Well, I just finished my first big trip by myself! It was fun, but I need to give props to those whoe travel for long periods of time alone. With my short attention span, I found myself getting quite bored without the distractions of others to keep me entertained!

I started in Vienna, where I met up with a tour from Vienna to Budapest, with a company called Contiki, that I've done a few trips with. First issue-they sent me to the wrong hotel meeting point. Luckily the man at the desk magically knew where the group was and sent me on my way. So, I wandered though the subway, tram, and streets of Vienna in the dark with my luggage trying to remember all my self defense skills and trying to figure out how to use my suitcase as a weapon. I made it to the hotel in one piece to catch the bus just before they left on a night tour of Vienna. So, I made them wait for me to put my crap in my room and then I hopped on. What does the tour guide say on the microphone? "Don't walk down that street alone at night." Where had I just been? On said street. Oh well, I made it.

So, any of you who have done a tour know that the first night is a little awkard because it's all new people. I totally expected to go through all the awkward first meeting of everyone, then we all get drunk and get over it. However, unbeknownst to myself, I have hopped on a tour that has already been happening for 8 days, and I'm totally the new guy! They have been getting drunk and retarded with each other for over a week and are not necessarliy receptive to the "intruders", as the 4 new people were lovingly nicknamed. Well, I decided this was total crap, and told them that by the end of this thing they would love me and wish I had been on the rest of the tour (they had previously been in Berlin and Prague). So, I showed them how Ireland has taught me to drink, and sure nuf, the last night, they all said I was now part of their drunk and dysfunctional little family, and Berlin and Prague would have ben even more fun with me there! Thank God my parents gave me good drinking genes!

So, on to the trip. Vienna was beautiful with huge and overwhelming architecture. I really enjoyed going through the old apartments that the royalty used to live in. I've always been nosey and I liked seeing their living quarters! The weather was nice enough, and I got some great shots of fall leaves.

After Vienna, we were on our way to Budapest. We made a stop in Bratislava, the capital city of the Slavic Repulic. It was a teeny, tiny town with not much to do, but I knocked another country off my list! Budapest is a really pretty city, with a lot of crazy history. They certainly let you know that they are pissed off about communism. But they had a great museum that gave a history and video account of the German occupation and the Communist Era. It was really cool.

Of course, we did our fair share of drinking. A bus driver from another Contiki tour that was in our same hotel happened to be Hungarian, so he took us out to some local haunts. Thank goodness, because those Hungarians will rip you off if they know you are a tourist. He did a good job of mediating for all of us and making sure we didn't get overcharged. I made him blush by making him say dirty stuff in Hungarian, then we got kicked out of the mall (yes I said mall) that the bar was in because our tour guide was peeing in the women's room, then much later on the way home the Aussie and Kiwi boys played an intense game of soccer in the street at 3 am. How I survive these tours, I'll never know.

After the tour left me in Budapest, I made my way up to Prague, where I was for 6 nights. Everyone keeps telling my how great the city is, and I think it had been built up too much for me, because I was sort of let down. Maybe it was because I was sick, and it was about 30 degrees and raining HARD every day, or maybe I was just sick of seeing sights. Whatever it was, I was a little let down. But, I did get a new pair of boots out of the deal because my other shoes kept getting soaked completely though when I was trying to walk around and sight see!

On an interesting note-my hotel room looked directly into the window of another room in the hotel, and the couple over there refused to close their curtains, so I did get a pretty good free porn show. Then my last night in town the crazy old Italian man that had taken the place of the porn stars kept waving at me and, although I don't know much Italian, I was pretty sure he was inappropriately propositioning me.

So, in conclusion, I had a great trip, but I am happy to be home. I don't think I will do a sightseeing trip alone again, but I could be convinced to go to a beach resort and lounge all day by myself. ;) Oh, and despite the mishaps at the beginning, which they will be recieving a strongly worded letter about, I LOVE Contiki tours.