Farewell, Ireland.

The last day of traveling is always nice. The time when you realize that you have a pocketful of currency that will soon be foreign and your budget goes out the window.

Laura and I had a rather nice dinner last night. Our last dinner abroad. It was at a lovely restaurant whose name escapes me. We were waited on by an extremely nice woman, and the food was excellent.


That is something I did not appreciate the first time in Ireland: the people here are extremely friendly. It shows itself especially well in the kind demeanor of people who work in customer service. Even the fellow who stamps passports all day is nice. It is a very nice country. And a stark contrast to some of the places we went.

But now all my foreign currency is spent. On food, drink, and trinkets to bring home. And it is farewell to Ireland. Though, I am not terribly sad to go. We have been traveling a long time, and it will be nice to be home and enjoy the comforts of privacy and my own bed.

So, I suppose that about wraps things up for this blog. By the time this posts we should be well on our way to the States. Thank you for reading and overlooking my probably poor grammar and sporadic posting schedule.

Our time in Prague

Prague was good. At this point in the trip we are both pretty tired of traveling, so we took it easy for the most part. For the first few days we were staying at a hostel that was alright, save for the fact that our window looked out into a courtyard where there were drunk people shouting until the wee hours of the morning every night. After that hostel, however, we moved to a splendid hotel.

It was bizarre. The hotel [Hotel Golf] from the outside looked terribly rundown. The paint was faded and the sign on the building was ugly and fairly old. However, as soon as you stepped inside it was gorgeous. The lobby floor was marble, there was a spiral staircase of marble that led up to the restaurant, the lobby was full of marble tables, and even the bases for the chairs at these tables were made of marble.



After staying in rooms of 16+ people for so long, this was absurd luxury. And not only that, but the hotel bar and restaurant were extremely affordable. Half liter beers for just over a euro and three course meals for around 10 euro.

Aside from our wonderful hotel we checked out some of the sights in Prague. We went to the Kafka museum, which was interesting. It was chock full of audiovisual effects, which was not what I was expecting for the museum, but made for an interesting experience.

There was also a very nice modern art museum that we looked at one day. My favorite bit being the enormous, brightly colored statues of animals that surrounded the museum.



Our third adventure was a mirror maze located in a park set atop a rather large hill. It was a pretty steep climb for the 80+ degree weather, but the maze was fun, and the view from the top of the hill was gorgeous.



Now we are in Dublin, and I should probably try to blow a little bit more money while I have the chance.

Prague

We're in Prague now. We got in a couple of nights ago. Prague is a nice city. It feels very authentic, even if we are situated in the most touristy area of the city.

Perhaps the best thing about the city so far, however, is that our dollars stretch a little bit further here. I think we are going to have enough money to eat dinner out every night, so in that regard it will be a good way to wind up our trip. We are both a little tired of traveling, so it will be nice to take it easy and enjoy some good food and drink. For reference, beers at a grocery store cost around 10-20 czk [.5-1 euro], at a bar beers cost around 30-40 czk for a half liter [1.5-2 euro], and food at an average restaurant is around 100-200 czk [5-10 euro], with asian restaurants frequently as cheap as 70-80 czk for a meal [3.5-4 euro]. So, while it is not absurdly cheap, it is much more affordable than most of the other cities we've visited.

Febo

There are a lot of interesting restaurants in Amsterdam. There is a very large selection of ethnic cuisine, with extremely cheap falafel and shoarma [which is a lot like a kebab]. My personal favorite place here, however, is Febo.



Febo is a bizarre fast food restaurant that you would expect to see in Japan [or the future], in which you do not have to interact with anyone in order to get your food. There are a number of coin operated compartments in which food is kept, and you just put in the right amount of change and take your food out. There are people in the back constantly making more and refilling the compartments, so the food is not as old as it sounds. The only flaw is that in order to get fries or a drink you still have to talk to a man at the counter. But they are on the right track.

Amsterdam

So, I got a little behind on my blogging. We have been in Amsterdam for a few days now. We actually leave this evening for Prague. It is certainly an interesting city. Coffee shops that sell marijuana are all over the city, and the smell of the smoke equally pervading.

The city itself is beautiful, canals everywhere, and boats tied to every available space. I have been slightly disappointed with the use of these boats, though. It appears the only boats that actually use the canals are those giving tours. Everyone here gets around by bike, car, or tram, creating the most confusing traffic patterns I have ever encountered. I have probably come close to being run over a number of times by each of those modes of transit.


The red light district is another bizarre aspect to the city. Laura and I went there a couple of nights ago. The streets are lined with windows in which women stand in the glow of red lights and try to draw in passersby. However, most of them appear bored and frequently are seen talking on cell phones. I didn't take any photos of them, as I have read that this is not allowed, and there are people around who would try to confiscate my camera, but I took a couple photos of the district.

Moules et Frites

Mussels and fries is a traditional Belgian dish. All over the city there are restaurants offering this dish for varying low prices [around 11 or 12 euro for mussels, fries and a beer]. Each of these restaurants also has a man standing out front who will try very hard to convince you that his restaurant is the best.

For our last night in Belgium we decided to give the moules et frites a try. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking. I have a pretty serious problem with shellfish, and this certainly did not fix it. They brought us each and enormous bucket of mussels and a small bowl of fries with a miniscule beer. I have never had so much trouble eating a food in my life. I struggled through ten or fifteen of them, but the bucket was enormous, and it wasn’t getting any better as I got further into it. Laura, who normally does pretty well with mussels didn’t enjoy them much either. I am sure they were well prepared, but there is something very difficult about eating that many shellfish.

We each did our best pushing the mussels around and taking out all the empty shells in order to make it look like we had eaten a lot, and then in similar childish fashion went off to get ice cream for our second dinner.

Alcohol in Belgium

Belgium is a wonderful country for beer. There are quite a few wonderful beers available for very cheap, which anyone over the age of 16 can enjoy. Liquor is reserved for those over 18, but wine and beer are available at 16. My favorite beer I consumed there was Blanche de Brugge, a wheat beer that was available almost everywhere. Laura, on the other hand, stuck to the fruit flavored lambics, enjoying the extremely common cherry flavored kriek as well as a rasberry flavored beer.

One of the nights we were in Brussels we went to a bar called Delirium. Delirium advertises something like 1000 beers, with around 40 varieties on tap. It was quite an experience.

The other notable drink in Brussels is the half and half, which supposedly started at a cafe called Cirio. We went there to try it, though it is now apparently available all over Brussels. The Story behind the drink is that one day a woman at the cafe ordered a champagne, but there was only half a glass left, so the waiter topped it off with white wine. The woman ended up enjoying the beverage, so it stuck. I can see why she enjoyed it. It was extremely good, and very relaxing on a hot summer afternoon.