After Vienna I went to Prague first so I can meet up with my friend Andrew later in both Munich and Berlin. Czech Republic also didn't use the Euro and some places accepted Euro but would give you back the change in Czech koruna. I mostly spent the first evening people watching at the Old Town Square and sipping beer. I had more fantasy about Czech beer before I arrived but I suppose living in SF I probably already had most of the great beers and the rest I lack the palate for anyway.

Second day I slept in a bit and went to the castle area. It's free to go in but the inner exhibitions required tickets. I was tired to pay to see another church so I opted to just walked around. I met a friend that day and went to the monastery to have a beer. After that we shared a giant pork knee and went to the Hemingway Bar and got a Star Wars themed drink. We ended the night at the 5 story club Karlovy lázně with each floor having its own music. I was sightly embarrassed that my new Indonesian friend knew more American oldies than I did.

The next day I wasn't able to get a reservation at Alcron so I ate next door at La Rotonde which was surprisingly excellent. Afterwards I met my friend at National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror which was at the site where the final battle of Operation Anthropoid took place. During WWII German SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated in Prague and the rebels hid in a church during their final days before they were discovered. All of them were either killed or killed themselves. I had only recently watched the movie based on the event so I enjoyed the small museum which gave more background for the real event.

I then met my friend's flatmate who happened to also be Indonesian. I learned that there weren't many Indonesian in Prague and they all knew each other. We strolled to the north side of the river which is apparently where the younger locals hang out. We ended the night at Cash Only Bar and headed back after I got spilled on.

I was supposed to head to Amsterdam and Belgium after Germany but returned to Prague due to travel fatigue. Didn't do a whole lot in those few days except visiting the passable Museum of Communism and went to a great hike near Karlštejn Castle. Also hit my Micheline star restaurant #2 at Alcron. Made the mistake of getting the 6-course with wine pairing because in the end everything tasted like wine.

See Google Photos for more pictures.

I took an European train for the first time from Budapest to Vienna and I was quite impressed. Later I would find that much of the experience depended on the companies that ran the trains. There was an outdoor party by the river when I arrived and I had a decent sausage sandwich. I mentally prepared myself for relatively boring Austrian and German food and that turned out to be wise.

The next day I did a forgettable walking tour and then went to the forgettable Wien Museum. It's Sunday and by law most places didn't open and I ended up having Pho for dinner. On Monday I did a bike tour at Wacho Valley which is their equivalent of Napa Valley except they mostly produced white wine. My colleague and friend Christine recommended me the tour and I highly recommend it to anyone who find themselves stuck in Vienna. I ate schnitzels for both meals that day which was a bad idea.

I was mostly unimpressed with Vienna down to the room I stayed in because some kids were partying next door until 2am. On my way out I went to the Museum of Military History which conveniently was close to the train station. The beginning was horrible because nothing was translated but the latter periods were great. I found the different point of view from Hungary about the Austria-Hungary relationship interesting and unsurprisingly the museum also had a very thorough section on both world wars.

See Google Photos for more pictures.

I got to Budapest at early evening and found a pole in my room at LOL Boutique Hostel. Hungary didn't use the Euro and after some math wizardry I realized everything was really cheap. A 1.5L of carbonated water costed about $0.25 and an above average meal would set me back $10. I also realized it was very difficult to find plain bottled water. All the grocery stores sold either carbonated water or lightly carbonated water. I attributed this to Americans' obsession with bottled water which most Europeans don't share.

I spent the first day at House of Terror which portrayed life under communism when Soviet Union effectively ruled Hungary after WWII. I found the museum a bit confusing to follow which would become a recurring theme in Budapest. The outdoor exhibition about a two weeks revolt was great though. I was surprised that they were able to fight off the local communist army and had a short lived democracy until the Soviets brought the big boys in. The rest of the day I strolled along the river and stopped by their most famous ruin bars, Szimpla Kert. I was quite tired and only stayed briefly but made mental note to return the next day.

I bought the europass earlier to travel around by train so the next day I went to the train station to make sure I know how it worked. Had another great meal at Rosenstein Vendéglő which had an asparagus menu but I opted for more traditional items. Then I went to the Hungarian National Museum which was huge but needed a lot of work with the narrative and even just the placement of the plaques. On a whim I made reservation for the Winehouse for the next day and chilled at Szimpla Kert for most of the rest of the evening.

Szimpla Kert consists of a dozen bars or so mostly selling cheap drinks. I wasn't impressed by Hungary beer but I really liked most of the Hungary red wine, even those I ordered from the unfriendly bartender at Szimpla Kert. The live music was meh despite it being a Friday night and I definitely enjoyed the band from the previous night more. A friendly Spanish couple invited me to join them and we chatted about Spain and also the future of European Union since they both work in Brussels. They were both way more optimistic than I am about the future of the Union but recently election results are encouraging.

The last day I found a small Jewish protest site and frankly I didn't quite understand the controversy. I was looking forward to have my first European Michelin star meal and Winekitchen did not disappoint, especially considering that it was only $60. I don't normally go for fancy meals in San Francisco because I don't think they are worth the hassle so I was very happy that great meals were relatively easy to come by and a lot more affordable as well.

See Google Photos for more pictures.

First stop Barcelona. I found out at the airport that my friend Stephanie will also be going there on the same days which was a pleasant surprise. I arrived quite late and was desperate enough to find food that I settled on a random cafe called El Raim. It was still serving food at 22:30 and had customers so I decided to try even though I couldn't find any reviews for it. I ordered some passable meat dish but the Moritz beer stood out after I dramatically lowered my standard. The waiter told me the family brewery started making the beer over 150 years ago in Barcelona and shutdown some years back, and only recently restarted again.

After food I decided to wander around in Eixample neighborhood to find a friendly bar to cure my jetlag. A suspicious character found me first and tried to get me to go to a gay bar with him. He shocked me by dancing really closed to me and grinding me up as I fanatically pushed him away. Just as he turned away I found out that my phone was gone. Luckily he hadn't walked far and gave me the phone back as soon as I confronted him. I lost all interest in staying out and went back to sleep.

I woke up at 5am due to jetlag and rolled around in bed until 7am. I went to a cafe near by to have a cake and waited until 8:30 for the first restaurants to open. To my surprise a bottle of wine was only around $10 but I had too much shame to drink a whole bottle at early morning and lacked the persuasion skill to order just a glass in Spanish. I settled with a glass of Sangria. My inability to speak Spanish failed me again when they served me crab salad instead of cod salad. I then saw two older Spanish men having breakfast together and each killed a bottle of wine.

After that I met up with Stephanie and she shared her churro which I didn't know was a Spanish thing. I mostly did my preparations right before I go to each city and having a travel buddy helped. We had lunch with her friends at El Pintxo de Petritxol and wandered around for a few hours. Stephanie and I regrouped for dinner at Cerveseria Catalana and chatted up with an older couple from Danville. There was a long wait before food and long conversation after food so by the time we got out it was time to call it a night. I missed the midnight cutoff for my day pass and had to pay again for the bus ride back. Fortunately most other cities I went to this time had 24 hours pass instead.

The highlight next day was the Forbidden Barcelona tour which was a paid walking tour at what used to be the sketchier part of town. We ended the night early after a paella dinner because of the excessive amount of walking. Overall I was impressed with the restaurants that other people had recommended but wish I was able to try more types of paella and wine.

Tuesday we tried to go to La Sagrada Família but we could only get tickets for 6:30pm. We went to a nearby seafood restaurant called La Paradeta where half of the customers were Asians and then headed to Park Güell which showcased some of Gaudi's designs. There we met another of Stephanie's friend but we soon parted ways to head back to La Sagrada Família. I was impressed that currently construction funding comes entirely from fees that people pay to watch the construction which amounts to $20 million a year.

Stephanie had an earlier flight so I spent my last day visiting Catalan History Museum. It speaks of Spanish history from a Catalan angle and I appreciate getting an understanding of why some of them want independence. I finished off Barcelona by finishing off a paella by myself.

See Google Photos for more pictures.

So I just bought a Nexus 9. It's 2015 and somehow reading PDF is still a pain. None of the major ebook readers properly support PDF: Google Books and Kindle both import PDFs as images, so I can't highlight text. Converting PDF to ePub messes up the formatting (they are academic papers). The built-in PDF reader can highlight text for copy, but can't save highlights.

Adobe's PDF reader does do the job, except it requires another account to save to the cloud (turns out I already had one but obviously I don't know what the password is). And the UI is... ugh. Why do I have 4 different tabs showing an identical set of files?

I knew it would be a pain and printed out the papers, except printing still doesn't work right in 2015 and I am missing a few pages.