Living the Dream

we started out our time in the czech republic with a 100 mile / 3 day bikeride through moravia in the southern part of the country. we hadn't ever done a multiple day bike trip before and for sure wont ever again without a gel bicycle seat and padded shorts! but it was a great time, we saw a lot of cool towns and visited some amazing caves in the karst region.

partied like it was 1989 at a prague dance club on 80s night for lauras 30th birthday... it has been ages since we'd heard most of the songs, but kirk danced the 'locomotion' like a rockstar.

also visited cesky krumlov -- our favorite city on the whole trip. a beautiful town that was mostly untouched by the 1970s concrete block architecture that plagues the rest of eastern europe, as it had been abandoned by the germans that lived there after wwII and is just becoming resettled. we went on some awesome hikes and a 35km kayaking trip, dropping through chutes in the many dams on the vlatava river like we were on the logride at disneyland and stopping off in beautiful villages all along the way-- we didnt even have to leave our kayak for pizza and drinks served to us on the water!

laura was reluctant to come back to hungary after her -not so great- experience there with liz in the big post college europe tour. they, along with all tourists to budapest, were constantly harrassed by the subway ticket checkers and even paid a fine once when they hadnt actually ridden a train without a ticket just to avoid being taken to the local station and spending the afternoon arguing... then after standing in line for hours at the ticket counter they were told they were too late to buy tickets for a train that was leaving hours later, and made to pay a fine on board the train because they were riding without tickets...

but kirk wanted to check it out and we were already in the area and surely the city would have cleaned up their tourist extortion act by now... or not... the situation was ridiculously the same, and our tix were checked sometimes three times on the same platform... ticket machines were closed, tourists were constantly being fined.... locals never bought tickets and were never checked... and on the last day out, we missed our train to the czech republic because we had to stand in line for 35 minutes for a metro ticket before standing in line another 20 minutes for a train ticket at which point, the agent refused to sell us the ticket saying we didnt have 'enough time' for the train that was leaving 5 minutes later and was literally 20 steps from the ticket booth...

but we loved visiting the hungarian baths, the history was interesting and the city was beautiful. we also visited the smaller city of eger nearby for a very relaxing few days prior to going to budapest...

amazing hiking and eastern europes largest castle. we conquered the tatra mountains and climbed a 300 foot vertical ascent on a metal chain... dont look down.

we spent about 10 days in poland and in that time had about 17 meals of polish sausage... we stayed with some family friends who are starting a church and also have an english language training outreach in opole in the south of poland. we met a ton of people all over the community who invited us into their homes for meals and shared their experiences and lives with us, we also taught the youth sunday school sermon and led conversation classes in the evenings at the english school where we met some great people. we really enjoyed hearing about their experiences during 'the communism' and didnt enjoy as much the fact that they all beat us at english scattergories... guess our vocab isnt up to snuff...

we then visited krakow, a beautiful, and not too touristy city (yet), full of horse drawn carriages, beautiful squares, great restaurants and more churches per acre than anywhere outside rome. in the photo above we trying to fit in in the 'dragons lair,' a network of tunnels under the wavel castle in central krakow...

from krakow we took a daytrip to auschwitz, which was an extremely moving and sad experience. throughout eastern europe, we have visited many similiar museums and memorials depicting the holocaust as well as the following communist dictatorship and oppression faced by poland and its neighbors. the horrors and tragedies the people in this part of the world have faced over the last century are mind-boggling and indescribable.

a week of paddling on the med was a welcome break from our fast pace of seeing sights around portugal, italy, and ireland. the water was incredibly clear, blue and glassy -- the swimming and paddling were fantastic. we broke in our new waterproof, shockproof, ninjaproof camera and visited caves, secluded beaches, and awesome restaurants around the dalmation coast near dubrovnik.

we also took a trip by scooter to the bay of kotor in montenegro... kirks scooter handling at 30 mph while being passed by semi trucks and buses going 60 on a narrow two lane road on cliffs overlooking the ocean was flawless.