The images are from Vienna, Budapest and then Croatia: Split, Hvar and Zagreb.

The scenic €20 train ride from Kosice to Bratislava, flew by for a 6 hour trip, maybe a rest was need or maybe staring the at the beautiful landscape made the time fly by. There was a memorable mountain range, High Tatras, which during the trip which seems to spring out from no where. This area is a very flat paries landscape then out of know where there is a 30km mountain range (think Rockies size) without any rolling hills, it is unlike any other mountain range in the world. Nick, from Montreal whom we meet randomly at the train station, had just spent over a week hiking solo with only his backpack through the area, initially drew our attention to the area.

Arriving in Bratislava, the first thing you notice is the city’s castle up on the hill over looking the river. The castle can been seem from many parts of the town and is elegantly light at night. During our second day, Jamie and I took at long stroll back to the hotel, across the Danube(S) river while the sunset, it was picturesque. The stroll was nice but it was of necessity, our first hotel was so far out of town. Taxi’s were an option but the drivers rip off the tourists, when asked in English how much a 5min trip cost it would be €15, when asked in Slovak it was only €3. Good thing we hand our new Slovakian friend Zuzana as our translator / tour guide. The following day we checked out the far hotel and after some drama with the barley English speaking receptionist over missing towel we were happy to get out of there.

Our second hotel was perfect, only 300m of the rink and 200m from the Fan Zone, everything was within a 5min walk, including our breakfast beer and Kebab. (Yes mom I’m eating healthy, there is lettuce and tomatoes in there). The Fan Zone was a pretty good setup with a big screen TV and lots of fun games to be played. The highlight being a 3-a-side street hockey in our socks inside of a air inflated rink. We played Canada vs. Slovakia, we didn’t keep score but it was an onslaught. When the cops told us to leave, I asked if we could played first to five, after a dirty look we decided that next goal wins. Chalk another one up for Canada.

Buying tickets was a lot harder and more expensive than in Kosice, there were too many people trying to scape tickets for a profit and we lucky to get row 3 CAN vs. RUS for €120 (only €30 above face). In the game we played a good first two period, and I got a great picture of the breakaway goal by Spezza. After the game our Europe friends told us we got on TV. You can see Jamie and I and around the 23 sec mark and you can see me doing my happy dance. Going into the third with a 1 goal lead wasn’t enough we lost 2-1, but I really though we were going to score when there was a dying second one-timer that just missed the open net. Losing to Russia always sucks, since I’m not a big fan of the Russians, they normally aways rub me the wrong way.

Getting knocked out of the tournament did save us a lot of money since tickets for the next two games would have run us between €150-200, but I would have loved to see Canada win it. I thought we had a great young well rounded team this year. The rest of the time we spent in the Fan Zone or walking around town, unfortunately wasn’t had to retire my jersey for the season after the loss.

As with Kosice we have the people in Bratislava and be really friendly as well. One night we ran into a group of student volunteers on the street drinking Molson Canadian, after doing a double take we got to talking. I guess Team Canada brings over a cases of the beer for the guys after the games, but since got knocked out early they gave the beer away to the volunteers. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the beer was shitty, but I think he kinda knew it. We hung out with them that night and they introduced us to the local Slovakian shot, I forget the name but they keep saying it was made out of beer, so I guessing it is made from barely or something.

Overall I loved Slovakia, the people are friendly, the beer is good, everything is cheap and the girls are the hottest in the world (sorry Sweden you had me fooled).

Unknowingly to us the trip from Warsaw to Kosice would take 12hrs. On the map it is like 5 cm so we thought it would be like 5 to 6 hrs tops, but I guess someone put fucking mountains on he boarder of Poland / Slovakia. Who would have thought that there are natural boarders between countries, lesson learned . In addition to having take a detour around the mountain through the east part of Czech Republic, we missing our connection. On the board it said the train would be on #2, so we went to track #2 and waited and waited, after 10 minutes we figured it was just running late. After 30 minutes we discovered we were waiting on track #2 instead of platform #2 which is labeled as II. Seriously Czech no one uses Romain numerals anymore, fix your shit.

Arriving in the small town of Kosice (pronounced ko-cheat-sa), we walked around in support of the team wearing our Team Canada jerseys and I wore a flag as a cape. Big screen TVs and vendors were setup a long the main street during the tournament, so you could buy beer for a Euro and street meat for a two. I love that you can enjoy a beer on the street as in most of Europe (not including UK/Ireland). Everything in town was walkable from the hockey rink, to our hotel, the bars and the city centre.

I loved Kosice, it is a great city to have a hockey tournament since the city centre is transformed into a hockey lovers paradise during that period. The locals would stop us in the street, come up to us and make a “take a picture” gesture with their figures, I kinda started feeling like a rockstar. The English speaking locals were also incredibly friendly, always offering information about the region, what daily life was like there and were curious about what we thought about their city / country. When talking with the locals some would offer to buy us drinks, and treated us as their guests. I felt guilty since they didn’t have as much money and tried to repay them but they always insisted getting them.

The hockey was great! The ticket for the round-robin were 35-55 EUR not as cheap as I expected, but we normally bought them from locals since I they got some before the tournament started for about 10 EUR and we would happily pay 25 EUR. The first game Canada vs. the USA was good to see the boys get the W. During the game I saw a lady were a number 14 Team Canada jersey, signed by the entire team. I went up to compliment her on the jersey and quickly realize it is Eberles Mom, I told her I was from Edmonton and a big fan and we chatted about the TSN video they did on his first goal, what a nice lady.

The night after the Canada vs. Norway game we headed to our favorite local bar, there weren’t many good places in such a small town. At this point during the tournament we knew all of the other Canadian fan staying in town for the tournament so it was always great to keep running into them. On this night the usual fans where at the bar in addition so some other familiar faces, when I looked over at the bar I notice Rick Nash. Team Canada had the next day off since they didn’t play Sweden until the day after, so about a dozen of the guys came out.

Rick Nash is the captain on and off the ice and such a class guy. You could see Nash ensure everyone is having a good time and just taking care of the team. We were talking to two local girls and Nash, one of the girls mentions that she loves Canadian guys. Nash then says, “Oh I’m American, but these two guys are Canadian and are great guys.” What a beauty, Rick Nash helping us hit on the local girls!

Elisha Cuthbert was also there along with her drunk boyfriend Dion Phaneuf. Dion is only 3 inches taller than me, but I think weights an extra 100lbs, and has a big ass, he’s a big boy when you are standing a foot away from him. Dion basically told us “that we could look but don’t touch” and told another buddy to always stay 2 feet away from her. Seems like he is a little over protective.

We had a great chat with Jonathan Bernier and how he played that night (3-2 win for Canada), he was very confident that we wouldn’t let a third goal that night. He was so down to earth and just happy to be a part of the team, a very mild manner guys and appreciative of the fans coming from Canada. My buddy got a picture with him, based on his one rule no booze allowed in the photo.

Lastly I ran into Eberle, not much to say but he came off as a bit of a db. I think compared the rest of the team is young, first time outside of Canada and I imagine in Edmonton that he is such a big celebrity. The rest of the Team Canada guys were surprised to see Canadian fans all the way out in Slovakia, but Eberle treated me like another Edmonton Oilers fan like he would meet at a bar in Edmonton.

On the last day before we left we meet some Norwegians girls, doctors studying just outside of the town. After chatting with them for a bit we convinced them to play beersbie. We got a 4 a side game going in the middle of a park in the city centre, I don’t think the police were very impressed. They watched us for about 15min before they decided to leave, I think they didn’t know how to tell us in English that it was against the law to walk / stand on the grass in park.

Overall I loved Kosice and would love to go back, I don’t know different it would be without the hockey tournament going on. The country side reminded me a lot of interior BC with the similar climate, rolling hills and lakes.

The turned into a lot longer post then I expected. I will keep them shorter in the future.

After almost three years in Dublin it was time to move on. After quickly leaving the office with a giant meerkat goodbye card and a new camera, courteous from the guys at the office (thank you so much!), I was off to catch the 5.15pm Friday flight to Amsterdam. Leaving that office and Dublin so fast left a couple of loose ends and it felt like a bit of a rushed goodbyes, but the overall I just felt great to be start the adventure, first stop Amsterdam.

Amsterdam was so full of life and sounds at night the city was so alive, this was Queen’s Night the biggest party night of the year to ring in Queen’s Day in the morning. Queen’s Day or Koninginnedag in Dutch is the celebration of the Queen of the Netherlands mother’s birthday, it was created about a 100 years ago to allow a day of free trade in the Netherlands so everyone is allowed to sell anything on the streets without a licence. Musicians preform in the streets, overnight vendors freely sell beer and drinks and the entire city dresses in Orange, the national color of the football team. The party starts early in the day and ends early like around 9pm, since it typically doesn’t fall on a weekend. I think it can be best summed up as the world’s largest drunken garage sale.

The day after I spent cycling through the streets and over the canals as the city was being cleaned up. Later in the day I found the poker room at the casino and tried my skills with the Dutch and tourists, thankfully the dealers speak both languages and was always announcing the bets sizes in both when needed. I’ll going to continue to try to experience poker in each country where it is legal as long as I keep my poker-bankroll in the black.

A rest was needed after Holland and a couple of flights later I made my way to Poland. My buddy and I picked it as a close place to Slovakia that neither of us had been before. Wow, I was impressed the city is so clean and pretty, I was expecting more Soviet style architecture where everything looks the same. We toured the vast parks and the rebuilt old city and were just impressed enough we extended our stay in Warsaw for an extra couple of days and skipped out on seeing Krakow. The country was very “chill” and relaxing, the food was great I love borscht now (sorry Mom for not really trying it before) and the eat 9 different types of porgies on a single plate. The old bad experiences from the country was when we needed to get things done, it took a long time to check-in, it took us 5hrs to book train tickets since no one at the International Train Ticket Office spoke English and in general things just took a long time.

So far it has been a great first week after Dublin and I’ve been experiencing so much. It’s great to get back to into the swing of travelling it sleeping in hostels where everyone in so friendly. Most conversations all start with “Hi, I’m Bryce from Canada” and the starting topics of conversation are “where you from”, “where have been traveled”, “where are going afterwards”. I still I’m not sure how to people the best way that I quit my job to travel for the next 4+ months and I have no plans afterwards, but I bounce between I’m mini-retired to I’m an ex-computer geek to I’m a traveler wondering the globe.

Next stop the World Hockey Championships in Slovakia.

Helsinki!

Wow, what a trip.  The trip there seemed to take a long time, since I needed to be up at seven in the a but didn’t get into Helsinki until 5.30p (Finnish Time); Finland is two hours ahead of Ireland.  I meet Scotty, my buddy from Edmonton, at a hockey rink about an hour after landing.  Since I only had a carryon and clearing customs from within the EU was as fast as getting a shinny new stamp on my passport.

The first thing I noticed about Finland that just made me simile was that they drove on the RIGHT!  I haven’t been able to adjust very well to everyone driving on the left over here.  Finland also reminded me a lot of Edmonton they have the same type of climate, same type of foliage and Helsinki felt a bit like a hockey town (maybe because where we spent most of our time).  Helsinki was also very clean city, they don’t have billboards anywhere and on the back of the cars there aren’t any words or writing just a logo of the car company.

Finland gave me my hockey fix, I watched six different teams in three different rinks in three days, (Blues 2 -  Ässät 3,  HIFK 3- Tappara 6, Jokerit  4 – Ilves 1) though the Finnish have a lot to learn about how to put on a hockey game.  I do have to give them credit for a few things that we could incorporate; the fan zone, cheerleaders and restaurants at the game.  First off the fan zone is a section behind the away team’s goal where the fan start chants, dance and even sing.  The tickets in that section are fairly cheap like 10 EUR and it looks like everyone is into the game.  Secondly the cheerleaders, between whistles there are about two cheerleaders per section dancing in the isle around the stadium, nothing wrong with more girls at a hockey game.  Lastly a couple of the rinks have restaurants on one of the levels where you can eat and enjoy a pint while watching the game.  This is a great idea for the games that aren’t selling out, but I don’t think we could afford the space at Rexal.

They could also learn a lot from the NHL though, like allow beer in your seats and have vendors going up and down the stands (might have to choose between vendor and cheerleaders).  Also I miss not having a 50/50 draw at the game.  Being the stupid tourist that I am I didn’t know the rule about not having beer in your seat, I just assumed you buy a beer and then go watch the game.  No one gave me shit for it but I took me a period to notice that I was the only guy drinking beer in the stands.

Finnish people loved the fact two Canadian guys came to their country to watch hockey.  Everyone we chatted with was interested in us and I think they enjoyed the opportunity to speak English as well.  In addition everyone knew were Edmonton was, home of Jari Kurri and Esa Ticken, which always gave us something to talk about. Our second night in Helsinki we meet two girls that were huge hockey fans and even had extra tickets to the game we wanted to see the next night.  So for three games I only spent like 30 EUR on tickets.

Before one of the hockey games Scotty found a pub close to the rink we figure it would good to have a few pints with the home team fans before the game.  We also wanted to grab a bite, however the menu was in Finnish so trying to play it cool we both just ordered what we thought sounded good.  Scott went with the Tonnikalavihannesmunakas, since it was the longest thing on the menu, yes that is spelt correctly.  I went with the Grillattua porsasta – paistettua tomaattia, sipulia, since it sounded like pasta with a tomato sauce.  Scotty’s choice turned out to be a tuna omelet with corn and other veg; mine as you may have guessed was fried pork with onions and fries; both choices were delicious.

Besides the hockey Scotty and I spent an hour at Serena, it’s a water park just outside of Helsinki.  They had some great slides one of them is the black hole which was completely dark except in a few places before a drop or a turn.  In the summertime they have an outdoor park too much like Silvan Lake, with the half pipe slide and stuff.  Also in the summer they have huge toboggan hill / waterside where everyone goes down the side of the mountain in a tube.  The place was great, but I think it would be even more fun in the summer.

After talk to several locals they recommended we try a fisherman’s restaurant by the port and have the halibut.  We were server about 15 small halibut on top of a huge stack of mash potatoes; I wish I took a picture.  The fish was battered and fried as whole except for the head, the bones and the tail still attached.  After making weak attempts at removing the bones one of the guy were we chatting with shows us how it was done, he grabbed the fish by the tail and eat it whole in one bit.  Since I am wanted to get the full Finnish experience and had to give it try.  The fish was so fresh that all the bones were soft, but one was enough.

Finland was great I am looking forward to going back to another Scandinavian city to watch more hockey and meet more foreign hockey fans.

I was playing it cool and just kept on working, then one of the senior guys at the company started introducing everyone and I got a chance to meet him quickly, nothing special but none the more I got meet him.  Although a few hours later I got invited to go to lunch with Chris and a few other guys and was able to get to know him a little and found out that Chris was going to be in town for the next week.

Tuesday night there was a party organized for him and a couple of hours into the party they busted out the geeky games.  Some guys at work play geeky games weekly, I have joined them a couple of times but I am still learning.  It started with a simple game of RoboRally, a great game for programmers, where Chris won and a strong second place finish for myself.  The games continued into a three game 6 hour battle between the host, Chris and both of my boss’.  Next was Medici, a great game where everyone bids on cargo for their ship trying to maximize their profits.  Medici is a great game theory type of game, which with that group of players proved to be very challenging, yet I only missed first by one point.

The decision to start the third game at 2am maybe wasn’t a wise one, but how often do you get a chance to play games with Chris Ferguson.  Carcassonne, a game Chris never played before seemed easy for him to understand, strategize and win, maybe everyone took it easy on him since he was learning it but I finished second for the third time that night.  After the games we all watched the US presidential debate and I didn’t end up getting home till after five.

I saw Keith Barry, a great show a couple of weeks ago, it was at the Olympia Theater which I think is few hundred years old.  Keith is a illusionist, hypnotist and other mind tricks; there is a great Ted Talk video that give you a good idea of what the show is like.

Work is going really well we added another guy to our team last week and we are trying to hire another one.   I have been working strange hours, coming in at 9.30am some days and not until 11am on others, but sleeping in comes with a price so I have been staying as late as 9pm some nights.  I am working on an automatic spam chat ban for the company, which I hope will be released in the next couple of weeks.  Spam on the site has become a real problem so there is a big rush to get this out and do it right.

Just when I started to get a bit of home sick, I saw a sign that said Tim Horton’s severed here at convince store, so I had to give it a try.  It was out of a vending machine and it was a Americano, basically it was “good” vending machine coffee if that makes any sense, but as far as tim’s goes it wasn’t even close.  I haven’t found a place to servers drip coffee everything here is espresso based, I do miss my tims.

Just giving everyone hello and an update of life in Dublin.  My flight was pretty good there was a couple of hour delay in Hethrow due to rainy weather, you think they could handle that better since it rains all the time.  No problems with baggage or customs, I don’t think the Irish ever check what you bring into the country.

Once I landed I got a message from my friend / boss Aaron about a party at the CEOs place that night, but after flying all night and not sleeping in the last 40 hrs how could I say no.  I didn’t have time to take a nap, just a showered a was off to the party.  Aaron ceased to tell him that this wasn’t a ordinary party it was a retirement party for Howard Letterer, it was fully catered, full bar with many premium bottles and a house of cards poker cake.  I got a chance to chat with Howard a bit, he was reading a book on logic puzzles and was sharing some of the ones that stumped him.  I gave him some hard logic puzzles that I had solved, however they were nothing new for him.  Howard had quite a presence in the rooms, I think hes about 6.5 feet, but it wasn’t just his size, just a very smart man, also he wasn’t full of himself and doesn’t act like a celebrity.  Anyways since he was leaving the company and I as coming in I tried to shotgun his office, it didn’t seem to work, maybe they don’t know the shotgun rules in Dublin.

It took be a few days to adjust to the jet lag, but I’m doing fine now.  Work have been going really good, I have been given a lot of responsibility and I will have a important role within the company.  They are very willing to give me any resources I need to get my projects done and aren’t afraid to spend the money.  The company uses the top of the line everything, from my development computer fresh out of the box (8 GB ram, 8 cores) with dual monitors and the company has the fastest internet connection I have very used, I was downloading some files at over 10MBs / s, its nice not to have to wait.

Dublin has a lot of shows coming through town, last week Tenacious D opened up for a Metallica show and Cris Rock is coming to town just to name a few I’ve heard about.  I am staying one block from St. Steven’s Cathedral, so I am right in City Centre (downtown), it’s nice to be able to walk everywhere.  I have a temporary apartment until I can find my own place, so I am going to start looking next week, I think I am going to look for a place close to City Centre.

I am planning on doing a trip to Finland to see a couple of hockey games with my friend from Edmonton Scotty.  Its going to be for a weekend in early October.  Also talking to a guy from work they are planning a few trips to catch some English football games during the season, which I would love to be a part of.  I even heard there is surfing just outside of Dublin and a few guys are going up to the north west coast in November for a weekend surfing trip.

Dublin so far has been grand (Irish slag) and it sounds like there is always stuff going on.  I think I am going to keep busy at work and on the weekends.  Work Hard, Play Hard.  Even with all this stuff going on I miss the people back home the most, I hope you can visit me sometime and you will make sure you have a place to stay.