This is just a very brief good bye. Tomorrow lunch/evening I'm heading down south in Europe.
If I find a computer I'll send you an e-mail. I'll probably be able to be contacted through e-mail so please send some if you feel like it. Please use my ordinary address lime@writeme.com (or d97esa@efd.lth.se). I'll be sending from tolime@usa.net.
Take care and have a nice Easter, love Emil
I've started out with three days in Berlin and have now continued to Vienna. Berlin was a wonderful city and it couldn't start better. I found a nice and cheap hostel right away in the east part of Berlin. The staff was very nice but there were sure some strange personalities at the hostel. Many of the people staying there only spook Spanish and French which I don't speak so I didn't spend too much time with people from the hostel. The first day I also joined a walking tour that was supposed to last about three hours but the guide got very familiar with us I guess so it lasted for about six hours instead. It was a very interesting tour covering big parts of the city filled with all its history. The guide got so familiar that he ended his final speech rolling a joint... At the tour I also met a nice American woman who I did spend some time with later. I forgot to bring a book and she was just finishing hers which I got.
The weather was great, almost like Swedish summer so people just laid in the sun enjoying life and so did I. I guess I'll spend much of the time during this trip just walking around enjoying myself instead of trying to see as much as possible. The weather turned cloudy and cold yesterday which really made Berlin a depressing city so I continued last night here to Vienna. I haven't been here too long and just been strolling around in the city, which seems to be very nice but much more expensive than Berlin. I haven't figured out the exchange rate though, even if I've tried to make up an index from the prices at McDonalds, which was the greatest of my ideas I guess...
I hope You all had a nice Easter. I have not really celebrated Easter but it sure has been a whole lot of people in Prague. After Berlin I finally decided to move on to Vienna which was a very nice city. The city was very beautiful and there where some nice places to go to like some castles and museums. I also stayed at a very nice hostel where I met a lot of people. Since the weather was pretty bad in Vienna I decided to join two Argentines who where heading for Prague but I overslept that day so instead of taking a later train and ending up there in the after noon, I went to Budapest, Hungary instead.
Budapest is a very nice city but I just spent 8 hours there walking before I continued to Prague by night train. I arrived early in the morning to Prague with an American who I met on the train. We found a hostel after a long walk. We were very lucky cause the whole city has been crowded now over Easter and all the hostels have been full. Here in Prague I just enjoyed myself with walking around, reading a good book, went out to eat and drank beer. Everything here is pretty cheap and the people at the hostel are very nice and so are the people in the city. Prague is such a beautiful city and here is a lot to do except for partying and drinking which You of course also have to do.
Hi, I'm back in Sweden and just wanted to tell the end of the story!
Prague was really a very nice city, which offers what ever you're interested in. If you want party there is party and if you want culture you got that too... I had a great time there and met quite a few nice people. I mainly just relaxed and enjoyed myself. Then there is not only Prague in this country, there are also some other very nice places to visit. For instance Sanne, a Norwegian girl, and I did a day trip outside Prague to Kutna Hora which was a nice quite town with some nice things to see, but the most extraordinary place in town was a church which was decorated with the bones from some 40 000 people. It must have been a pretty strange monk to come up with such an idea.
When I left Prague I went to the south of Czech to a very tiny village called Cesky Cromlov. It was an extraordinary beautiful town with a castle and a stream running almost around the inner older part. Here wasn't too much to do than look around, eat and drink. Too bad the weather was pretty bad so I didn't spend too much time outside.. so I left.
Then I came to Krakow in the southern part of Poland. A very nice town that was very similar to Prague but a lot smaller and not that crowded with tourist either. The old town was like Prague saved from the World War II so all the nice old buildings were still there but they hadn't renovated so much as they have in Prague though. Except from enjoying the city with it's low prices (stayed as cheap as $8, not bad but then there was a couple of hundred kids running around screaming!) I also made a trip to a huge salt mine and went for a day to Auschwitz. The salt mines where nice to see but maybe wasn't worth the money and the time. You could walk some trails underground and see statues they were carved out from the walls of salt and they also had made a cathedral and other places like a sport facility underground. Auschwitz was a quite sad experience and hard to describe, You better go Yourself. But it wasn't as shaking as I thought it would be, You just couldn't believe it was true.
Then I continued to Hamburg where a very funny guy lives, my grandfather. I just visited him for a day cause he's kind of tired. But his pretty alert and funny even if he's 94. Live and kickin'! That was the end of the trip and I left Hamburg this morning and arrived here to my apartment in the afternoon. I decided to cut my journey a little bit shorter than I had planned in the beginning. It will be nice to have some days in Sweden to rest from all the traveling before school starts. That's all for now folks! Hope You liked to get some reports from the eastern part of Europe.