No Regrets!

After arriving at Lime Street Station, we struck up a conversation with a young station employee about what we were doing in Liverpool. One of the coolest things about the UK is that people in service positions, whether they are train station employees, cashiers, cops, bouncers, taxi drivers, or sanitation workers, are friendly and approachable and happy about their jobs. Back at home, most of the people who do these things are miserable, resigned to their fate and depressed about it, and they’re not shy about letting you know how miserable they are. Here, everyone is just so cool.

We found our spacious apartment on the Mersey River. This was our first airbnb.com booking, and after initial difficulties finding our way into the flat, we were excited to find that it was spacious and clean. Conrad had made a special request for a cot. What was delivered was a collapsible baby pen. Ah, language differences.

Exploring Liverpool in the afternoon didn’t really happen. We napped instead. Or at least the others did, while I took advantage of the tenuous wifi and mapped out an itinerary for the night and following day.

After cleaning up, we headed out to watch sunset over the River Mersey. We were all impressed by the blend of historic and contemporary architecture, highlighted by a collection of historic buildings called the Three Graces and a monument marking the final departure point of the Titanic. I took advantage of the golden hour light washing everything in a magical glow, bouncing around and taking lots of photos, doing my best to keep the hordes of punk kids out of my shots.

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After landing at Heathrow, we tubed to central London, found our bearings, and navigated to our hostel in Piccadilly Circus.

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It all started with the familiar adrenalin rush that comes with clicking a button in a web browser and making the first reservation. This time, the first click was Doug purchasing round-trip tickets for four from DC to London.

After years of talk about going to England to catch some soccer games, my buddies and I have finally managed to put together a trip to the UK. My friends Doug, Jerry, and Conrad all cleared our schedules for September, went back and forth on soccer games and city stops, and finally settled on a ten day itinerary which takes us to London, Liverpool, and a short tour of Scotland.

I’m very excited to be doing this trip with these guys. Having moved around so much growing up, these four are the closest thing to a “crew” that I’ve ever had. And now that we’re all a bit older and living our own lives, we don’t get to all meet up very often anymore.

Doug has turned into a veteran New Year’s travel buddy of mine. It’s become a joy traveling with him. Conrad is the rookie traveler. He’s never taken a big trip like this before. In a way, I’m jealous the first-time experience that he’s going to have. I’m sure I’ll have a blast, but he’s going to be experiencing everything with that additional layer of excitement and newness that comes with one’s first big trip out of the country. Jerry, who I have never taken a trip with, is bouncy and enthusiastic.

Jerry has playfully turned the four of us into the A-Team.

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Almost immediately after sitting in my familiar chair at my familiar desk in my familiar room, the trip I just took seems like it was all a dream. Did I really spend the last 10 days in Europe?

It was truly a whirlwind tour of Europe. The pace was challenging, the walking destroyed my feet, and I got really damn tired of being hot and sweaty. But trips are like relationships. When you’re in it, you tend to focus on the bad, but after it’s over, you only remember the good. Memories of being hot and sweaty and tired have been replaced with the memories of being in great places doing great things with great people.

Of the cities we visited on this trip, my list from best to worst might be:

1. Prague
2. Berlin
3. Venice
4. Český Krumlov
5. Bled
6. Krakow
7. Vienna
8. Budapest

Not having to worry about the daunting task of organizing accommodation in cities or transportation between them made it all possible. Intrepid took care of everything, allowing us to spend most of our time enjoying ourselves. I’d definitely consider taking another trip with them in the future.

I’ll be busy for the next few months, if not years, finishing this blog and working on the thousands of photos I took on this trip. It’s a lot of work, but I know that when I’m old and gray (well on my way), I’m going to love looking back at this stuff.

No Regrets.

Frank and Alex are continuing on a tour through the rest of Italy with Intrepid, giving them another week in the country. For a while, I thought about changing my plane ticket and joining them, but a girlfriend and work commitments at home prevented me from doing so.

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Today is a big day for Frank, as he is of Italian descent, and this will be his first time in the motherland. He plans to trace the roots of his grandfather by going to the town he came from and talking with the locals. Pretty cool.

Leaving Bled, we met a group of English girls on our train who thought I look like Matt Damon. Not the first time I’ve gotten that. To thank them for what I perceived as a compliment, I taught them how to play a simple mind game played with three rows of crumpled up paper balls. When they pushed me to name the game, I told them to call it “Jeff’s Balls.”

While on the train, Tomi was supposed to let us know when we crossed the border into Italy. He didn’t, and when we got off to change trains in Gorizia, we found out that the reason Tomi has seemed a little nervous and timid lately was because this was the first time he’s done this itinerary. He’s familiar with all of the cities, but he’s never run this route before. In any case, the signs were in Italian and police sirens had a different sound. Just like that, we were in Italy.

Our train came stopped in Mestre, the urbanized mainland district of Venice. We parted ways to find our various hotels, dropped our bags, and then met up again at the station to catch a train to Venice. From Mestre, a short bridge connects the mainland to the islands of Venice. We arrived at the station in Venice and met up with Christian, Tomi’s boss, for a quick orientation walk.

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Woke up early for a day trip to the mountains with Emerald River Adventures. Our guide for the day was the typical guy you normally see running these kinds of tours: skinny, happy-go-lucky, ill-fitting outdoorsy clothing that says he’s cool and laid back, flip-flops, wrap-around sunglasses, arrowhead necklace, and facial hair that suggests that he smokes a lot of weed when he gets off work at the end of the day. Though I’m working with a very small sample size, Slovenians have that Slavic look, with wide-faces, high cheekbones, spacey eyes, and small teeth. They seem like a mostly happy, friendly people.

We headed into the Julian Alps, and the cool, crisp morning air was the freshest I’ve ever smelled.

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Most of today was spent on the 3-leg, 10-hour trip to Bled, Slovenia, the longest journey of our itinerary. We headed through southern Austria, where the tunnels were impressively long and the mountains and valleys were suddenly majestic. The hills are definitely alive.

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Like Vienna, Budapest is an expansive city with an indiscernible historical center, so seeing all the highlights means a lot of walking. And I walked my ass off today.

Frank and I started our day by heading into the Soviet Bloc subway and going to the Great Market Hall, a huge indoor marketplace on the south side of the city.

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Another amazingly smooth ride. It’s almost silent, except on turns, when it sounds like a dragon is being tortured underneath us. This particular train had screens with maps that tell you how fast you’re moving (140 km/h, or 87 mph).

All the travel coordinated by Tomi has saved us a considerable amount of time and stress. Along the way, we’ve met other tourists who agonize over train schedules and complicated bookings. It’s nice not worrying about any of that. My favorite part is when we’re riding the train and Tomi jumps up to save us from a ticket inspector charging through the car and barking at people in a foreign language.

We glided over the unmarked Hungarian border, past herds of giant wind turbines, through the hills of Buda, over the Danube, and into the business district of Pest (pronounced “pesht”), which in 1873 officially merged with Buda to become the larger city known as Budapest.

Taxi drivers and tourist operators were waiting for us at the door of the train to offer us rooms and rides. Lots of aggressive shouting by locals with darker skin immediately gave Budapest more of a Middle Eastern feel than any of the other places we’ve been to, which makes sense since we’re now a bit closer to that part of the world. From looks to language to food, there are shades of difference between each country we’re visiting, and it’s fascinating how it all blends together.

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