Krakow

Dear deer

This one goes out to Joseph Avila because you may never be welcome in Poland

We arrived in Krakow late Wednesday night after a long day of travel from Budapest. In order to save a few bucks we had to avoid Slovakia and take a slight detour through Austria and the Czech Republic.

Thursday we took a day trip to the Auschwitz concentration camp. We are at a loss for words of the horrors we witnessed there which included two tons of human hair taken from the murdered victims. It was a powerful experience but we were relieved when the tour was finished.

We arrived back at our hostel in rather somber moods to find 6 English guys already a few beer deep and only just getting started. Before long a fight had errupted one guy flew out of the shower without an article of clothing on attepting to break it up. After nearly getting kicked out of the hostel, they ventured out for a night on the town agreeing to meet us later once we'd had the opportunity to catch up a little.

After meeting up with them, we all went to the 24 hour supermarket to grab a few beers before checking out some clubs. Apparently your not allowed to drink in the Polish streets and before long we were stopped by the police. To quote our new English drinking mate, "We've been with you Canadians 5 minutes, and Old Bill's already got us." When the police accosted Dave for his half full beer he decided to solve the problem by finishing it. They did not appreciate this and asked for his name and personal information. "Joseph Avila" he chanted proudly. With that we safely escaped our second encounter with European police in under a week.

After a day of recovery, they sucked us into another night out which included some new drinking games and a few English drinking songs.

After a few more days enjoying the city, we moved onto Prague, which is where we now reside.

"Works shall set you free"

Empty cans of Zyklon B

Memorial at the death wall

Where St. Maxamilian Kolbe died

The Gas chamber

Auschwitz-Birkenau

The train station at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Auschwitz-Birkenau

The Barracks

Outside the Barracks

Our roommate wanted her hat back, I wanted to keep it.

Some of the English guys

Alcohol seems to deform his face

See what I mean?

Krakow Castle

John Paul II

The River

Nick, Greg and a flaming dragon

Bud-Arrest

Dear Earthlings

We pulled ourselves away from Munich to relax in the warm sun of Croatia. It was freezing. Our first day we met an American girl at our hostel who was heading to Plitvice National Park the next day. We agreed to join her but only if she could rouse us from our slumber early the next morning. She succeeded and off we went. The park was really cool but we could tell it would be much improved in the summer with warm weather and a greener atmosphere.

The rest of our days in Zagreb consisted mainly of relaxing in the common room watching March Madness on the T.V. It was a much needed relaxation period after the storm in Munich.

From Zagreb we ventured to Budapest. Upon our arrival we met two English chaps Phil and Nathan who were in for the weekend. They quickly changed our plans for the evening and convinced us to accompany them for a few pints. It was an interesting night to say the least. As dawn approached we grabbed a taxi back to the hostel and agreed on a fair price. When we arrived at the hostel the cab driver attempted to charge us double because we were a group of 5. We would have none of that. Dave and one of the English guys jumped out and yelled for the others to follow while the other English guy poked his head in the front door and tried to reason with the driver. Thinking we were just going to ditch the fare, the driver burned out of there with Greg and Nick still hanging out in the back seats.

Dave and Nathan fell on the street with laughter. Phil thought he was superman and tried to chase the taxi down the road yelling for him to pull over. As he was running he slipped and fell head over heels. Dave and Nathan laughed harder while the fate of the other two hostages was unknown. We decided to go home and sleep.

Meanwhile Nick and Greg were trying to hatch a plan to get out of the cab. The driver was still demanding double the fare and refused to slow down. He then threatened to take us to the police and was surprised when we jumped at the proposition. Ten Hungarian cops were hanging out inside and not one of them spoke a word of English. Greg did not seem to mind, and ranted about the injustice of the situation with many a French word and requests for the Canadian Embassy. After about 15 minutes a translator showed up and heard our story. After consulting the other policemen he came to us, requesting that we pay the entire fare. We turned him down and they took our I.D. to press charges, but Greg quickly interjected that we also wanted to press charges of our own. That seemed to do the trick as they immediatly released us and we ended up with a pretty good story and a free taxi ride.

We stayed at the most laid back hostel in Budapest. After hearing our story, the manager declared us the quickest guests to the police station in hostel history and then decided to leave us in charge of the place for an afternoon.

We wandered around Budapest in the following days but the cameras were out of commission so we have no evidence. We now reside in Krakow, Poland.

Our American friend Gianna

Our Canadian friend Shallyn

For Melissa

Phil and Nathan in the middle

They are oblivious

That gyro looks tasty

Van Surfing

Just making a phone call

Hungarians know how to make a pizza

Hungry Hungarians

Just running the place, no big deal

The Hurricane That Was Munich

Dear apostles


This one goes out to our Australian friend Brendon because he's simply brilliant.

The Tazmanian Devil

Munich was awesome. We arrived at our hostel to discover that they had set us up in the couples beds, meaning two guys to a bed. After settling in we decided to check out happy hour at our hostel bar and maybe have a beer. That 1 beer turned into a whole lot more dangerously quick, while battling some Irish guys on a stag in an epic trivia dual. When Greg discoverd a mysterious thermos of cold tea under his pillow the next morning, we met Brendon. It was a match made in heaven.

We hadn't even gotten started yet. The next day was Nick's birthday, which got off to a good start with beer from the supermarket for a mere 50 cents a litre. We continued the festivities at happy hour where Tristan found us a 40 year old escort and convinced us accompany him to a kareoke bar where Dave and Tristan decided to test their luck on stage. We managed to secure a safe return to our hostel bar, where our night had just begun. Brendon led us on a wild goose chase for a club that did not want to be found. The details begin to severly blur at this point but all in all we woke up in our beds the next morning.

Saturday was spent in recovery but did include an appearance at happy hour.

Sunday we went to a ridiculously large science and technology museum and only saw a fraction of the cool stuff inside. That night we met up with some familiar faces whom you may recognize, Ms Chanelle Allen and Ms Haley McDonald. We decided to partake in a beer tour with the girls and Brendon around the famous beer halls of Munich. It began with a produtive hour of open bar at our hostel. From there we went to the Augustiner where we enjoyed the largest, darkest and strongest beers of our drinking lives. Next we moved on to another beer hall whose name escapes us now. However we did not last long after Tristan made a mochery of the bathroom and forced our tourguide Paul to quickly evacuate us from the situation. After Paul abondoned us in the next bar, the tour could not function as a pack without a leader and split into several smaller tribes. We all woke up in our own beds. Tristan had left Greg a little surprise the night before. By surprise we mean a tar-like substance that he claims originated in his stomach. We've never seen Greg move that fast. What was once two in the top bunk quickly became three. It was really cozy.

The next day we said farewell to our friends and recovered at our hostel.

The rest of Munich was pretty uneventful as we set out for Zagreb the following day.