Wanna Czech out what we did? It’s your Prague-ative!

We’re going to start this blog post off with a fun fact:

Prague has the highest per capita beer consumption in the entire world. This statistic also includes babies and those under the legal drinking age, seniors, etc. And Winnipeggers thought their Slurpee record was impressive.

We stayed at the “Czech Inn,” on the recommendation of our friends Tianna and Tamara. Good call on that one, girls! This was more of a hotel than a hostel, but retained the fun, relaxed atmosphere of a place where backpackers from all over could sit together, laugh together, play trivia together, and share stories of their travels. Our room looked like it was furnished by Ikea. We even had a TV, which allowed us to watch part of the Olympic closing ceremonies…in Czech.

Our time in Prague started with a comprehensive walking tour of the city. Yes, it was free, and yes, we tipped our guide handsomely. Our guide then took us to a spot with traditional Czech food and traditional Czech prices (read: cheap).

That brings up another point: Prague reminded us a lot of Ukraina. More specifically, it reminded us of Lviv. The buildings are all more or less the same height, the architecture is similar, a grandiose opera house is flanked by a main street, etc. We could immediately sense that we were getting closer to Ukraina because everything was starting to cost less: food, subway rides, water, and drinks. A subway ride in Prague costs about 24 Kc (that’s Czech Crowns—currency number seven that we’ve used, for those of you keeping score), which equates to just under two dollars. Not quite as cheap as Kyiv’s two hryvniy ($0.25) metro rides, but definitely not as pricey as what we paid in Paris and London.

The rest of our time in Prague was spent exploring all four main parts of the city: the Old Town, the New Town, the Jewish Quarter, and the Castle Quarter. Prague was swarmed with tourists everywhere we went, which we definitely didn’t expect. We also didn’t expect to come all the way to the Czech Republic to do something we haven’t done in years—go paddle boating. For 200 Kc (about five bucks each), we rented a paddleboat for an hour and paddled blissfully along the Vltava River, enjoying the Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, and fake Eiffel Tower from a different angle. We didn’t get the cool paddleboat shaped like a race car, but at least we didn’t get the one shaped like a swan.

It is said that Prague knows how to party. It has a reputation as a party town, so we decided to check out the local nightlife for ourselves by going on one of Prague’s numerous pub crawls. For about 15 Euros, we had 90 minutes of all-you-can drink beer or wine, free admission to three clubs/pubs, a discount at a fourth, and free shots along the way. Not a bad deal at all. We also made a few friends from England and Australia; along our journey, we’ve definitely met more travellers from across the world than locals in given city. Funny how that happens. There have been lots of Canadians everywhere we go, as well…it’s nice to be able to discuss CFL football while we’re across the ocean. We even met a Ukrainian fellow from Baltimore on the tram one day. Anyway, after all the bars, pubs, and clubs, we grabbed a hot dog with our English buddy Oliver on the way home and called it a night.

Our time in Prague was short, sweet, and full of puns (see this post’s title for examples). We saw what we wanted to see, and did almost everything we wanted to do. Would we recommend Prague to other travellers? Absolutely. We would also like to advise anyone going to Prague not to ride the tram without a validated ticket.  Trust us—it’ll cost ya.

We’ll leave it at that.

"Have you ever seen a raging prostitute?" - Our Time in Amsterdam

We arrived in the Netherlands the evening of July 29^th. We got to Amsterdam, but quickly hopped a train to The Hague, where we’d be staying for a few days. Our friend Tamara Caris (aka Tamaris Caris, aka the Tamerrorist) had been living in The Hague since January. She did a term of university there, but decided to stay through the summer and do a whole lot of traveling. She was kind enough to hook us up with a room at the dormitory building right at the university. Add her to the list of people to whom we are indebted!

We took a train into Amsterdam both days we were there, as it’s a short 40-minute ride from The Hague. On day one, armed with our Rick Steves’ guidebook, we set out to explore the city. After wandering around for a while, we decided to do as the locals do and ride bikes. 40% of traffic in Amsterdam is people on bicycles, and we can now see why.

Amsterdam is very well designed for cyclists. Red bike lanes line every street, and cyclists must obey just as many rules of the rode as drivers of motor vehicles. People take their cycling in Amsterdam very seriously; we were more afraid of getting hit by another cyclist than getting hit by a car! Seeing a city on a bike was a nice change from all the walking we had done up until this point.

After our normal afternoon siesta in a park, we needed to find an ATM to withdraw some money. But we had a better idea: go into the casino, win about 60 Euros each playing blackjack, and voila—no need for the ATM.  Some people think we have a gambling problem.  It isn’t a problem if you win all the time!

Amsterdam is quite a fun city to explore on foot. It’s not that big, and you can cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. Further, the city itself is quite beautiful. It has a unique style or architecture, a lot of green space, and more canals than Venice. Anyone who thinks Amsterdam is just one big Red Light District is sorely mistaken.

As many of you faithful readers of atozeurope should know by now, we’re big fans of the walking tours offered in cities along our route—especially the free ones. Of course we give our guides tips, as that’s how they make their living, but we still like the idea of “free” anything, so we go with it. Joined by Tamaris Caris, her best friend Rosie, and her other friends (who are now our friends, we hope!) Luke and Kate, we took a walking tour of Amsterdam on our second day, which gave us a great overview of all major parts of the city and taught us a great deal about the city’s storied history.

After the walking tour it was off to an educational experience of another kind…the Heineken Brewery. After a million museums full of paintings, Roman sculptures, and Etruscan pottery, we felt we needed a change. This was less of a museum and more of an experience. We learned all about the wonderful world of Heineken, how the beer is made, and, of course, how to drink it properly. There was even an interactive 4D ride, where we experienced what it’s like to be brewed…it was like alcoholic Disneyland. Did you know when the first bottle of Heineken was brewed? Who cares…free beer! And free sunglasses! What more could we ask for?

In the evening we took a different sort of tour…a tour of the Red Light District. This was one of the more unique experiences of our trip. Our guide was informative, frank (not her name), and enthusiastic about telling us all about this tourist-filled area of the city.

The Red Light District is weird. That’s the only way we can put it. There are prostitutes beckoning men from their red-lit windows, which are next to a giant church, while one street over is a daycare centre for the children whose mothers “sell their kisses” (as the children are taught). Of course, there are other (legal and controlled) vices which can be indulged in the RLD, and just walking up and down the streets with our tour guide made us want to go to church for a week. Not the one near the prostitutes though, that’s just weird.

There has been a recent push to clean up the Red Light District as much as possible. The number of red windows has been cut down by more than half in the past 18 months, and some of the signage over top of certain stores has been taken down. A lot worse signage remains up though, believe us. However, the area retains its guilt-inducing charm while still catering to hoards of gawking tourists.

Before the tour, one of the most exciting things of our trip so far took place. Through a casual browsing of Facebook, we saw that a certain someone was in Amsterdam at the same time. That person: the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Rick Steves himself—author of our guidebook, narrator of our podcast tours, and one of the main reasons our trip has been so successful to date. We had to meet him.

We tried to casually post on his Facebook page to find out where he’d be, and read his other posts and Tweets to look for clues. None of that worked however, so we thought we’d just go to the main square and yell, “Rick! Rick Steves! Riiiiick!” over and over until we found him. As you may have guessed, this did not work. For all we know, he could have been there and seen/head us, then walked away because he was creeped out by these two random guys shouting his name. But he wouldn’t do that to us. Not our Rick.

Next stop - England...but we already blogged about that. Look for posts in a day or two about the last few countries on our trip!

Pari$

We thought things couldn’t get any pricier after Geneva…but we were wrong. Rick Steves’ came to the rescue again, and saved us a ton of money. Thanks Rick! (We’re hoping he reads this…or at least knows we’re alive.)

Armed with a small Coke bottle full of white wine (the cheapest item we purchased in Switzerland), we boarded our train to Paris. Our train was delayed by about two hours due to “an incident on the track.” Those of you who regularly use the TTC know exactly what that means. Paris was where we said goodbye to shared hostel rooms and started having our own private living space. For less than what we would have paid for a hostel, we had our own room, and our own bathroom, at the très fancy Holiday Inn Express. This gave us an opportunity to actually be able to relax, as well as do some laundry in the sink.

We pretty much did all the things you’d expect two tourists to do in Paris. Arc de Triomphe = really high, nice views. Louvre = too big. Mona Lisa = not that impressive. Eiffel Tower = lonnnng walk to the top, but worth it. You get the picture. In typical A to Z fashion, we had to see something Ukrainian, so we found the intersection where Symon Petliura was killed. There is a business right there whose logo is essentially a red and black flag. Coincidence?

Paris was the second “major” city we visited, the first being Rome. Obviously, both cities are full of tourists. Rome tries too hard to be touristy, with all the men walking around in gladiator outfits and the like. Paris, however, is not like that. Paris simply exists and does its own Parisienne thing, and tourists try to infiltrate French culture as much as they can. That’s an interesting difference between the two cities. An unfortunate similarity between the two cities is that both contain way too many Moskali. Those people are everywhere; we can’t shake ‘em!

The Eiffel Tower is interesting from all angles, and from all times of day: afternoon, evening, night; up close, far away, from observation decks, and standing right underneath. Every time you see this giant steel structure it seems like a new experience. We had a cheap picnic at the park in front of the Tower, and watching all the people in the park was just interesting as admiring the tower itself. At the top of the tower, we saw a guy propose to his girlfriend. Very cliché, but very sweet. This was only level two of three, however. Couldn’t have taken her up one more level, eh?

We were joined a few times by another friend of ours in Europe, Lesia Harhaj, who also goes by her moniker of “LL Cool H”. She lives in Toronto, but was in France for about five weeks. It was nice to have her around, because a) we enjoy her company, b) she adds a nice dose of estrogen to our testosterone-laden situation, and c) she speaks French. Our French is shaky at best, but we were able to get by with a few words from high school and hand gestures. Plus, many people there speak English to some extent.

We had a nice long dinner with Lesia one night, but our real highlight with LL Cool H came on Saturday night. Saturday night in Paris? Time to Party! We won’t get into the details, but we’re pretty sure we killed Lesia. Or, rather, Lesia killed herself and we did not intervene. We had a fun night out on the town, and have a few good stories to share (many, many years from now). Hey Lesiu, what was that phrase that you kept saying to us? We can’t quite remember. Actually, we do remember, but we can’t write it on the blog. Those of you who are curious may ask LL Cool H directly.

We has a small snafu when leaving Paris…we went to the wrong train station. Oops. Luckily, the one we needed was just one stop away, and we made it with seven minutes to spare. Plenty of time…but we now make sure to check each station from which we depart.

And that was Paris!

England - The Worst Weather... But The Best People.

We landed at Luton Airport near London on August 2nd not knowing what to expect. The week and a half that we had planned in England was a total deviation from what we had been doing for the last 70 days - Ukrayina felt like roaming around a familiar neighborhood, and our bounces around mainland Europe were in typical tourist fashion. In England, we had planned to spend a couple of days in Coventry (aka, the European middle of nowhere),  a few days at CYM Tabir (deeper into the depths of nowhere), and a few in London.  Little did we know that it was the "middle of nowhere" that we would make some great friendships...

First and foremost, a warning to our new British friends: we plan on spreading the word about your unbridled generosity, so don't be surprised if you have a huge influx of Ukrainians from Canada coming to pay you a visit in the near future.  It all sounds well and good, but those Canadians are going to have some very high expectations from you... And a hell of a lot more mouths to feed!

We landed in Luton, and after some unpleasant repartee with the customs agents, we were in.  A much needed chill day at our friend Styopa's turned quickly into celebratory shots.  What did we celebrate...?  Anything and everything!  Klitschko's gold medal in the 1996 olympics, Mr. Bean's successful replacement of Whistler's Mother in the Bean movie ("it's a poster."), the Coventry Sky Blue Army... As it turns out, British Ukrainians don't really need a reason to drink.  But at least they pretend to make one up!

Two days and two nights in Cov... What can we say, boys?  You treated us like royalty, showed us the sites, we shared laughs, beers, and some disgusting British snacks that no person should ever have to consume. We roamed around Warwick Castle with Zen Dzula (the handsomest man alive), Deek Buniak (the tallest man alive), and Styopa Luczka (the baldest man alive).  That same night, we got a taste of a typical night for the Coventrian Ukrainians.  Step 1 - drink a bit at home.  Step 2 - have a few cheap pints at a downtown pub.  Step 3 - eat the spiciest curry in the world.  Step 4 - go to another pub.  Step 5 - abandon that pub, and go for karaoke.  We could get used to this!  The next day, as if it was meant to be, we picked up tickets to the Canadian women's soccer team against the GB women's team in Cov.  Despite being the only two Canadian fans in the stands among 35,000 at a match Canada won (I know eh?  ...Beat 'em at their own game), we escaped unscathed.  How, you may ask?  We'll, we're newly initiated Ultras of the Coventry City Sky Blue Army, so... Can't go wrong by supporting the home team.  Though we didn't die at the Canada-GB game, we certainly came close at the Coventry CYM club!  Uki British generosity + us making the mistake of bragging that we were in Ukraine for 7 weeks and are thus immune to alcohol = ... We're sure you can guess.

The next morning (or more accurately, afternoon), we awoke to the sweet aroma of a proper English breakfast, prepared by the wonderful mama Dzula.  With our stomachs filled, we headed off to Tarasivka excited, but also a bit nervous...as it turns out, our nervousness was ill-founded.  We got over the standard foreigner-coming-to-tabir apprehension a lot sooner than we thought.  The boys invited us down for a druzhynnyk barbeque, and we got to know everyone over beers and burgers.  Later in the evening, armed with some more social lubricant, we played the games that unite the masses better than any other... We are of course referring to the respective powers of Beer Pong, and Flip Cup.  Apparently, Flip Cup is a little known phenomenon in England... Since many refer to A to Z as the greatest social innovators of our generation, we felt obligated to introduce this wonderful pastime to the Brits.  Once we put up the pictures from England, you'll see how effective Flip Cup is in breaking social barriers... The ultimate day one tabir get-to-know-each-other exercise. In any case, after few games, and we were all best friends.

The Ukies in Britain have figured out a winning formula for tabir.  Think of the age-old adage, "Work hard, play hard."  Though everyone enjoys themselves in the evening, and are not bogged down by overbearing rules, every single person at tabir pulls their weight when it's needed, and often even more.  Our own contribution (besides the time we helped move three chairs that one time) were a few hutirky on UPA and CYM in Canada.  We sincerely hope the taborovyky learned something... Or at least that we managed to keep them awake for a few hours!  Thank you to the komanda, the technichnyj tabir, and everyone else for including us, showing us around, and just generally bearing with our idiosyncrasies.  We can safely say it was one of the most fun and productive parts of out trip :)

On Monday, we were off to London for a few days of sightseeing and Olympics.  Our savior, Chrystyna Chymera, opened her doors for these two Ukrainian drifters for our time in London, and by doing so, saved us from what were probably some outrageous hotel prices.   Without her, we would have literally been homeless.  So, thanks to her, Euan, and her two rabbits, Bunny and Clyde, we lived to sightsee another day!

While in London, we were immediately immersed in the Olympic fever.  Naturally, we cheered for Ukraine.  But at the same time, we felt inclined to cheer for Canada as well.   Though we're proud to be Canadian, we were never rambunctious supporters of Canada so we scrambled to find a Canadian flag to buy.  After hours of searching, we finally found one...as it turns out though, 5 pounds is too steep a price to pay for a Canadian flag.  We settled for the crappy paper ones they gave us at the Canadian Olympic Village.

After 10 days without hearing the sweet timbre of his voice, we once again turned to Rick Steves for his tour-related wisdom.  He led us on a walk through Westminster to Trafalgar Square, and in typical Rick Steves fashion, we got the full spiel about Downing St., walked past Big Ben, and saw the changing of the Horse Guard.  Beyond Rick, when it comes to London, we've found that you get two extremes.  On one end, there are the gimmicky sites that are extremely expensive - Westminster Abbey = £16 (though with a free audio guide narrated by Jeremy Irons, we found ourselves second guessing our unabashed loyalty to Rick Steves for a minute...), London Eye = £18.  A bit of a rip-off.  On the other end, a lot of London museums are extremely cheap... at the British Museum, they offer an awesome cross-section of Britain's 2,000 year history, including one of the main attractions, the Rosetta Stone. That went over our heads a bit though - we can barely read English, much less Greek, Egyptian, or Hyroglyphs!  Other museums we visited were the Science Museum, and the Natural History Museum, both excellent bang for your buck (even though for both we paid exactly 0 bucks each).  (To preface the next sentence, we need to tell you that we both have business degrees and abhor science, which makes that sentence particularly astounding.)  Something we learned at the Science Museum is... Science is awweeeeesome!  You know what made the science particularly awesome?  The lights and shiny objects. And so many activities!   As for the London Natural History Museum - the most effective thing we can do is compare it to the other free Natural History Museum we visited on our journey so far... The one in beautiful Kyiv.  Do not ever go to that museum.  If you want to get the effect that the Kyiv Natural History Museum gives you, travel back in time to high school (we're assuming you're old enough to care about the natural history of anything), and walk up and down the halls of the science department.   See the paper mache?  See the bristle boards?  See the magazine cut outs?  Any or all of those science projects you saw on the walls of your high school would be the main attraction of the Kyiv Natural History Museum.  But we digress... The point is that, unlike the Kyiv one, the London Natural History Museum is a child's educational dream.  Or an adult's educational dream, if those adults have the attention span of a dog (us).

Before we wrap up this diatribe, we have to say something about the weather in England.  One minute, it's sunny and hot.  The next, it's cold and raining.  How do you plan your day with that?  On any given day, we were at some point dressed in every extreme... In half an hour, you can go from sweating in shorts and a t-shirt, to freezing in sweats and a jacket.   To be fair, England doesn't get Canadian winters, so.... Maybe we just came at the wrong time of the year.  I guess we just have to come back in a few months!

Through our 9 some odd days in England, we were treated like kings, and were absolutely humbled by everyone's generosity.  We will tell tall tales of our time there...though in Andrijko's case, we use the term "tall" pretty loosely.  Now, it's time to pay it back - we'll see you all in Canada in the summer of 2013!

Also, we've complied a British-English to Canadian-English dictionary for you North Americans' next journey to GB:

"Knackered" = Tired
"Budgie Smuggler" = Speedo
"Peanut Smuggler" = T-Shirt
"Lord Baldemort" = A Bald Person
"Are You Alright?" = Hello
"That's Proper Gay" = That's Very Gay
"Tune" = A Particularly Good Song
"Slag" = Promiscuous Female
"Fit" = Attractive
"Tidy" = Attractive
"Bird" = Girl
"Happy Queueing" = Enjoy Yourself While You Stand in a Line (we don't get it either)
"Go For A Slash" = Go Pee


...and some others we can't mention.

Keep checking - we've got a lot more things coming!

The Alps and Alexa - Our Time in Switzerland

(We are super behind, we know, so just imagine you are reading our next few posts a week or so ago. Enjoy!)

 

Tuesday, July 24^th was a great day, not because of where we were (in the beautiful Swiss Alps), but because of who we were with—our long-lost pal Alexa. Alexa has been in Val d’Illez, a small town about two hours by train from Geneva, since January. Her time there is almost up, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit her in her temporary home!

We spent the day in Champery, not far from Val d’Illez. Well, we started in Champery, but used an extensive network of chairlifts and gondolas to make our around the Alps. These long gondola rides were a perfect way to sit back and enjoy the beautiful scenery which surrounded us. Families were hiking along trails, mountain bikers rode down treacherous terrain, and cows grazed seemingly freely in the valleys.

Technically, we had lunch in France. No big deal. Neither of us have had eggs in a while (and we’re sure most of you are aware of our affinity for eggs), so both of us ordered the one dish on the menu with eggs…a hamburger. Not exactly a traditional Swiss dish (say that three times fast), but in our defence, we did also have a plate of cheese. Side note: everything in Switzerland is covered in either cheese or chocolate. We also ordered a nice bottle of French white wine; who needs an ice bucket when you can just use a plastic bag and cold water? We’re classy like that.

After lunch, the bulk of our day was spent on the sides of various mountains, looking off into the infinite beauty, taking pictures, and catching up. We got some sun, drank some beer, and had lots of laughs. We wanted to try zip-lining or hang-gliding, but they were closed for the day. That didn’t matter…the time we spent with Alexa was wonderful, and we wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world. We missed our pal. 

Alexa also gave us a tour of her town, Val d’illez. We’d compare it to Banff, only much smaller and no tourists (except us, of course, but we were with Alexa, so we’re okay). We finally had our first true Swiss meal—fondue—for dinner, and after that, we were off.

We’re lucky because we’ll see Alexa again shortly, as she’ll be joining us when we’re back in Lviv during the final week of our trip. Can’t wait to see you again, Alexa!

Day two in Switzerland was spent exploring the world’s third most expensive city—Geneva. Expensive as it may be, it’s quite beautiful, as it sits right on a giant lake. We took a walking tour, a boat cruise, and just wandered about stopping wherever we pleased. Since we have the minds of 5-year-olds, we needed an afternoon nap, and we decided to take this nap in one of the city’s beautiful parks.

We had spent a few sheqels in the past few days, so we wanted a nice, cheap dinner. Seeing as how Geneva one of the most expensive cities in the world, this was not an easy task. We walked up and down the streets, searching for a place within our budget. Even the places which looked a little shabby compared to their neighbours were pricey. Kids, if you want cheap, don’t go to Geneva.

Our Swiss adventure was over after those two days—the perfect amount of time to spend there we think. Next stop…Paris!

A Picture is Worth Thousand Words

A picture is worth a thousand words. 38 pictures = 38,000 words worth of blog posts, which we are currently typing. Yes, we know we've been slacking on those, but we'll post some text in the next day or two. For now, enjoy this cross-section of photos of our adventures in Geneva, :Paris, and Amsterdam.

We're leaving England in 12 hours, but England deserves a post of it's own (you'll see why when that particular post goes up). Off to Berlin tomorrow...you'll hear more shortly!

The Swiss Alps

Reunited!

On the chairlift en route to France...no big deal.

Why get a fancy wine bucket when all you need is a plastic bag and cold water?

Just hangin' out in the Alps!

Our route for the day...Switzerland, France, then back to Switzerland - all by chairlift!

Fondue!

Geneva

More Geneva

Geneva must be looking really beautiful right now, but what isn't beautiful is the fact that it's the 3rd most expensive city in the world. Our wallets hurt.

No caption necessary.

Cruising around Lake Geneva

Rick Steves' Guide to Europe, a piece of paper, and a Coke bottle filled with generic white whine - all you need to get ready for Paris!

In front of Notre Dame Cathedral

That thing from the Da Vinci Code...apparently there's some art nearby as well.

Mona Lisa...

...and all her adoring fans!

Not a bad view.

View of Champs Elysees from atop the Arc de Triomphe.

There goes the 3 Euro ice cream.

Us with LL Cool H!

France's answer to Zoloti Vorota. Kyiv's is better.

View from our balcony. Definitely not the view from the palace at Versailles.

Generic Canadian Whiskey, yum!

The Leaning Tower of Eiffel. Oops.

View from the Eiffel Tower.

Beautiful!

Intersection where Symon Petliura was shot. Black and red logo for the store on the corner. Coincidence?

Amsterdam - more canals than Venice!

If Zenon made sushi, this is what it would be called.

Zenon's worldwide Subway tour continues!

More of lovely Amsterdam

Our definition of being "cultured."

More accordions!

Our group in Amsterdam. Besides the weather, it was a fun few days!