Czech Republic

We arrived in Prague on a 10:00pm night train from Krakow. This began with some jeering from local Polish guys who were being jerks laughing and pointing at us. We didn't understand them, so I am not sure what that was all about.

Aboard the train we found our sleepers which were in small cubicle containing three beds to each side of the wall. Thankfully we were on the bottom bunk, but can you say claustrophobia? The other two guys in our room were Canadians studying in Waterloo. They were chatty, but a little odd and seemed to have missed the point of backpacking: Culture.

After reading a few too many stories about night time train gas and rob(s), we weren't that eager to sleep. The conductor came and told us to keep the chain locked on our room because he wasn't sure about the rest of the people on the train (I am serious). We decided to try and sleep anyways locking and chaining our door. 3am arrives and the door is flung open (chain and all) by a border guard who abruptly says: PASSPORT. This really helped to affirm our feelings of safety.

I asked for a stamp, but that wasn't going to be happening. One small rant to ensue: Just because all of these countries are part of the EU, doesn't help that I STILL WANT A STAMP IN MY PASSPORT. Ok, moving on. We tried to go back to sleep after this but not were not very successfull!

We arrived in Prague early AM and waited around to meet our guy, Ondrej (23 yrs), at his college at 11am. He checked our bags at his school and showed us around the city for an hour. We then toured around on our own seeing the old town square with the clock from the 14th century, many churches, shops and stunning architecture. This being my second times in Prague and Nina's first, I tried to be a good guide and show her all the sights. The beer is dirt chea and, the city is quite beautiful and colorful, what more could you ask for? We met up with Ondrej at 3pm and he took us around the city for a couple of hours. Being a history student, he was eager to show off his knowledge and took us over Charles Bridge (lots of statues) and around the Prague Castle along routes not typically used by tourists. We were surprised at how busy it is around here considering it is about 1 degree celsius (can't imagine what it's like in the summer months!). We picked up our bags, grabbed some sandwich stuff AND BEER and went to Andre's flat for the night. His roommates were out of town, so we got nice beds and a big room!!

The next day we went with him to his hometown of Pisek which is about 1.5 hours away from Prague. We stayed at his parents apartment building (they own the whole building) in an empty suite. It was very quaint, almost like a B&B. His family was lovely, but not too much english was spoken. I fell in love with his grandfather, of course, who was tiny and adorable and spoke to us in broken English about how he had never had any formal english lessons and still listen to him speak! He was too cute!! Then we went out on the town to a local pub to meet some of his friends for drinks. Needless to say we were out late, drank way too much and only spent $15 each including snacks! We are thinking about relocating (just kidding)! The next morning Elana and I took another bus to a small town called Cesky Krumlov another 1.5 hours away. Here we literally fell in love with this adorable city. Colorful and small with beautiful buildings. The castle was truly remarkable. Almost an indescribable town, it was so relaxing to be in a place with so few people and tourists. I hope the pictures we bring home reflect this gem of a city. Anyone who comes to Prague MUST take an overnight/day trip to this picture perfect town. Our first hostel was more like a guest house with only one other girl staying there. Family run, the woman left after 11 am and we just used our keys to get around. We enjoyed a quiet dinner our with our new friend from Australia before retiring early!

We enjoyed another magnificent castle and a tip led us to a National Geographic picture exhibition. A wonderful day all in all.

Our bus back to Prague was effortless and we met a British guy who was friendly and full of conversation. We parted ways as we heading to Hostel Elf, the same hostel that I stayed in three years ago. It was awesome! Here we just relaxed and enjoyed the stories and conversations of other backpackers, like ourselves. We spent today just roaming the city and waiting with anticipation about our upcoming train ride to Warsaw for our flight out.

Krakow, Poland

Well we have arrived safe and sound in Prague and so I will give you our write up of Krakow, Poland. We took a three hour train trip to Krakow from Warsaw and met a Canadian couple from Ontario. We both clung to each other, just enjoying the sound of our mutual language spoken with a Canadian accent. It is funny how you miss english when you are away from home! We stored our bags at their hotel room for the day while we roamed the beautiful and charming city of Krakow. Krakow is as small and colorful as Warsaw is big and dark. Less traffic and the people are more charming. We saw the castle, many architecturally unique buildings. We ate lunch at the Milky Bar, a post-communist cafeteria like restaurant. Cheap food, need I say more? We shared perrogies and Borscht. Our first Borscht!!

We met our host, the boyfriend of the couple we were staying with. Polish people are so small!! Not only are most of them quite short, but they are also very slim. I have stopped eating entirely! Just kidding. He is only 20 and his girlfriend is 21. I swear he looks like a little fawn, with adorable freckles and the thinist face. Just the cutest. He insisted on caring some of our bags and he took us home to his gorgeous apartment 30 minutes out of downtown. His parents own the apartment and he lives there with his girlfriend. He didn't understand our surprise at this. It was very nice and new, but without a stove. How odd. I must make my complaints known about Eastern Europe. NO STANDUP SHOWERS. I am tired of holding the nozzle on the shower while alternatively soaping, lol. Back to the story: He is a student of the arts. The government pays for their studies, so there is no pressure to take something more practical, I guess. He has no idea what he would like to do after school. They are both young hippies with an optimistic outlook on life. We enjoyed their company emensely every evening. They are true hospitality club members feeding me Vitamin C and offering tea and coffee everytime we came in the door and several times afterwards. They loved our stories about similarities and differences between the two countries. It is very hard for them to come to Canada because it is very expensive and you need a visa. Poland is second world, but trying very hard to be a first. Great people, once you get to know them.

On day two we took a trip to the salt mines, which involved a two hour tour of this huge underground mine. Statues carved of salt and an enormous underground church which apparently has mass every Sunday. The lowest point we reached was 130 kilometers under the ground. Very informative and interesting. We took the english tour and found ourselves among fat people. Ahh, a taste of home. Upon returning to the city centre we shopped and toured before sitting down to a lovely lunch that cost less than 20 dollars and also fed us for dinner and breakfast the next day.

Day three we met up with our Canadian guy, his girlfriend opted not to come, and we took the 1.5 hour trip Auschwitz and Birkenau. As I pride myself on being well written, I will leave many of the horrific details to your imagination. What you can see in the museum was enough to make me want to throw up my breakfast. It was a bit tacky the way many groups of tourists were taking photographs of the incenerators and barbed wire fences. Once guy smiled while his friend took his photo. Birkenau and its inormity was quite surprising. All in all a very sad day. You can't really explain just how depressing it is to see piles and piles of suitcases that no longer have a home.

On a more positive note, we found the mall the next day for some great shopping and enjoyed our first big mall in Europe. Then we hauled on a train to arrive in Prague at 7am.

Poland - Warsaw

I will explain the following to people who are not aware of what it is. We are members of Hospitality Club (HC), an organization of volunteers from around the world, who host people for free in exchange to be hosted in the future by the same or different people. It is a chance to meet strangers, understand their city better and save money on accomodation. Yes it could be dangerous, no we’re not interested in people who think we’re weird, we already know!!

Back to the story: We arrived in Warsaw on thursday morning and made our way to our first HC host. He turned out to be a sikh (we had read this in his profile) and owns an indian restaurant in Warsaw. After dinning at his delicious restaurant for lunch and a quick nap he took us to his temple for the Indian new year. A unique experience that was not so far from home! We were the only white people in there (of course) and we listened to Indian singing as well as an Indian prayer for 1.5 hours. They did reward us with dinner afterwards. This was our very first experience in an Indian temple and an interesting one!!

The next day we spent walking around this city, which is actually quite big. We followed the local tour map and tried to discover this busy city on our own. We found the monument for Chopin, the composer, beautiful old palaces, churches and a gorgeous park. Our book led us around and explained any interesting facts about Warsaw.

Friday evening after a rest we headed out on the town to a local bar and club with two polish people and a typical LA boy. There we learned our first polish words and had some heated political discussions. Polish people are a kind unto their own. We found them to be very abrupt, but once you got to know them or addressed them directly they softened up. We did have more than one person give us the glare and our third host gave us some insight into the situation!! They said that many young people from Europe/North America come to Poland and get very drunk and behave badly because it is inexpensive. In turn young tourists are not always liked! We did find that men always opened the door for us and refused to go ahead of us. We found Warsaw to be inviting and an impressive city. We drove with three different people there, and all of them were crazy!!! They go very fast, and very close to one another (yet they have fewer accidents than we do!).

We left our first host on Saturday, and went to the second host, a young girl about thirty who lived 30 minutes outside Warsaw. She was super friendly and took us salsa dancing that night, where we received our 2 hour lesson in Polish. The instructor even used Nina as an assistant and it took her five minutes before Nina had to admit that she didn't’t understand the instructions. Still her dancing skills were clearly evident!! As Remembrance day in Canada passed so did Poland’s Independence day. Many people from their army were present downtown along with tanks and a huge cross made up of candles. We also met some locals through our HC host Agata. We also tried our first polish perogies which were super delish! Sauerkraut and mushroom and russian style (cheese and potato). Agata also took us to see one of the remaining walls of the Jewish Ghetto. It was a very powerful and sad experience. I find that most people don’t speak English very well here, but are happy to point you in the right direction if you can get your message across. Some people still have the post-communist stare which can be unnerving. As Canadians/tourist we are constantly being stared at with curious looks.

Besides our obvious language differences, Polish people have a classy way of dressing (a luxury we as tourists don’t have). They mostly wear jeans with tall black boots and black or brown button up winter coats. Our snowboarder coats tednd to stand out! Still we are enjoying our cultural experiences and look forward to writing you about Krakow (where we are currently staying).

p.s. we are eating well and trying to eat less and look more "European!"

New Jersey - New York

Here begin the travel adventures of Nina and Elana: Europe, Middle East and hopefully Africa! We hope you enjoy our travel blogs as much as we enjoy writing them, so here is the first of many installments.

Today we leave New Jersey for Warsaw, Poland after a lovely three day trip to visit my mothers cousin near New York City. During the day we took a quick bus into Manhattan to visit the big apple. Although we have both been to New York about 10 years ago, we still had a fabulous time cruising Times Square, viewing the Metropolitan Museum of Art, eating in a couple of lovely Kosher Delicatessen's and walking through Central Park. We also went to view the memorial site for 9/11 which is under construction for a five building project to surround the freedom tower.

To top of an already fabulous begining, Nina won the lottery at the play RENT (a lottery held ever evening one hour before the show) and we got 2nd row seats for $20 a piece!!! The play was beyond words fantastic and very moving. We are going to invest in the sound track upon our return. We noted JUST how many tourists are in New York at this time.

Anyways gotta run and catch our train.