Another friend (John Horgan) joined us on Monday June 1st in Prague and left yesterday (from Budapest). I was lucky enough to meet a local women who offered to show me around one evening. She took me to a fountain show which was excellent. It consisted of many water fountains and lights set to music (for some reason it was not mentioned in the rough guide).
On our last night we went on an organized pub crawl. For about $13 (including beer and food) about 20 of us were walked around Prague from about 6pm to 12am by an entertaining Scotish bloke named 'Mr. Huggy'. Definitely worth doing.
Thursday June 4th turned out to be bad day. We jumped on the train to Dresden. Once on the train John discovered that my Palm Pilot (an organizer) was not working and had a black mark in the middle of the screen. I put new batteries in it and it came back to life but all the data was gone! We had a lot of data in it including the contact info of people we had met. We jumped in the car in Dresden and pulled into a petrol Station. John and I were sitting in the car waiting for John #2 to return from the bathroom. John had his door slightly open and a truck driver decided to customize it for us as he drove by! He was not helpful and it took us 3hrs and 2 police visits to sort it out. It turns out he was trying to make us sign a statement in German that said it was our fault as we opened the door as he drove by! This all ended well thanks to National car rental who ended up giving us a nicer car (Opel Vectra Estate 1.6-16v) which is more suited to the autobahn. We have to swap it again in Munich tomorrow.
After spending a night at Rob's, John's old flat mate, in Munich (someone else who made the day better) we headed into Vienna. We slept 2 nights in a camp site in Vienna in the sweltering heat. Vienna was summed up nicely by a very funny Irish man in the tourist office who gave us a list of bar/restaurants and said 'If you find a good place you know where I am'. There is a lot to see in Vienna but it really was too hot. We did see 'Tommy live' for free on a big screen in the park. If the Austrians were enjoying it they were not showing it. Of course all our impressions are flavoured by who we meet and wether or not we know someone in a place we are visiting.
We then drove to the train station, parked the car and jumped on a train to Budapest. We booked into a youth hostel that ended up being the most friendly we have been in. Another bonus was that we were not the oldest there for once! Our first full day in Budapest was mostly taken up by a 3 hour caving trip. John amazed me again (bungee) by doing this even though he has a fear of enclosed spaces. John H. and I really enjoyed it. I think John was just glad he survived it (there were a few very tight spaces to crawl through).
Budapest is another manageable city. It was easy to do the compulsory sight seeing. One of the most relaxing events in Budapest was a trip to a 400 year old tukish bath (men only). We started in 28 degree (celcius) water, then it was 30, 32 and 36. All of these had signs recomending 30 minutes. The final bath was 42 degrees and as best as I could make out the sign said 'as long as you can manage'. Then we went into the 45 degree sauna and finally the 50 degree sauna (burns when you breath). Finally we jumped back into the 28 degree pool!
Rupert
Rome