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Packing Changes for Part 2 of Europe

Every traveler is currently thinking to themselves that I am going to write a post about how much stuff I got rid of and how much lighter my pack is… I was this was the truth. Although I did find many things useless/unneeded for my travels I did acquire a few more items.

 

Major changes are:

+ New Camera Lens
+ Computer
+  Rain Jacket
+ Extra Layer of Clothing for Warmth
+ Extra Pair of Underwear and Socks
+ Northface Down Jacket
+ New and Slightly Bigger Backpack
+ Photographer Book

- Old Camera Lens
- Camera Flash
- Old Backpack
- Over-sized Lock
- Misc Crap
- Address Book and 2nd Journal

Overall, new pack weight is around 25+ lbs. I am aiming for 20lbs while I travel, yet my camera gear is over 10lbs by itself… I some times am envious of point and shoot cameras.

With a sore back and a coffee.

Penzance, Cornwall, England, UK, Europe.

-Michael Laucke

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Absence…

Hello all my readers…

 

I must apologize for my absence from this blog, as of late I’ve been slightly busy and getting re-aclimated to the traveling lifestyle.

Time for some catch up time, in late July after seeing my good friend in Germany I had an epic travel day… If you want to call it that. I left a little town in Germany to head to Nuremburg, after a two hour train ride, I had a quick transfer to my 4 hour bus ride to Prague, in the Czech Republic. After many painful conversations with info guides who don’t speak english I figured out how to catch the right bus to the airport in 4 hours. I decided to enjoy my time in Prague for the fews hours I was there and bought some absinth and Becherovka. (I didn’t drink either until I got home) I walked through downtown, saw a flash mob in the central square, ate some weird fried dough with cheese on top, and killed my back with my stupidly heavy pack. (I knew I should have bought the liquor at the end)

Bus to Prague airport, wait, board bus that takes you to the plane, wait, get on plane, wait, two hours later arrive in London, wait, try to get through customs… fail. Apparently I didn’t do my research very well because to get into the UK you need a ticket out of the UK. As I did have a ticket out of the UK I was in luck, except I didn’t have a printer since I am traveling. At this point she told me she would have to fax a form to the airport which they will have to fill out and then send back saying that infact I do have a ticket. Approximate time was 3 hours!

Thinking of a way out of this, I luckily checked my iphone, and it had saved the e-mail the airlines sent to me! Thank the lord!

Catch the hour bus into Central London, to catch the last Tube out of central London to the outskirts where heathrow lies. Super tired at this point and reaching 1am I was just gonna look for a place to crash in the airport because I was too cheap to buy a hostel. See I believe that if I’m going to spend the money on a bed I want to get my full value out of it, the  idea of spending $35 bucks to sleep for 6 hours wasn’t that appealing to me.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who shared this belief, as I walked into the lobby there were about 100 college students spread out everywhere with their bags next to them. I felt bad for the poor bastard who was trying to clean the floors… I think he walked over, took a look around and just left… I found a spot next to the window and used my pack as a pillow. 7 hours later, I got in line for 30 minutes, to find out I was in the wrong line. Great start to my day!

After getting in the right line, and on the plane, I was off to New York! My flight partner was a New Yorker who just came from a London party… The plane was leaving at 10am, apparently he was still drunk, high and on ecstasy. This guy was bouncing off the walls… But in my head while I was talking to him I was counting the minutes, sure enough five minutes later he was passed out cold.

three hour layover in New York, USA. Home sweet home.

Uneventful flight back to California, except for the sight of the rocky mountains which brought tears of happiness to my eyes. That is truly when I know I’m home.

Grabbed my bag, hoped on the air porter,  and continued to surprise everyone! I forgot to mention that I didn’t tell anyone I was coming back, most peoples faces were priceless.

The reason I flew back was to go a family traditional two week long camping trip in northern California. Was a wonderful time, pictures are on my facebook.

I stayed a few weeks longer to catch up with everyone, now I’m back on my 2nd leg of my journey starting in the UK, London.

With fish and chips, weird accents, new friends, and jet lag.

-Michael Laucke

London, UK, Europe, World.

 

 

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One Month Anniversary Of Traveling!

As I sit here on the train writing, I try to think back on everything I have seen and experienced in my one month of traveling. As I think to myself it is not very much, that is not true, although it may be not very much on the sceme of the whole world. It is a lot to see and experience for anyone in a month, espeically a Northern American, who is far away from home. I have traveled so far through, 7 countries going through a few of them multiple times, I have taken planes, trains, busses, cars, trucks and hitch hiked through those 7 countries. I have learned a lot about foreign culture and customs, and have also compiled a list of the things that have stuck out to me, forgive me since I am tired I may have missed out on some key points that Europeaners would have liked me to share.

The List: Things I have learned over the last month…

  • McDonalds in Europe is awesome! They do not have a super size menu, and they use local meat. It is extremely fancy for a fast food restaurant, I actually took photos to send back home to my friends because I knew they would not believe me when I told them how nice it was. It is always clean, and has free wifi! (The best part) The downside is that it is more expensive then anything else… How ironic right?
  • Starbucks prices are the same as back in the states, just in  Euros or GBP… When I was in Eastern Europe, I spent less then a large latte a day for everything…
  • San Francisco Coffee Company and California Coffee Copmany are only found in Europe.
  • Bartenders carry their cash register on them, haha by that I mean, they all wear a belt that has a huge for lack of better word purse or girls wallet on them, it fans open and holds all the bills and has a huge pocket for coins.
  • You must own a coin pouch, for coins are very useful and valuable in Europe, they get angry when you dont have exact change and may even refuse a largish bill.
  • Bathrooms are called WC (Waterclosets) and all have two flush mods which is awesome for saving water, one is for pee and the other is for poop.
  • Europeans are all very energy conscious
  • In most countries you can take a beer with you where ever you go, whether it be bus, tram, train, car, bike, tolley, metro or just simply walking around. In Berlin for example you get weird looks after 7pm if you are not constantly holding a beer! You always have a roadie :)
  • Beer gardens! A massive outdoor area where locals hangout and drink beer! They also have good food, I had ribs… Not as good as in Texas though :)
  • People love english music everywhere, yet most of the time do not understand the lyrics…
  • I am writing in long form and not using contractions because it is very difficult to use an ‘ on a European keyboard, they also stupidly switch the y and z and it kills me! I type much slower in Europe :) Also the @ is difficult to find as well, although less used.
  • My backpack does not fit me :(
  • They take Gold Tequilla shots with cinnamon and an orange slice! It is mighty tasty! Which is a bad thing, everyone knows what happens with tasty tequilla :P
  • The average income for Germany is €1.000 – €1.500 per month, a beginning job in a most eastern European Country is $700 a month for full time work before taxes if you are lucky…
  • Public transportation works here.
  • I see no reason to own a car in Europe…
  •  In Germany instead of having fields of grapes for wine, they have fields of beer plants for beer!
  • It costs money to go to the bathroom in most European Countries, up to as much as $0.75… That is an expensive piss
  • Europe has Castles!
  • European gas is at the cheapest 2x as much as US gas, although diesel is cheaper than normal gas in Europe
  • People do not cross the street on a red light, unless of course you are in Italy. My hypothesis for having painted crosswalks in Italy is to get enough people to cross in one spot so that the car has to stop for it is impossible to run them all over! Because else there is no point, you cross whenever you can where ever you can! Its like real life froggy for those old people who know what that game is!
  • People love meeting travelers and welcome everyone into their lives.
  • In the US we have parking spots, in Europe the have Bike parking spots…. I now understand the reason Smart cars were invented, you can park either parallel or just pull straight in if the spot is too short for parallel parking! In Italy you park where ever you can find a spot, if there are no police around you can double park as long as you are close enough to hear the other guy hunk when he wants to get out… or just park on the sidewalk or in the cross walk, does not really matter, as long as you find a spot. The average space between cars in Italy is about 2ins in the front and back… Locals do a 9 point pullout, where as tourists play bumper cars to get out of the parking spot.
  • I have not found another language with the sayings “I don‘t feel like it” or “Feel free”. Simply because you can use the verb to feel in these contexts, so when I meet people they love saying these sentences in english since it makes sense.
  • A metro ride costs €1 in Italy, €0.75 in Budapest, €0.60 in Poland, €2.30 in Austria, €0.08 in Ukraine!!! Yes that is right it is $0.125 for a train ride, 1 Ukrainian currency, not what is even funnier is that they have a 1 cent coin in American terms, which is worth a 8th of a penny… Worthless much? I think so. In Ukraine they do not use change because it is so worthless, if you have change to be given back they give you a candy bar, or mathes, or anything else cheap you might need. Sweet system eh?

I think that just about wraps up what I have in my notes, there are of course several more that I just can not recall right now, I hope you have enjoyed this little taste of Europe..
Time to head out of Berlin :(

West Side Berlin, Germany, Located in Europe (Centralish) Above Austria and next to Poland, on the planet Earth, located in the Milky Way Galaxy, in our Universe, I am currently writting from.

 

-Michäel Jäcöb Läücke

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    A few photos…

    Here is some photos that I´ve thought were funny due to the fact that I´m American, I´ll try to keep it short.

    A sleepy Mike now goes to bed!

    Berlin west side! Germany, Europe, World.

     

    -M

     

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    A little German Education!

    After being in Germany for a week, I´ve decided that there is really no point to coming here because everything you need to know about Germany can be found in this video…

    Enjoy!

     

     

    West Berlin, Deutschland, Europa, World, Universe.

     

    -Michael Laucke

     

    P.S. Of course I don´t truly feel like this towards Germany you should totally come visit me here!

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    Hello, right before bed.

    Sorry again for the lack of updates I´ve been very busy lately, I´ll try to catch you up in a short note.

     

    Since I last wrote in Krakow, I´ve hitch-hiked through Poland, Solvakia and Hungary to get to Budapest, to then again turn around and hitch-hike to Vienna to meet up with my friend Keenan, to then go to Salzburg by train because we got invited by a few couch surfers to go on their vacation back to their home town in Kirchham Upper Austria, which is a gorgeous little town.

    I was sick for the last few days and haven´t been running off of full energy, but am still trying to stay active…

    I still find it annoying that I have to pay for bathrooms…

    European keyboards suck! The y and z are switched and they have a bunch of other keys like öäüß. It is also very difficult to find an ´ or an @. These take the most time to do, as well as having to erase everything I wrote because I used a y instead of a z or vice-versa.

    I feel like an idiot everytime I walk into a room and have to walk back out to turn on the lights… In Europe the lightswitch is always outside… I find this odd because if this were the case in my house and I had friends or siblings in the shower, I´d totally turn off the lights…

    Alright, with that I say fairwell, uploading photos takes days so I am unable to quickly do that, I will try and select a few to show you what I´ve been doing on my travels.

    With tired eyes, and mixed letters I saz goodnight.

    Kirchham, Upper Austria, Austria, Europe, World, Universe.

    -Michäel J. Läucke

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    Quick Update!

    Alright, I’m burrowing a fellow Couchsurfers computer so I don’t have much time!

    I just wanted to update everyone with my life. I left Krakow on Friday to got to Warsaw! I got a tram, then a bus and missed my stop, I then walked back a KM or two to the road and found a pullout to sit at. I found a good song and held my Warsaw sign up with a smiley face, before my song was over I had a ride all the way there from a very nice Polish mother. This ride was a little over 4 hours covering over 300kms.

    She dropped me off at the main train station where I was picked up by my first of two couchsurfing hosts. After a fun filled weekend with my hosts I found myself back in Krakow, staying with a friend tonight I’m getting up early to hitch-hike down to Budapest to meet up with another friend, then to Vienna. After this is unknown I’ll probably meet up with another friend from back in the states and go to Germany, or maybe my Brazilian friend and go to Italy… I love this life style! The life style of not knowing where you will be in 2 days!

    As I was writing in my journal I happened across a funny thought process… This process was the tactics with which people use to wake me up with. If you don’t know my preface to this story is that I’m a very heavy sleeper! I love my sleep and I sleep good! I can sleep on any surface at any time! I require for a good night sleep around 12 hours! So without further a due my short thought process.

    My whole life I’ve always had to set around 6 alarms to wake me up, even if I have work at 12 noon I still set alarms and have been known to sleep even through those! I know set alarms to wake other people up in the house to inturn wake me up for whatever I have to do. However, the funny part is the tactics with which people have developed to wake me up.

    The oldest has to go to my mom, she comes in way before I have to get up and yells at me until I respond, then she does this a couple more times and finally just pulls off my blankets… Most of the time if it is in Winter this works.

    Next comes my dad, his tactic seems to be one of the most efficient, after getting his hand wet with water he makes a fist to condense the water into droplets over my face, I hate this! This wakes me up awfully fast!

    From my camping days I’ve been lifted and pulled out of my tent in my sleeping bag and then dumped out of my sleeping bag once I was out of my tent.

    My friend Ari sits on me.

    My friend from Poland just says Hi a bunch of times until I wake up.

    My little Nephew Jonathan used to say my name a bunch of times over and over at 6am when he was very young! That was so annoying, I locked my doors in the future.

    My homeschooling friends used to poke me with a stick until I angrily woke up, and then all of a sudden out of no where I would see a hand with a mocha sticking into my tent as a peace offering. (They woke me up because back then I was the only kid who knew how to make a fire, yet I would sleep in til 12 noon at which point it was pointless, thus why they woke me up.)

    My 2nd mom leslie sits next to me touches my arm and slowly but surely says my name until she angrily says it and I wake up.

    My friend Luke pulls me out of bed.

    My friend Brenden offers coffee, or exclaims “MIKE IT’S 9AM! WE HAVE TO GO!” When it was really 8am…

    I also found that a Drunken Scotish Guy at 8am can wake me up by offering me a beer!

    And ever yet others have found different ways.

    But the worst is probably those friends of mine who wake up and think oh, I’ll let Mike sleep until he wants to and end up waiting several hours for me to get up =P

    Overall, I found it funny all the ways in which people have figured out how to wake me up!

    I hope this video brings a few smiles to all you readers!

    http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1331748701911&comments&set=t.620019611&type=1

    With sleepiness I’m going to bed!

    Krakow, Poland, Europe, World.

    -Michael J. Laucke

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    Poland…

    A few funny stories in Poland thus far.

    I paid for my public bathroom the other day for the first time in my life… I didn’t know you had to pay and so I went to the bathroom,  then as I was leaving an old babushka came running out after me screaming in Polish at me… I could not understand what she was asking for naturally, until I remember someone mentioning you sometimes have to pay for the bathrooms… It was 1.50 slotty… which equates to around 50 cents USD… Most expensive piss to date.

    So, European culture is a little bit different then that of America… The night life here is incomparable to the states. When we head back from the clubs is when they head out to the clubs. That’s the easiest way I can compare the two…

    Two nights ago one of the hostesses took us to the locals club called Kitsch (pronounced keesh). The gang included, two hostesses from the hostel, one Irish lad, A Finish man, myself and a couple of Scotsmen properly wearing their kilts with no underwear. After a full night of drinking already we had to either be very quiet or go out. (can you image a bunch of scotsmen being quite?)

    That left us with really only one choice. Leaving at around 2am local time we hit the club. As it was a Monday night it was super busy, but still quite fun. Bought some expensive drinks which are about $4. And started to dance. A few hours later I decided to head back home since I was planning on going to Auschwitz  the next day and didn’t wanna be completely dead. Rolling into bed around 5am I passed out like a rock. Three minutes before my alarm went off I had a even better alarm go off…

    A little history about myself and alarms… I personally have to set around 5-ish alarms to wake up, I just sleep straight through them, even if I have to wake up at 12 noon for work I have to set them. So, I try and find the most obnoxious alarms I can, but not to wake myself up. No that would never work, I instead use them to wake up everyone else in the house to come and wake me up to turn it off…

    I’ve now found the alarm that wakes me up. A drunken Scotsman walking in at 8am straight from the club. I rolled over to the loud Scotish noises I was hearing and saw Matt talking to all of his mates who were trying to sleep. I made some noise and he excitedly turned and started talk to me. All I could manage to say was “it’s 8am and you are drinking a beer?” to which he replied and gestured, “Oh, would you like some?” I retorted with “Fuck nooo.”

    I grudgingly got up and took a shower, I returned to this sight.

    Scotsmen getting cuddly

    So far I’m loving Poland, Auschwitz is quite surreal, the culture is a blast, everyone is friendly, and I’ll be leaving Krakow tomorrow :(

    I’ll let you know where I’m going as soon as I do.

    With beer and good stories,

    Krakow, Poland, Europe, World.

    -Michael Laucke

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    Driving switch

    It’s weird to be in a country that cars actually stay in their lanes, stop for people, and people actually wait for the light to turn green before crossing… Although there is still the issue of cars parking on the sidewalks..

    You still can’t eat and walk without being labeled instantly as an American, except if it’s ice-cream..

     

    Random update of the moment,

    God I love free wi-fi.

    Krakow, Poland, Europe, World.

     

    -Michael J Laucke