Of mosquitos, moose and bright nights

Thinking about what to write for this entry a funny anecdote comes to my mind. When I worked on the boats in Milford Sound (New Zealand) and we were in the process of clearing tables from plates, cupes etc one of my workmates asked the customer "Are you finished?" whereon the customers replies "No, I am Indian!" .... Don't tell me you didn't laugh!

Alright, back to the real issue. Seems like I am on a mission....to see as much as possible from Europe while I am on home leave. And so I just came back from a week in Finland, visiting my brothers mate and his wife. The newly-weds have tied the knot just a week before our visit. After checking all means of transportation and the costs involved we've decided to take the long enduring inland route and packed up our car - right under the roof as Micha (the mate) had given us a long shopping list with things to take from Germany. If you don't fly the only way of getting to Finland from Germany is via ferry from Rostock right at the top end of northern Germany. We live in the middle though so it took us about 6 hours to get to Rostock, where the ferry wouldn't leave before 5am Saturday morning. We killed time by eating out and going to the movies and boarded the ferry at around 1am. If felt like ages until the ferry finally left the harbour and just a few minutes into the trip I had fallen asleep. We all were dog-tired!

Back in Australia I had believed that cruising to Tasmania takes a long time but 12 hours is quite tolerable seeing the fact that it takes 26 hours (!) to Helsinki/Finland. To kill time we played board and card cames, read, ate (and that quite a lot, what else is there to do when you're bored?) and slept. More than happy we left the ferry in Helsinki upon arrival on Monday morning and ...... yipee.... it was raining! Anyway, we had decided to do a sightseeing trip on a bus to get an idea of how Helsinki looks like and so we've done it. And we had the bus for ourselves! At lunch time we left Helsinki to drive north and at about 6pm we arrived at Michas place right in the middle of nowhere, deep in the forest. What is there? Just the house the couple is living in, a wood shed, a sauna, a BBQ area and a pit latrine. The longdrop wasn't that bad, it didn't smell or anything because you use a special mixture of earth and other stuff to cover what you've just done.

To relax a bit we instantly went to the sauna and spent more than an hour sweating. After dinner we noticed that light outside hasn't change much and we learned that it never gets really dark up there (they are quite close to the Arctic Circle). At 2am in the morning it was still dawning and you can go outside without needing a torch. Unfortunately that also means that in winter it never really gets bright and on cloudy days with no moon and stars it can be pitch black.

Over the next few days we experienced a mix of rain and sun and depending on the weather we either went sightseeing into the next bigger cities, went shopping, hiking in the forest, paddling on one of the many lakes, bbq-ing or just relaxing. We also spent quite a bit of time in the sauna. Doesn't happen every day that a sauna is located right infront of your door!

What about the title you may ask? Hm, unfortunately moose seem to be shy or busy or whatever so we haven't seen any. Mosquitos on the other hand aren't shy at all and like to be around humans a lot. Can't say I made a lot of new friends because they all had to die immediately!

As it's always the case time went by far too quick and on Friday we had to leave this tranquil place to go back to Helsinki where we made good for Monday's rain and not being able to take any pictures. We also had lunch before we boarded the ferry, leaving harbour at around 9pm. Saturday 11pm we hit German ground and although we were quite tired made our way home (remember, 6 hours drive down south!). With swapping drivers a few times we made it home and my brother and his girlfriend (ooops, haven't even mentioned yet they were with me...) kept going a bit longer to reach their home.

marathon sightseeing in Prague and relaxing in Mariánské Lázně

What I love about Europe is the fact that it's old, loaded with history and an impressive history of art. Seen not only in Germany on a few short city trips that I've talked my parents into when we went to see Erfurt and Dresden (photos can be enjoyed when following the link) but also in Prague. This beautiful capital of the Czech Republic is quite impressive with its Castle overlooking the hustle of modern life. Maybe even more famous than one of the biggest castles in the world is Charles Bridge that crosses the Vltava river and is decorated by a continuous alley of 30 statues who have to share the bridge with thousands of tourists every day plus traders who offer souvenirs, paintings, beautiful photographs and other craftwork. During the day the bridge is indeed a very busy place but so is Prague in general. My Czech friend Pavlina who did a brilliant job showing us around her town sometimes was the only Czech speaking person around.

I can't list all the buildings, attractions and sights we've visited as there is too many but to name only a few there's been St. Vitus Cathedral (sourrounded by Prague Castle), The Astronomical Clock, The Dancing House (don't expect too much, when you go to visit it), Old Town Square, Wenceslas Square, Vysehrad and the honorary cemetry next to it (here many famous Czechs are buried), an observation tower on Petřín hill called little Eiffel Tower (that offers wonderful views over Prague and Prague Castle) and many more churches and cathedrals whose names not even Pavlina knew. Considering our history (we've worked together on boats in New Zealand) Pavlina and I wouldn't miss the chance of going on a boat trip together and so we cruised the Vltava river. Only a short trip though we cruised up the river to see Vysehrad and then down to Charles Bridge to see Prague Castle and then we went back. We had to cross a watergate twice as the river level is changing and that was by far the most interesting part of our journey to see how they first pumped water out of it to reach the same lower level of the downstream part of the river and on the way back they pumped the water back in to get us back on a higher level.

The second last day I had been looking forward to for a very long time as this was the day we headed for one of the many sport venues to see Depeche Mode playing as part of their World of the Universe Tour. While the opener was performing in heavy rain the clouds disappeared as soon as Depeche Mode entered the stage. It was a great gig (as always!) although it took quite a while for the Czechs to warm up. They are also not the most passionate when it comes to singing out loud with the band (opposite to what I've seen during the boat trip when they sang and danced on tables) but in the end they've managed wonderfully especially the dude standing behind me and not hitting a note right.Well, I haven't been able to see much of the concert as every tall guy in the stadium must have decided to place themselves infront of me and so even the screens were hidden most of the time. But nevermind, the music counts. And afterall I was quite happy to be there at all as it was very likely for the concert to be cancelled after Dave Gahan (the singer) had fallen ill more than a month ago and they'd already cancelled quite a few shows. We were lucky Dave had recovered so quickly and he looked better than ever!

We've encountered quite a bit of rain while being in Prague and so we had decided to do some trips that didn't involve much walking but more driving in the car. Like everywhere else in Europe, the Czech Republic is blotched with castles, ruins and chateus so we only had to pick.

First we drove 50 km southeast where Konopiště is located. It is famous for being the last residence of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir of the Austro-Hungarian throne, whose assassination in Sarajevo triggered World War I. Seeing the huge and extensive gun collection Franz Ferdinand's in the large weapon chamber and as decoration throughout the house I guess it's only fair to call the Archduke a gun nut. He also liked to show off his numerous shooting trophies but I guess that's what rich men did these days. What else did they have to do all day?

The second trip led us to Karlštejn about 30km southwest of Prague. One of the most famous castles in Czech however very difficult to find and so it took as about an hour to finally pull up on the car park to start the ascent to the castle. The place used to house the Bohemian coronation jewels, holy relics and other royal treasures but they now live in Prague Castle.

We left Prague after a very eventful and walk-intensive week to spend two days in Mariánské Lázně, a spa town close to the German border. The top attraction of the town are its 100 mineral springs (53 of them are tapped) with high carbon dioxide content and often also higher iron content, both in the town itself and its surroundings. So don't be surprised seeing everybody walking about with water bottles, cups or ceramic mugs - that's part of the towns business as a spa town and you can drink mineral water until you leak, drop or whatever else. Every hotel with a good opinion of itself offers various treatments to spoil their guests, starting with massages, therapeutic baths, therapeutic applications, treatments to enhance beauty (or to restore it ;-) ) and many more. We devoted ourselves to a day of doing absolutely nothing but relaxing, enjoying massages etc and left Mariánské Lázně fresher than ever!

above or under the water?

Train rides are fun. And I am not aversed to fun so I took a train to Prague. Surprisingly it only takes about 6 hours including a lunch break in Dresden to switch trains. In the afternoon I arrived in Prague where my friend Pavlina picked me up and took me home. There we've spent a very entertaining evening with her mum and sister who don't speak much English. We still managed to communicate though.

The next day we've hooked up with the members of our boat trip and headed to Rozemberg, down south at the Austrian border. Our adventure down the Vltava river was about to start there and to finish in Cesky Krumlov, further north. Let me give you a short summary of how a day looked like as there were all alike anyway.

For some individuals of our group it took a bit longer to get up in the mornings (for various reasons) and so breakfast and taking down our tents dragged on till lunch time. Then a few of the guys left with the cars and all our stuff to set up the tents at the next campsite (12 members in 3 cars...) and took a taxi back to the old campsite where the other group members were waiting. Then we had a few more drinks (we already had quite a few while waiting....) and hit the road. In 6 boats we set off and started paddling, had a toilet/lunch/drink stop half-way and usually arrived at camp at 8pm. The perfect boating weather from day one wouldn't last the whole trip and left us during the first night when it started raining. Unfortunately it didn't stop until the end of our trip. Back in the camp we had dinner and quite a few drinks (to a greater or lesser extent) what led to singing and dancing on the tables. I was told that this is what 'troubled complicated Czech souls' like doing. Yeah, they really enjoyed themselves!

Being on the water was fun. Quite often we paddled in formation, drank vodka we cooled in the river, were overtaken by hundreds of other paddlers, watched hundreds of other drunk paddlers who hardly managed to stay in the boats and tried to stay in the boats ourselves while swimming through rapids. Going through these nasty rapids my boat mate Eva and I lost control over the boat twice and had to hold on to boat, paddles and other personal belongings. We lost water bottles and sunglasses and temporarily were one paddle short but it was found later. From these misfortunes I kept quite a few blotches, abrasions and sore muscles.

As mentioned before we've finished the trip in Cesky Krumlov after 4 days and being in this beautiful old town we took the chance to do some sightseeing - the sunshine had found us again and we enjoyed being dry. Then it was time to say goodbye and everybody went their own ways. Back in Prague in the late afternoon I made my way to the hostel, where my parents were already waiting for me.

New adventures were waiting for me....