Vienna, Austria

Few pictures of Vienna before I get into the "last-post" stuff. I stayed in a room with a guy that looks EXACTLY like Mike G in Vienna. Minus the skin thing on his face. He even had the Mike G walk thing going.

Stefansdom in Vienna... cool place:

Mozart and Me:

It's freaking crazy. In a way it sort of seems like it was yesterday that I left for Hong Kong. In another way it sort of seems like it was five years ago. I can't even really begin to think about all the people I've met, all the things I've seen, all the things I've learned, and all the places I've been. Although I am really excited to get home, it's going to be really weird to be back. A small list of things I can't wait to do when I get back:

Beat my dad in tennis

Beat Neil in tennis

Beat Neil in Smash

Eat a spoon-full of peanut butter

Drink some cold milk

Piss off my brothers

See all my friends

Outdoor workouts at Mooney's Bay

I just did a quick count. 31 countries since I last left Canada... which puts me at 54 on my list... and I have to tell you, that makes me excited in ways you can't even imagine. Throughout this trip I've sort of been thinking about what I will do next in terms of 'long-ish' term traveling. I've met a few people from Taiwan on this trip, and they've been making me think about biking around the island of Taiwan. I've also been thinking about walking from the top of the main (big) island of Japan to the bottom. In there somewhere too is going to have to be another "continent" trip. The next one will probably be every country in South America or every country in the Carribean, or something like that.

All I really know that I'm excited to be home soon. I'll rest up and see everybody for a month, and then I'll be off to Korea... which is also exciting me in ways you can't imagine.

Bratislava, Slovakia

Somehow I thought three nights in Bratislava was a good idea, haha. Well, I guess it was more that I had a week left in my trip, and I only had two cities to go to: Bratislava and Vienna, so I divided it in half.
I somehow managed to kill the time here. The city is pretty small but it is really nice.
Nice looking castle:
View from the castle:
I'm getting pretty sick of this Danube river. I've probably crossed it like 20 times on my trip. Sometimes going over it on a train/bus and going far away from it... but then sometimes I'll be on a city that is on it (like Bratislava, Belgrade, Budapest... and then I'll see it again in Vienna). So when the city is on the river I end up walking accross it a lot.

Prague, Czech Republic

Getting closer to the end of my trip... I have quite a few days in each of the cities that Ill be in from now on. Not really THAT long compared to a normal person's trip, but long for me I guess.

Three and a half days in Prague, which means I really really got to know the city. One thing about me - and one of the reasons that I travel - is that Im obsessed with maps. I also love knowing a city enough so that I dont need a map when I go back the next time. Three and a half days here was definitely enough for me to know this place like the back of my hand.

Ye olde town:

Typical sel-ca shot infront of something incredibly sick:

Bit of a boring post, I guess.

I got to meet up with Erika in Prague, which is sick on so many levels. No pictures of that, though.... although I did get to use my non-map skills to show them around the city.

I'll try to make the next one more exciting.

Budapest, Hungary

Being in Europe for the World Cup was cool. It sucks that its over because it always gave me an excuse to go out and chill at night. Last night especially, I went to a park where they were playing the game to watch it with a bunch of people.

Today I walked around Budapest for a really long time. It's the first time I've been in a big big city since Istanbul... which is nice because it's impossible to get bored:


There's also this fat policeman statue I thought was pretty sick:
This little guy is pretty cool, too:

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Forget following Willy... lets play some Where's Willy (which is what people said I should have called my blog when they found out the actual name of it).
Okay, Im not that hard to spot. But I did look small in the picture when my friend took it.

I know Ive said this a lot about the countries Ive been to lately - but Slovenia is really REALLY nice. Its almost like a fairy tale city. A picture that can sort of help my case of the fairy tale is this dragon:
Theyre big on thier dragons here in Ljubljana... little weird, but still sick.

Zagreb, Croatia

If anybody who reads these blog-posts cares at all - I hit a milestone when I entered Croatia. Croatia was the 50th country that I've been able to enter (in my life... even though its all been done in the past two and a half years). Entering Serbia was the 49th country, which, in itself, is a milestone because there are 195 countries in the world. Getting to 49 means I've covered over a quarter of the countries in the world. Sick.

... Anyways, arriving in Croatia was incredibly nice. I had been in eastern Eastern Europe for too long, and even though Croatia is still Eastern Europe, it's incredibly nice and if you didn't know any better, you'd swear you were in Paris (aside from the size of it) or something like that.
Typical refreshing European shot that I haven't had in a long time:

Belgrade, Serbia

Getting to Serbia was another long, fun bus ride. Crossing into Serbia was definitely the most nerve-wracking border so far, mainly because I had a Kosovo stamp in my passport - and Serbia apparently states that they block passports with Kosovo stamps. Nothing happened, though, so everything was cool.
Elly and I decided to do some couch surfing in Belgrade. For those who don't know what that is - you basically stay at a strangers house - for free - when you travel. In Macedonia we met these girls who couch surfed with this couple in Belgrade, so we contacted them. They told us to be at their house at noon, but there was nobody there:

Elly called her mom to check my email and saw that the hosts told us they wouldn't be home until 7:30 now, so we left our bags there (I felt a little weird leaving my bag at a strangers house without telling them- especially when I didn't even know if it was the right house) went back into the city.
Waiting until 7:30 was rough. We were up at 4 in the morning that day to catch our bus - and then a 7 hour bus ride - and then an hour or so of figuring out how to get to our hosts' house - and then getting back into the city - and then being so tired and hungry we couldn't make any decisions. I guess it seemed best to sit on the street and eat some corn on the cob and some bread.


The next day we had the whole day to check out the city. After all that mess the first day, I was really able to enjoy what the city had to offer. It is actually really nice (in the top 10 of the places I've been this trip). Even though there are some really nice things, there are still random buildings that are completely destroyed and look like they are going to fall over (on people) any minute.
The second night, Elly and I made dinner for our hosts. It was SOOO amazing. We made so much, and then at the last second our host pulled out all this food that she had made for us during the day WITH desert. So much food. Sooo sick.

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Elly and I took another fun night bus from Kotor into the capital of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Arriving in the morning is always nicer than arriving late at night, but when you arrive just when the sun is rising and you're miles from the city - it sucks. Luckily we walked up to some random people and one of them was German so we split a cab with her into the city.

If anybody ever remembers their history classes... the thing that started World War 1 was when some dude named Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot on some bridge in Sarajevo. Here she be:

Sarajevo has some cool cemeteries, and some even cooler views of cemeteries:

Kotor, Montenegro

I really don't care what anybody says about the most beautiful places they've ever been too. Anybody that says that somewhere in the world is the most beautiful place and hasn't been to Montenegro, is wrong about that place. The whole country is stupidly beautiful. It actually doesn't even make any sense.
Yeah, too sick.

Tirane, Albania

I didn't have MUCH time in Albania, but enough to take a few pictures. I took a day-long bus from Pristina to get to Tirane relatively late at night. Bus rides are SOO much better when you have somebody else to chill with during the ride.
I managed to get this picture of me and this Albanian Street vendor woman:

This is the "big" monument in the center of the city. Not all that nice, but the Albanian flag is pretty cool, which I was trying to show in the picture, but the wind wasn't really cooperating.
Next stop: Montenegro.