Back in the Western World

Long time no see, Brigade! Things have been happening, and there's been no time to sit and type until just now, at the relaxing home of Aaron and Sequoia Webster in Erlangen, Germany, a lovely little town (my words, not theirs) outside of Nuremburg.

Since last I posted I have traveled a fair bit. How about a story, shall we?



Hmmm... A story, let's see. What to say, what to say? Got one!

So when last I left off I was in Lithuania, which was a fun ride down and night out with my man Walters. After that it was a relaxed walkabout for the next day and a half before heading to Poland. In Poland I had wonderful couchsurfers in Warsaw and Krakow, both of which are really cool cities (who "hate each other," or at least have a very funny rivalry that reminded me of Melbourne and Sydney. Who knew?).

Jasper the friendly Couchsurfer!

From there to Hungary, which is a wonderful place and I would love to travel around the smaller parts. Budapest is one of my all time favorite cities, and hanging out with Big Timer György was a treat (I know this is not a story, it's recapping before the story, okay?).

Pest

Buda

The off for a quick stay in Vienna (so I am now in Western Europe, I'm told) which is where our little story begins. I met Dimitri, a nice Frenchman at the hostel, where we decided to explore Vienna together that day. He was on a hitch-hiking adventure through Europe, the third such gentleman I've met doing this, and they've all been rad.

In between us and that castle is a lot of stuff on either side.

We strolled around the old city, looking at epic buildings and dodging horse-drawn carriages and walking tours. Dimitri kept insisting that he take my picture in front of things as I'd appreciate the memories. Okay, why not.

He's probably right.

These two photos were taken somewhere in the garden of the Schönbrunn palace, which is constructed on massive grounds and has some really sweet stuff. Particularly, a maze made of hedges.

Yes!

Hmm.

Which way now?

Ah crap.

It was awesome, and took me way longer than I care to admit. I know you can beat a maze by staying on the right. But how is that fun at all?

After the maze we went through the children's maze, which had lots of fun things to play on and places to see like this:

That's what the back of my head looks like?

It was a really cool place and I enjoyed it a lot. We went back to the hostel and I made us quesadillas before we parted ways. They come and go, they do.



The next day I left Vienna for Prague, which had been built up to huge expectations in my mind and lived up to everyone except I didn't get pick-pocketed. Not even a little bit. Finally, I find myself in the company of old friends for the first time since St. Petersburg and it feels really good. Sequoia is super pregnant and her and Aaron are hilarious. On Saturday we went super early to a bierfest and it was nearly empty, but we had a few liters of fest bier and a regular-sized German pretzel with a few of their friends.

German portions.

And tonight we plan to fly a homemade Quadcopter. I don't know what this means either, but I'll probably post a picture, maybe even the first video of the blog. Until then, have fun.