“This ain't no Sunday drive...”

It's a Saturday one. And wasn't it a big one. We had to get out of Prague and to Krakow, Poland by 8pm (at the airport there) or else our buddy Logan would be stuck sitting around at the airport while we sped down foreign highways.

So we got up and of course awkwardly exited our minivan in front of tons of tourists and hit p Mike's hostel to get prepared for an awesome ride through communist Eastern Europe ( not all things I say are true, just 100% of them)

I took control of the wheel once again since Patrick was a sissy girl. Common occurrence in his life. But while I could've done the trip in around 7 hours, T-Nav had to EP (emergency poop) several times along the way due to a certain Kebap we all enjoyed right before leaving Prague. Sheesh. Such a princess. It was cute. Not really.
But thanks to my brilliant navigation we made it to Krakow airport in a little over 7 hours to pick our buddy up and also learned that Polish sloztys (currency) are basically worthless. 4 slzy = 1 €. Anyways, when we got into town we knew dinner was in order.

But things aren't that easy for us as we all know. We got a tid bit lost trying to find Logan's hostel and got terribly misled down back country roads by signs for a similarly named hotel, Man. Stupid. Also, T-silly was in the trunk of the car as we drove around yelling about how much he loves burritos. People… Then we found the hostel and set out for dinner.

We accidentally came across this traditional Polish food restaurant still open and I had the most amazing Goulash ever. Hunter's cakes was the meal's name I think. So good. And Polish brews were only about 1.75€ each so that was wonderful. We walked around the town a bit and called it a night.

The nightlife WAS looking pretty cool but we were so freaking tired from driving like mad through all of Eastern Europe we went back to the car. But of course not before a super cheap kebab. 2.50€ here and around 7€ in Ireland. That's what I'm talkin about! Man communism... you cheap! I like that.

Praha Livin’

Well it took a while but we did manage to find some parking which was one of the tightest parallel parking spots ever. First course of action: Embassy trip and the Cheeseburger Challenge.

 

 

 

Let me explain…

 

 

 

 

Basically I challenged Patrick that I could eat 10 McDonald’s cheeseburgers in one siting. Ya. Intense. So we walked up and ordered 40 cheeseburgers for the 4 of us like it was nothing. And, being in Eastern Europe now, it was crazy cheap. The conversion is about 1€ to 27 Czech Krons. And I cheeseburger was around 20CK so like a 70 cent expense. Not bad.

Unfortunately, the 10 were just too much for me and T-Feast and also Mike the Second. But Patrick prevail. What a loser. Eh I guess he’s the champ. Whatever! As we more or less finished eating, Mike the First showed up and ate the rest of our burgers. It’s just too bad he messed the insanity of the first half of this trip.

We then walked around Prague and checked out the amazing sights including cathedrals and castles and the like. Also a super awesome jazz old timey sorta band that was Czech. They were playing on the main bridge and it was simply marvelous. Check out one of their songs here. Then…

 

It rained. As usual. In my time here in Europe I have come to the conclusion that it rains… a lot. Everywhere all the time. As is the same with construction. Everywhere. All the time. Goodness gracious.

Anyways, on the way down a humungous hill we stopped in a bar and got some lovely and super cheap Czech brews which were only like 1€ (or $1.25 at a bar so not bad). You may know it better as Pilsner Urquell. But also we tried some other darker beers from Czech Republic as well. Europe loves their beer. And speaking of things to love, we went back to Mike the First’s hostel where he was staying and had a Cuban cigar. It was great. Suck it Embargo!

Time to check out the nightlife! The girl at the hostel recommended us to this club across town that wasn’t lame and touristy so we decided to bite. We rode the metro there (Patty and I have a love of metros as you might have noticed) which was semi-free. Ha. And then we got to definitely the weirdest night club ever. Let me just tell you… effects of communism still are evident in Czech Republic because the building was ultra-industrial with pipes and motors and stuff like that all over the place. Not to mention the people all just stand in lines facing the DJ nodding their heads and barely actually moving. So creepy. I love techno and all but this was just beyond bizarre. Patrick and I tried to stir things up by dancing all around and it actually worked just a little bit in the smaller dance room but the main room was not having any of our pro-capitalistic dancing  shenanigans. The poor things.

So we bounced and had a nice hour long walk back home in the rain and slept quite well. Right in the middle of city centre again. Love it.

Rome in (about) a day…

Final day. Final freaking day in the terrible, lousy, awful (but still really gorgeous) city of Rome. And our 4 star hotel. Ha. 540€ a night for all 4 of us. Ouch for Peugeot. Hooray for our lovely bums. So clean.

Once again we took the bus in town which was sorta free since they don’t check tickets on the bus system at all. And I decided to get off at this sweet pillar first since I knew I had read about it somewhere before. Everyone rejoiced because it was wicked awesome.

Then we spent the better part of 2 hours trying to find stamps and envelopes to mail the original police report to the Peugeot place and also try and make some copies for our insurance claims (hopefully). We did figure out that we may get back some from our travel insurance. Sweet! We found possibly the only tobacco shop in Italy selling stamps and envelopes and also the only post box in Rome. What luck. Finally. And getting crap done. Finally.

And then… ROAD TRIP IS BACK ON! We went to the garage and signed some meaningless forms and drove away on a brand new tire. Yes! Suck it ROMA! (Actually the sights and people in Roma were great, just not the criminal underworld… should’ve seen that one coming i.e. the Godfatha). It took us a little while to make our way out of the City and headed in the right direction which did cost us a few € in unnecessary toll fees but we did it! We made it out of the Rome Triangle. HA!

One last Rome picture…

I took over driving since I think I am really get this stick driving thing down. And it wasn’t long before T-Lost, the navigator (aka T-rex aka Boots aka Tyler) started making me take wrong turns like crazy. 4 wrong turns almost in a row. Well we first took a wrong exit because he didn’t believe me on how this one turnoff worked. And it brought me to a roundabout on a hill where I proceeded to stall the car 3 times trying to get going. Whoops. Stupid city driving. I got it going finally and got back on the highway then immediately T-zombie had me take another wrong turn. Great. Worst navigator award. But instead of trying to get back to the highway, this time T-elder decided we should take small windy country roads which led us to Assissi, a huge castle on a hill. It was pretty darn cool, I’ll admit. But ya. Some more country roads, a couple more wrong turns including one involving a toll road and we were on the right track.

The toll road we were on for around 4 hours ended up costing us around 28€! Ouch man. But it did really help us make up time since technically we were already supposed to be in Prague, Czech Republic by now. Mike the First is waiting there for us currently. At around 2 we switched drivers at the edge of Italy since I had been driving since 8. Now it’s nearly 11am and we are driving into Prague traffic trying to find parking. Hooray.

If it weren’t for bidets, I’d freak out.

Well once again we bideted our bums (yes again… really) and showered and went back to the police station ready to make our new police report. Luckily it was the same awesome Italian detective from the day before but this time with a translator.

So we made our case again but this time a little more clearly. Phew. And we also fought about the French word for diesel in the middle of the police station and the translator probably though we were dumb but he was legit. But ya this time we wrote down all the stuff that was stolen instead of just some.

Ah Friends!

Once we left the station we called the Peugeot dealership in France who had been in minimal contact with the car repair shop in Roma and told us that the car wouldn’t be ready until at least the next day (the 11th). STUPID! So I demanded the address of the garage and needed to get directions so we went into this lovely 5 star hotel and looked only a bit out of place with our grotesque clothes and smelly stature. But we got directions to this place waaay far away from city centre so we left and headed for the subway. It was the most jankity, tagged, broken down subway train I’ve ever seen but we made it and walked another 15 blocks or so to find this place.

And of course the dude at the garage barely spoke a lick of English with the exception of about 3 words but we somehow managed to figure out that the fire would be fixed tomorrow but not the driver’s door keylock which would take 2 weeks to get the part in. With our strong stance of hating Roma we said just the tire is good enough since the car still locked alright and if anything is harder to get into now since the keyhole is jammed.

 

Headsets that tours use

This being around time of the oil spill

A feast was in order. So after we looked and looked for an American style buffet we settled on a little Italian restaurant and even saw a sweet street art exhibit outside called Rome To-day. I got some phenomenal cheese tortellini with ham. It was fantastic and tasted amazing. Then after supper we went back and checked into our 4 star hotel for the third time and the receptionist just laughed. Patrick and I got a nice rooftop room which was pretty sick.

Another day in Roma, another failure to leave it. It’s like the Twilight Zone or Roma Triangle perhaps.

Ah Bureaucracy...

So we awoke in our 4 star hotel and bideted our bums and showered before headed to the bus stop to catch a bus in town to the actual US Embassy to get some emergency passports. We had to wait at the dang bus stop for like 30 minutes or so but did meet a lovely Italian pregnant woman from LA who helped us get back into town alright and consoled us and wiped away all our tears.

WE then went to the real Embassy and had to pay $135 in order to get the new passports but it was going to be an hour or so wait to get them printed so we went to the OTHER embassy and feasted on some burgers and McFlurries until we headed back to the US Embassy and grabbed our super expensive new passports. The lady there was super nice and sympathetic to our awful waffle situation. Sweet. Waffles.

 

Patrick fell down these… idiot.

 

Next was to head back to the police station nearby to re-file our police report not only because it was written incorrectly but also for insurance purposes. (Hopefully that is. We'll see about that) We we waiting for 2 whole agonizing hours while having the stupidest conversation in the entire world in the lobby. It was good craic. But then we finally got called and the guy said we had to wait until tomorrow for a translator. What a good waste of time!

So we just went back to the same hotel (for free still), got a mini-keg for our sorrows, and bideted our bums before going to bed.

Well... Crap

Let's get the formalities out of the way and first talk about the sights that we saw and all the touristy stuff.

 

So we got up around 7 and got an all-day parking slip for the car (remember this fact) and then set off towards Vatican City. We took the metro to the Vatican to see all the lovely churches and buildings there. We had roughly 75 people come up to us trying to sell us this VIP passed to the Vatican and Sistine Chapel for like 45E each and we just weren't having that so we kept walking to the church.

The line for the Basilica wasn't too long to we jumped in, waited out butts off, and got in. We went to the tombs of the popes first and then to the actual Basilica cathedral room. Absolutely gorgeous. We saw Pope John Paul II tomb also and it was extremely pretty. What a guy. And ya the cathedral was simply amazing and definitely the most beautiful cathedral I've ever seen.

Oh? 10,000 people in line? NBD.

The Sistine Chapel was next since it was still in Vatican City and all, except for the fact that the line was definitely 3 bloody, stinkin hours long. No lie. And in the sun. 15 miles uphill! (dramatization on that last bit) But whatever. Worth it. The museums were awesome and it even had a modern art section about the pope and the church and Christianity. INSIDE the Vatican museums! So legit. And we went into a bunch of rooms with frescos and finally into the on, the only, SISTINE CHAPEL!!! Hooray!! Again. Gorgeous room. As was "The Last Judgment" on the wall. So lucky to see all these amazing paintings and works of art.

 

Then we ate at dinner at this cheap place and the spaghetti carbonara was really fantastic and tingled the taste buds on my tongue for sure. The ham was great. Then after that... things went downhill... as usual for this trip.

So we took the subway back to our minivan and guess what? BAM! Parking freaking ticket on the window. I got an Italian parking ticket. And I don't even know how to pay it, not to mention that we had a paid parking slip but of course it fell down the dash of the car so it wasn't easily visible to the lovely meter maid. 38E. Great. Perfect.

AND THEN! Patrick walked outside of the car and was saying something about how he thinks we got vandalised and to check if anything's missing. And guess what was missing?

Everything.

All of our bags. All of our clothes. Two ipods. Two cell phones. My laptop. My portable harddrive with ALL of my Europe photos. Our 4 passports and some other stuff in our bags which they took completely. GONE! Seriously. Parking ticket and then robbery. This day is going swell.

So after screaming and yelling about it for like 20 minutes we decided to go to the Embassy. But this time, the ACTUAL US Embassy in Rome. It was closed. HA. So we filed a police report in Italian and drove to an internet cafe to email important family members and try and look up some stuff about theft, yadda yadda.

 

Ooh! Modern art.

BAM! Our tire exploded as we pulled up to the cafe. HA! Love life! So we had to call the Peugeot dealership (after 20 failed attempts) and had to arrange a tow truck. (Which was funny because they kept asking if we had a hotel booked anywhere which was definitely an awkward point to avoid) So we then walked to the train station to try and buy a new phone charger since they stole that too. I was the only one that had my phone on me that day (the old faithful Sony Ericsson) but the train station was closed. Yup.

 

This is how I feel…

But then we found out that Peugeot booked us a 4 star hotel for the night! Woo! So we grabbed some brews from a convenience store and got in our free taxi to the hotel. And slept. What a freaking day.

A day that will live in infamy forever. R-DAY.

 

We could be here… oh wait!

Lost in (Roman) Space

Well we set off towards Rome despite the nail because the tire held out over the night and we wanted to just get into Rome since we were just on the outskirts.

Hey! This isn’t Rome!

If only things for us could be that easy...

Is that it?

We tried and tried to get into town but instead we drove around the backstreets for around 2 hours completely lost. Once we finally made it in town, parking was absolutely impossible to find. We managed to get a spot on this empty street near the Coliseum which was nice.

So obviously we checked out the Coliseum first and it was quite amazing. The fact that this stadium has stood for almost 2000 years and so much blood has been spilled there is just crazy. A bunch of ancient ruins were next to that so we had to check those out of course. Very cool as well.

At this point we need a banjo real bad. (aka slasher, pisser, toilet, pooper, facilities, ...bathroom) The nearest restaurant was charging 5E for a soda which is absurd. So we walked all the way to the train station and had to pay .80E to use the toilet. Seriously?! Man. Most expensive toilet in Europe. No joke.

Then I slept in the trunk of the car which was honestly the most uncomfortable night of my life. Worse than the time the boogey man spooned with me. It was SO hot and stuffy and cramped in that trunk. I probably lost a few pounds that night from the sweating alone. And all the jelly and NutElla jars back there. But I did sleep a little.

 

Freaking Asians… they’re everywhere!