specials like mojitos and stuff and just hung out on the street in the warm spnish night sipping our cocktails. today im going to see some pretty things like castles and churches and tonight headed for the nightlife, as thursdays it gets more dense at night, although some places only open at 3am. im especially looking forward to the food, tapas and mmm scarlett´s favorite, mejillones!! im still decided where to go from here and i just might make my way to madrid to say hi to Rafa, who knows.

adios!

goodbye goodbye and hello

wow its been a while since i last updated but here is the craic:
the past few weeks have been completely and untterly hard to remember all though they just happened... everything changed way too fast and all the goodbyes flew past me. i definately did not get a chance to part with Dublin the way i wanted to, or maybe i just did not have enough time to... either way its all been done. the past few weeks have been emotional and mind numbing. i really needed to take a step back and look at what has been going on for the past 4 months, the friends that ive made, the jobs that ive had, the places which i visited and i still can´t believe i did it. this has been by far the most amazing experience of my life and i can only take from it and move on with my life with the knowledge and friends which i have made. everyone, from day one has made this experience completely amazing for me, even when things were rough, i somehow got through them... like that time i really had to pee on our way back from Cashel and my buddy Luke ran off the bus with me, thanks Luke! and somehow by some force of serendipity, the last few weeks came crashing down on me, so much has happened in such a short period of time, how odd. and i think ive had good closure with everyone for the most part. i had an all night goodbye party about 2 weeks ago and almost everyone that could make it made it, it was dubbed the official V's going away hen party, although no one really dressed up except for Sarah and Myou, you guys rock my socks! The party lasted until 8am although i passed out at like 4, knowing that i needed to catch a bus the next day since Drew and i were planning to go on a week backpacking trip through Ireland.... well plans changed and i went a few days later, met up with Drew on Inishmore, one of the beautiful Aran Islands off the coast of Galway smack in the Atlantic. This island was incredible, beautiful and green and a bunch of awesome Aussies working at the laid back beach front hostel. I rented a bike for half the day and just roamed around, rode to this cool fortress on the cliffs of the island and got to see some cool cows and sheep and even donkeys. The island is super small, one hotel, one supermacs, one post office, one of everything! The local guys showed us a great time and i definately recommend this place to visit! Next we headed to Achill where our plans didn´t really carry through as the weather changed quickly and camping wasn´t looking like an option. We found a hostel which I found to be a bit creepy, but they had cool mix tapes and trivial pursuit to keep us occupied. There were about 10 people on this island that we actually encountered so it was a pretty solitary visit for Drew and I, except for the 2 French surfer guys which we played poker with, they were pretty fun to hang out with. So after a half a week of hanging around trying to see some last few places to cover before heading back, Drew and I came back to Dublin. That last week it was all goodbyes, first Luke, then Zach and Drew and finaly myself, poor Steph watched all of us leave. I kind of guarded myself from accepting the fact that things are over and I am now just understanding how over it is. I really do love all my friends there and it was amazing how we parted. We spent one last weekend all together, hanging out at the Hairy Lemon then on to the Merrion Square circus, just the 5 of us.. shooting the shit and me not knowing who is singing Bloody Sunday, oh so typical! I really do love those guys, my best friends, what would I have done without you punks? I can pull a Drew and make a shout out to everyone but I am too lazy and not enough time, maybe once I get home I will make a list of all the wacky things that everyone did and how i love them for it. Then my flatmates, my lovely lovely flatmates... how i will miss that moldy shower and knacker building and all the french, italian, spanish, and japanese! i will miss coming home at 2am and seeing nico still up just starting to make his dinner! oh the glory. i do hope i see these guys again soon, and i am so extremely happy that they were my flatmates... through thick and thin, through dirty dishes, through broken computers, through war and peace, through waking me up in the middle of the night to look at the damn mirror! through bacon and ciggarettes and coffee, through trying on my clothes, through drink till we're drunk, through it all.

ahh i don´t even know what else to say because there is so much! I got to visit my job before I went and say goodbye to Sandi and Gary and Gary's mom for sure, oh Sandi!!! My really 1 and only original Dubliner, she's pure I swear! I learend so much from that girl, more than just how to send a courier! You're coming to CA!
my last night in dublin steph came to say goodbye and it was so so extremely hard and she was altready so worn out from the goodbyes, i do love that girl and i am going to see her so soon in vancouver, and hopefully bring her back to CA with me. And Erin came to say goodbye and so did Sarah and Myou and everything just sort of dwindled away, and its hard for me to collect my thoughts now because i am backpacking now.

destination 1: Portugal
I spent the first 3 nights in Porto, which was incredible.. lots of port lots of cheap food lots and lots of stairs and bakeries and scrumptuouse custard tarts, yum!
I spent last night in a creepy guesthouse in Lisbon with pictures of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus all over the walls, and now I am in a hostel for my last night here, heading over to Lagos tomorrow. I will try to keep this blog updated more as I travel. Either way, I find backpacking a lot more work than I thought it would be but I'm havign a great time and I'm meeting lots of cool cats.

So new beginnings and old endings... wait does that sound right?? I will give a proper ode to Dublin once I get home in August and to all the wonderful, amazing, I can't stop thinking about you people who were in this part of my life. I love you guys.

Kisses,
V

4 Americans + 1 French + Ford Focus = Diabolical

Kerry is my new favorite place in Ireland, and probably will be until... forever. I cannot even begin to describe how incredibly beautiful this part of the country is, but I will explain how we got there, what we did there, and how it all went down.

The us: Luke, Drew, Rachel (Drew's sister), Hubert, and myself.

The Ford: was a Focus, but we were far from focused driving on the left side of the road.

Hubert was our fearless leader at the beginning of the trip, and since he has never driven an automatic before we started off on a bumpy ride, literally.... hard to confuse the break with the nonexistent clutch. Leaving a few hours past what we aimed for, we headed off to Kerry (west), the most beautiful of beautiful in Ireland. Six hours later we arrived in Killarney, the main and biggest town in County Kerry and arrived at our hostel Neptunes, an ok hostel with lots of cool cats and some not so cool ones as well, but it suited us just fine. That night Luke and Drew made dinner for us all and we went out to some local pubs, talked to some locals, who after hearing that I am from CA assumed that i am "living off my daddy's penny." Either way, the night went down diabolically, ended up in a club/pub by our hostel with a live cover band which played all our favorites. I found Killarney to be very friendly and alive, full of tourists and locals alike. It is a very typical Irish town, with the little streets and pubs on the corners. The next day we headed off to see some pretty things. We started at Ross Castle, just a 10 minute drive from our hostel. Ross Castle is a slab of limestone situated at the shore of a lake. The view from Ross Castle is serene and relaxing. The castle was cool, we got a look inside to how the peeps lived back in the day. It is similar to a lot of the other castles that I have visited. the most stunning and in my opinion the most of the most of Kerry was the Ring of Kerry. Now, I wasn't actually sure what the "ring" was... i thought we actually go to see it, like a museum but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Ring is actually just a road which circles the Iveragh Peninsula. This road is kind of a crazy windy one. its a bit dangerous especially with the unfamiliar left hand driving and the zooming tour buses which don't have any mercy on us to even slow down. There are signs as you drive around the ring which really gave all of us the creeps, like "52 people have died driving on the ring of Kerry in the past 4 years" or pictures of cars skidding off the mountain. The view around the ring was spectacular. Mountains, lakes, beaches, green green green, lots of cows and sheep and goats. The weather was unbelievable, we lucked out so much and even got tanned! We finished off the night with home made tacos and a night at Mustang Sally's, an American style club full knackers. They were playing music i thought i would never hear again in any public place (coolio gangster's paradise is an example) we got tired of the knackers and went back to the hostel with some Aussies that were staying there as well who just happened to be at the same club. We all eventually passed out after being shushed by the hostel staff to shut up or get out. Next day we had another excursion by Ross Castle. We rented a boat from this old man in a hat, he keeps the boats in his back yard, or so it looked like it when we walked to the docks and saw lines of clothing drying. We oared out to Inisfallen Island, an uninhabited place for us to play and roam the Mesopotamian looking bricks and remains of old churches and homes. We sailed back, ate some hot dogs, played some lame miniature golf and headed back to Dublin. I loved this trip to the 90, it was completely diabolical in every sense of the word. Sadly, Rachel left the next morning, not very diabolical. gonna miss that red head.