By Driper on Monday, May 24, 2010

We arrive at the hotel, Plus Prague, and are told to hand over our passports and we can collect them and pay in an hour, something as an Aussie your told never to do. We will later realise this is standard practice. We are in an 8 bed dorm this time so we are pleasantly surprised to find that the dorm is partitioned and we have more privacy in this room than in the others. After I have a quick Sauna and dip in the pool (unfortunately not heated) with Peter and another traveler or two the three or us decide to wander in to the city for dinner. Plus Prague is a little way out (5km by foot) so the 15 tram gets us into and later out of the city. If you use it there doesn’t appear to be anything forcing you to buy a ticket as cheap (18 Krona) as they may be.

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By Driper on Saturday, May 22, 2010

The day starts in Amsterdam bright and early, we make our way out to the Bus About pickup point which is just outside our hostel, perfect. I would recommend staying at the Bus About pick up point hostel just for the ease of pickup alone but having said that a few of the stops are not nice even for a hostel. Avoid the hostel for Munich, Nice and La Spezia (because it is too far out). We make our way from Amsterdam to Berlin on the bus and its no where near as painful as I expected, there is about 30 people on a bus which can carry 50, plenty of room, stops every 2 hours. We get to Berlin, our tour guide, Amy gives us some history lessons as we arrive which I find unusually interesting, I guess because this is a short trip.

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By Driper on Monday, May 17, 2010

Amsterdam has been interesting so far. We went on a walking tour which we ditched halfway through because it felt slow and dragged out. Obviously a walking tour isn't going to be super quick but when you stop every few meters to explain the significance of just about everything it gets a bit boring. We went to Teddy's cafe which just felt wrong, walking into a cafe, seeing people who have probably been there for hours attempting to play chess whilst sampling the goods a coffee shop in Amsterdam has to offer was both not normal and rather amusing.

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By Driper on Sunday, May 16, 2010

Well we arrived safe and sound in Amsterdam, well I say that but the first thing I realise in Amsterdam is this feeling we aren’t safe which is like nowhere else we have been. We get out of central station which we caught from the airport and the place is filthy, we later discover that the garbage men have been on strike for at least 7 days. No matter, we move on, we arrive at the hostel thanks to the tram driver who was very helpful, and Freda who seemed to know where to go (lucky she is a planner). We have a few drinks at the hostel bar and take the place in. It’s probably a good choice of words because when we checked in we were told we could smoke anything in the smoking room attached to the bar and it was obvious some people were. One guy in particular seemed somewhat incapable of doing anything, how he managed to keep smoking is beyond me. We go to bed so we can get going at a decent time in the morning. During the night as people come and go there are obvious noises and its no Hilton but its also half the price of any hotel we could find. Add to that most of the people seem friendly at the hostel (the Flying Pig) and there are a large number of Aussies as well which makes it feel a little comfortable.

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