Munich, Prague, Bratislava!

We arrived in Munich on June 20th and after a three hour flight, a one hour bus journey in a dead heat so the first thing we did was jump in a taxi which brought us straight to our first place of rest, Mercure Hotel . I know what some people might be thinking, a hotel on our first stop of the journey? But believe me whatever was going on in Munich the few days that we were there the hotel was the only decent affordable place we could find and it was still several stops away from the main street, Marienplatz in Munich!

Our first day in Munich consisted of an early start rushing to the train station jumping on an inner-city train that we hoped was heading in the right direction. After finding a place that did a "decent" 'American' breakfast.

After we had our fill of Nutella and bread (this became a popular thing for us and other interrailers..) we raced off to find the meeting place for Mike's bike tour.

Being the optimistic Irish people that we were on holiday and seeing a slight glimpse of the sun we threw on shorts and t-shirts that morning only to arrive to the bike tour group and see most people wearing trousers and rain jackets. After complaining several times that "Shite why didn't we bring a jacket" we grabbed a €2 poncho and began the bike tour.

Now in Ireland you would rarely catch me in a bike in the sunshine never mind the rain but here we were three pasty paddy's cycling around Munich in illumionus yellow ponchos in torrential rain cycling through nudist gardens all the while trying to dodge cars. What made it all worth while was being brought to the Englischer Garten where the stereotypes in everyone who wasn't Irish came out and believed we were at our happiest, in oue most natural habitat.

 Beers and Rain!



Drowned raaaats!

 

That night we went in search of (shock) an Irish pub. After consulting Google maps we found the Dubliner Irish pub where we meet a group of Americans who told us we cursed a lot and in exchange we told them about our 'potato' fruit bowl.
 We then meet a Paddy(ironic) a Steve and one of us fell in love with a BrenDON.
And if the Bulmers and Irish craic wasn't enough to make us feel at home the barman knew one of our good friends from back home! That night set up our expectations for the next few places. We met people that night who we 'promised' we would see in the next place, drank too much but laughed twice as much as that.

 The morning after the night before........

We died a thousand deaths the next day.

 We saw the last of what Munich had to offer (meatballs and the 'infamous' Glockenspiel) but we were more then ready to head off to our next destination. 

It was on to Prague we went........

The journey to Prague saw us taking our first train journey using our inter-railing ticket. So with tickets in hand, croissants in the other we jumped on board blew up our travel pillows and sat down to enjoy our train journey
(this is where I discovered I had left my headphones at home)
 *que the cursing*

We arrived in Prague at a train station that we thought was an airport (don't' even ask!) We ran to the first Burger king and searched for free Wi-Fi and dealt with the awkward 'new' money exchange. After a tram ride 6 stops in the wrong direction and 30 degree heat  'Dora' got us back on track and finally got to our hostel, Old Prague Hostel. It was our first time in a hostel on the Interrailing trip after a slight mix up with rooms, two of us in one room and one in the other we went and explored the town square which was right at our door step!

On to Bratislava we go.....

Having no expectations or not really knowing what was in the place we settled into the Patio Hostel. Note to anyone travelling to this place in July:
Never get hung-over in this country, 30 degree heat and beer fear do not go hand in hand.
Doing the usual exploration of the city we discovered how pretty and historic it actually was. It would not be a place I would re visit as I felt we seen everything we had to in the two days.

On the last night we packed and went to bed at a reasonable hour of 12 as we had an early start the next morning. Little did we know we would be woken two hours later only to discover that both Mairead and Laura's hand bag were both taken and searched through with all their money gone. Our roommates 'hot ed' and 'mute matt' had only come in an hour earlier but it was hot ed who noticed someone in the room. The people on reception where not helpful in the slightest they didn't seem to care that some random guy was still in the building as with out a key you couldn't get up the stairs!

We left the next morning happy to be leaving the place and headed off with lighter pockets but we still had our health so it was off to Ljublana we went.

A little bit of Austria....

 

My next post will feature Ljublana, Zagreb and Budapest.

Some of my favourite places.

Hope you've enjoyed them so far I know there very long but I hope you stay tuned!

Sinéad

x

Total of items lost so far:

1 pair of converse
1 adapter
1 pair of headphones
Several pairs of socks
A little self respect

Interrailing Summer 2014

From my last few blog post  I'm sure you can tell that YES I went interrailing for a month this summer. Long story short I won two tickets thanks to USIT on a facebook competition on Spin 103.8. Regardless if I had won the tickets or not me and my two friends, Laura and Mairead had already planned to go travelling for the month. 

Winning just meant we all had a little bit more money in our pockets.
Its been over a month since we have been back and if anyone who follows me on Instagram you will certainly see how I have been suffering from post interrariling blues!

To go from travelling for four weeks through some many different countries, meeting new people, trying new food and drink to home and work was a bit of a come down. There were several things that we did appreciate coming home to i.e a comfortable bed, for me it was proper milk and cereal.

Writing these blog posts let me go back over the memories the highs and the very low lows.
It may not interest some people in the slightest but I do this for me and no one else and if you like it then that's just a bonus.

So here it goes....




 The story of 3 girls, 2 flights, 9 countries, 10 major cities, several metros, buses, taxis, bicycles, and many miles walked.
 A 100 wrong directions and about 12 rights ones!
 10 Irish Pubs, 10 different ciders. 10(0) Mc Donalds, a few bad hangovers, one paddy, one fight, one very angry racist polish man, one robbery (and all the lost items along the way) one tattoo, a few Romeos, a million Church's/towers climbed, a 1000 laughs and countless random people met along the way, 4 weeks we wont be forgetting soon.


Now it's time to relive the memories.