BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA

The contrasts within this small city are exactly what bug me most about tourism. As I walk from the train station and see the crumbling facades of buildings, I think I'm in for a real Eastern deal, so to speak, rather than the Western grandeur and restoration prevalent in so many touristic places. As I find my way to the old town, however, I see no crumbling facades, only affluence and restaurants three times the price of those on the outskirts of town. However, it's here in the centre that the locals are friendliest, unlike at the train station where I experience some of the worst customer service of all time! I do feel some sympathy for the staff in that they have to put up with arrogance of certain tourists who let it be known how annoying it is to have to change their Euros into 'this strange currency' or exclaim that 'there's nothing to do in this godforsaken town!'. Still, it's no excuse for blatant rudeness.

As much as I dislike the globalisation of tourism (another bloody Tesco supermarket! Another 'Billa'! The golden arches of McDevastation and Coca-Colonisation signs everywhere I look!), I am the first one to admit that this is exactly why busking has been able to fund my travels. I have only one day to busk here and it proves to be hugely successful. I go (of course!) to the touristic centre and make about 15 Euro in local currency but also 30 Euro in actual Euro, which is more than enough for my train ticket to Krakow, two nights accomodation and some good vegie food. Thanks here must go to one yellow shirted fellow who I'll never see again and who, sly as anything, slipped a crisp blue twenty euro note in my case while I was looking the other way. He didn't even look back when I called 'Yaa Kwee yem! (thanks!)' to his back.

Good times in Bratislava:

Two men, on a cycling trip from Paris to Istanbul stop and talk to me, and after comparing modes of travel they reckon mine must be harder than theirs! Though I would disagree...

A little girl with some front teeth missing and pink sunglasses keeps scooting back and forth on her shiny new scooter, getting closer and closer to my case every time. We smile at each other as her parents relax in the Saturday sun.

A bunch of local yobs walk past and seem quietened by the Joni Mitchell tune I am playing - enough to share the shrapnel in their jeans pockets with me anyway, before a rough 'Ahoy!' (goodday) upon departure. Bogans! They're all heart on the inside!

Yet another guy - Italian - tells me he saw me busking in Budapest! What is this - some kind of wierd conspiracy?

But I save my favourite busking story for last.

I've been singing maybe two or three songs when a young gothic looking girl shyly approaches me. Her English is slow and heavily accented, but she tells me her name is Andy and she's been working not twenty metres away in a busy market stall. She's 16, is studying animation and English at high school and also learning the guitar. We talk about all of these things for a while before she invites me for a soft drink after work. I agree, and as the next hour passes she brings up both her mum and her 11 year old sister to meet me, who happen to be passing by her stall, so by the time I'm politely told to clear off by two policewomen at around 3 p.m I feel like I'm part of the family almost.

We meet at 7.15 that night and she buys me an icecream and I discover she's into heavy metal! It's nice to spend time with her and her sister for an hour, we sit and try to have conversations in stilted English while her sister takes photographs of us. Andy gives me a picture she drew for me that afternoon and we hug goodbye after I promise her a place to stay even if it takes her 5-10 years to visit New Zealand.

After I find I'm not officially allowed to busk in the centrum I don't feel the need to spend another day in the city. The guy in my room snores something chronic anyway, so not 24 hours later I find myself on yet another train to another new country. Must have been that 11 days I spent in Budapest that's got me so eager to keep moving - so it's I go, to search for the craic in the Polish city of Krakow.

BOUND TO BUDDHA, BUT NOT TO PEST - TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE?

'BackPack' Hostel, Budapest:

On the wood of the bunk bed above my head reads the graffitti:
'This hostel is real good at making you not bother going to other countries - or into Budapest".
And lo and behold, this all seems to be very true. Since moving here after meeting Dutch Saskia, with the intention of staying only two extra nights, my concepts of time have changed radically. On my second night at 'The Backpack' a bunch of us leave at around midnight to find somewhere to dance. Seems we're not so good at reading the map however, as we walk for an hour or more searching in vain for somewhere to go- I don't mind, as I've just come along at the last minute and am happily singing away with fellow music-lovers who know all the words to 'Don't Stop Me Now'. We sing all that we collectively know, and I could walk all night doing this - 'Under The Bridge', 'Heart Shaped Box', 'Jeremy" by Pearl Jam... but eventually we find a nice garden bar to have a drink in. There doesn't seem to be any music around however, and we almost give up hope until we stumble across a warehouse still open at 4 a.m on a Tuesday morning. There's about a dozen or so loose limbed Hungarians and other revellers dancing to electro music that reverberates off the walls and floorboards, so we have a great dance with them before they finally close half an hour later.

Because we get home at around 6 a.m that morning, my usual routines are slipping a bit. I still go out busking almost every day; it's rare for me to have a day off simply because I love it so much, though sometimes I'm not out until three or four. One day I'm so determined to go out and earn my keep that I ignore the grey clouds above me, and am sitting determinedly singing away until the first fat drops of water start to coat Stella (guitar) and like a protective mother I make for the nearest alcove to sit again and outwait the downpour.

Here I find a nice enough place to play, and I sit and sing mostly for myself as the water cascades and falls. It stops half an hour later and, as the air quietens with it, I realise how beautiful the acoustics in this little alcove are; perfect for dreamers like me who could spend hours in Fisherman's Bastillion staring out at Budapest all majestic below. Here in the serenity of 'Buda', people have time to listen for a while - I am definitely a lot happier here than in 'Pest' - which can feel exactly like it's name - a pain in the touristic butt! 'Buddha' suits me much more I think, and I decide this city has a soul after all.

In the alcove, I'm watched by three travellers from Northern England, who request songs I've written myself. It's nice to practice these - meeting Saskia has inspired me to write my own tunes again after a few months of not feeling particularly inspired. The three of them sit for about half an hour and we have a good chat after I finish, before I sigh and lug my sleek black girl down the hill once again, feeling refreshed as always by a few hours of singing. It always works a treat...

There's two other travelling musicians at the hostel, so on my last night we jam a little with their violas and some hip-hop-esque freestyling from the various crazies I've been hanging out with these past five days. I feel like I've been part of a family in some way, and though my being is feeling the effects off all these mad parties, I still leave with great reluctance. I sit on the train to Bratislava, Slovakia fighting off sleep and yet feel somehow replenished as well. I remember that a week ago I was considering calling the whole thing off as I was just feeling so worn out. Though I'm now perhaps worn out in a different way, my enthusiasm for travel has returned and I wonder what new adventures this country Slovakia will hold for me...

BUDAPEST - A MIXED BAG

I'm finally updating this blog on my eighth and hopefully final day in this city - the longest I've stayed in a place since being in India. How strange this is, as Budapest is probably the least favourite place I've visited in the past five weeks - but then again this always seems to happen, that just as I'm fed up with a place and am all set to leave, something special happens.

On my first few days here I struggle to hold myself in the big city. It's hot and sticky, it takes a long time to get anywhere, it's proving almost impossible to be even a vegetarian and eat well here (I've been surviving on mung beans and pumperknickel bread) and my hostel in the 'Pest' area of the city is a total flea pit. Loads of travellers come back from Sziget festival wired and weary, and the 150 bed building is all of a sudden heaving with smelly bods most of which have been void of shower for the entire seven day music festival.

Busking has gone well, however. I play mostly up at Castle Hill near the Fisherman's Bastillion, a beautiful white marble area whose beauty reminds me a lot of Sacre Couer in Paris. So, as I'm playing on what I plan to be my final day in the city, a funky blonde Dutchie rocks up and introduces herself as Saskia. She has a look through my song book, and I hand her the guitar as it turns out she's a singer-songwriter as well. She sings two beautiful self penned songs in a high clear voice; I join in on the choruses and there's certainly a musical chemistry there... and because of this I decide I just can't leave for Bratislava the following day. Instead, we plan a rendezvous of our own.

We meet the next day, same time, same place, and play together for the first time. It's rough and unpractised but there are certainly moments of magic there, and I learn some new songs that are good for busking - Skunk Anansie, Cranberries, Anouk... We make enough to buy groceries and cook for five people at her hostel, which is so social and friendly that I decide to move in the very next day. The place is called 'Back Pack' and is run by a seriously well travelled dude who's spent a lot of time in India, so I feel right at home.

All of a sudden my Budapest experience has changed for the better... now, in a better mood, I busk alone and am gifted with not only money but also a signed photograph of the Budapest Parliament at sunset by an artist who sells his works in the weekends. A funny guy in a hat who sits making bird noises gives me a 'squeaker' and buys me a beer, and I also get some strange currencies I can't even recognise - in the end I decide they are Russian. A bunch of teenagers from an unknown country sing along with me on 'Hotel California' and keep throwing coins at me after each verse (!) and there's certainly plenty of good craic to be found (!!)

I take a day off from busking on Sunday; it's St Stephen's Day and a National holiday, and manage to survive the insane storm that comes out of nowhere at 9 p.m that night; half the cities population is crammed down at the Danube watching the fireworks. It's a total disaster, and at least two people die when trees fall upon their car. Having been in the monsoon in different parts of India, I've still never seen a storm as vicious as this... Saskia and I walk for an hour back to the hostel completely saturated, observing children crying, drunks hollering and teenagers screaming in excitement... it's pretty big, though it doesn't stop the damn fireworks from blowing their tops - they go on for over half an hour from three different vantage points while all around us a different kind of chaos is erupting...

Today, as I finally get around to updating this, I come from an amazing busking experience. Now, I've never been to Italy, but right now I could be forgiven for easily forgetting this fact... on a break from our songs, Saskia and I are approached by maybe three Italian tourists at first, who ask us if we know any songs in their language. I respond by simply handing the guitar to them, and what begins as one or two simple songs turns into a full blown hoopla with the rest of their tour bus linking arms and dancing around us, and about fifty cameras all flashing left right and centre, taking photos and making movies of the spectacle. My face hurts from smiling so much, and we even leave them to it for a while, sitting back and taking a break from our songs as the madness unfolds. At the end of it all (maybe fifteen wierd and wonderful minutes of full Italian comraderie), they've tipped us a total of twenty euro as well as Hungarian forint, and everyone leaves laughing and exclaiming 'Bravo!' 'Bellissiimo!'. It's totally hilarious...

It's been a strange week here. I can't say that I love the city, even after all this time to get used to it, though I think that's mainly down to the fact that I've had enough of big cities. However, I've made a great musical contact which has been more than worth sticking around for - we talk about meeting in Holland next year to possibly record some tunes together. Oh, and I almost forgot - here's another one of those small world stories - within my first two days in the city I'm approached by two people that saw me busk in Ljubljana, and one of them even shows me a photo he took of me singing on the bridge. Spooky! Though in the best possible way... I don't mind at all.

And next on the list? Bratislava calls me.. to be honest, Ljubljana and the rest of Slovenia call me more, as I feel that the country really got into my heart in some way. I plan to return there in a while, after Poland and the Czech Republic, and of course the Slovakian capital where I'll find myself some time tomorrow afternoon, all going well... I say this, knowing full well that the hostel I've moved to is notorious for making one never want to leave it's leafy gardened grounds... stranger things have happened...

IN LOVE WITH LJUBLJANA

I fall in love with this city and stay six days in the end, despite the rain that falls thick and heavy for half of the time I'm here. There's a great reggae party at one of the Metelkova bars one night, though it's shut down around 2 a.m to the dismay of many a skanker. 'Turinfest' is going on at the edge of town and every night a different kind of music plays - I go one night and just walk around. There's a great photographic exhibition of street performers at the venue which I gaze long at - Ljubljana is full of photogaphers so I'm told.

I plan to leave on Sunday for Ptuj, a small town near the Hungarian border, but finally the sun has come out and instead I take my guitar to town. I'm playing on the final pedestrian bridge alongside the Sunday market, it's my best day yet and I could play all day but for the choral singers that are drifting back and forth in a boat on the river below. They wear the colour beige well, make it look fashionable even, and their songs enchant all who watch from the bridge above. I'm happy to stop as they pass - it would be a crime to play over their haunting songs.

Anyway, it's on one of these breaks that I'm approached by Phillippe. He's from Switzerland and has been biking through Serbia and Croatia, and has been held up by rain in Ljubljajna for just one night before he heads home again. Turns out he's a bass player, and as we talk more we can't believe it - here comes another one of those spooky coincidences I seem to keep having - it turns out I jammed with one of his band mates and friends in Amsterdam - Danny rasta! Not suprising really - I should be used to such things happening by now - we go for a juice and talk music and travel before I go to check back into my hostel for another night. Seems I'm just not ready to leave this town...

One last busking afternoon on a different street before I go... two boys and a guitar are now on the bridge so I play in the main pedestrian shopping mall and here are some of the things that I see- children, children, everywhere... a beautiful wheelchair bound man that just sits real close and smiles along with me... suited Croatians that dance along the street and pay me in kuna when I play The Beatles for their families... as well as so many Italians that stop and listen on this glorious of days. It's a good day for conversation, so I sit for a chat about the state of the world with Dean from Canada; he has his flute and is very much a Pied Piper sort of guy, playing for the street alone... his sounds drifting down alleyways and lifting the mood of those around.

Me, I play for hours today and it shows - later, as I'm foraging for food in a totally different part of town, a complete stranger calls out across the street 'Nice songs!' to me. It's a great end to my stay in this friendliest of cities, one I enjoyed so much I forgot to see any other part of the country. Never mind, there's always next year...

LJUBLJANA,SLOVENIA

On the train I'm watching, trying to find the exact point where Austria merges into Slovenia and vice versa... we stop at a station still in Austria where the guards change, my passport is stamped and I begin to say 'Huala' instead of 'Danke shen' to give thanks. No other signs - strange things, the borders of countries... I wonder who decides them, and how languages can change so suddenly. The guard asks me what 'hello' is in the Maori language and tells me to keep preserving the language, and this is my first impression of Slovenia, a country whose insistence on their own language preserved their culture even when dominated by Austria and Hungary.

Ljubljana, smaller than New Zealand's capital, makes me homesick at first. It's something about the compact-ness of the whole town, the community gardens I stumble across just directly out of the main centre (much like the gardens in the beautiful Aro Valley at home) and the friendliness of the people. I feel an immediate change in me which first manifests as confusion - I've been travelling so fast these past weeks that to actually be in a smaller, more intimate place is strange to me at first.

The city is a pretty one, no doubt about that.. The beautiful riverbank is lined with trees and cafes which a more affluent crowd frequent. Then there's the Metelkova area, an old prison which was taken over by squatters twenty odd years ago and has grown into a wonderful alternative area with makeshift bars and unique sculpture woven into walls everywhere. I go there for a party put on by lots of people travelling round in a big orange bus (www.humanweb.tv), they've been going since Milan, Italy and plan to end it all in Istanbul, throwing parties everywhere they go, meeting the local musicians and filming it all for a documentary. It's a great night, a full moon, though the orb's shrouded in mist due to the thunderstorm that washed away the warm weather earlier. I get home at two a.m and know that Llubljana is going to be one of those cities like Barcelona last year - where you sleep when you can and busk between the parties that go on...

I'm not sure how busking will go in Slovenia, as in the other Eastern countries I plan to go, but I give it a shot anyway... there's a great fruit and vege market right in town so it's here I set up first. The owners of the restauarant I play outside buy me a drink and people seem to like it, but a police guard tells me to clear off after twenty minutes or so. I think I might have even been the first person to busk there in fact, because when I move to the Triple Bridge area things begin to flow more smoothly straight away and people stop giving me strange looks.

Busking wise, it's the first time I've ever had more notes than coins in my case.. the Slovenian tola is 237 to the Euro or something, and the largest coin is worth about 20c I think, so the most common demonination that I get is a 100 tola note, worth about 0.40 Euro. It's nice for once to not be weighed down by coins, and Ljubljana seems to be a place that loves change - because the smaller coins are worth so little people rarely keep them and instead pay for most things with larger notes.

As the days pass in this city I begin to unwind a bit, and stop planning my next moves so much. I'm pretty happy actually with this lifestyle - sleeping late, spending time in parks and a beautiful forest just out of the city, and busking in the late afternoons and evenings to make enough money for my dinner /dorm bed / maybe a beer or two. As I busk, the thoughts going through my head change from wondering if I'll make enough to last me a day longer, to the possibility of coming back to different parts of Europe every summer and doing this country by country. It's definitely a possibility, but then again there's so many different dreams in me at the moment that it's pointless to choose one so early on... but it would be a good way to really experience a place; staying longer than just a few days as I have been, busking in the smaller towns and villages and maybe even learning a different language every year....

Again, again, I remember to take things day by day, to not get wrapped up in future notions as everything changes so much. I get an email from a New Zealander I've never met, but who lived in the same house I did in Wellington years ago and plan to visit him and his girlfriend somewhere in the north before heading to Budapest. Looks like I'm going to be travelling more slowly from now on and it's about time, I must say. The cricks and cracks in my back are glad for it anyway...

GRAZIAN GREATNESS

My final stop in Austria, Graz is yet another beautiful river-side city, reasonably close to the Slovenian border, and it's here I find the funkiness I felt to be missing in Salzburg. This is much more of a student town, and acquired the much-deserved title of 'European Culture Capital' in 2003. Sure enough, it's buildings are beautifully preserved and there's more of the greenery that I love, either in small city parks scattered throughout town or up on 'Schlossberg', the Castle Hill area I walk upon one morning and gaze down over the myriad of rust-red rooftops below.

On my first day here, the busking is great. It's a Sunday afternoon, and I play on a quiet cafe lined street in the Franciscan quarter near Haupt Platz, the main square. The restaurants are filled mainly with music lovers and students, here from the States and other parts of Germany / Austria for the festival season. They come and speak to me and invite me to their shows, but alas, alack, whimsical traveller that I am, I plan on only staying for a night.

That all changes when I move down the street to a different perch and see ANNA, a German girl who lives near the Austrian border and who I met in Salzburg a few days ago. We both laugh to see each other, as it's something we'd joked about previously - she'd told me she was coming here to study dance, music and drama for three weeks of her holiday. It's really nice to see a familiar face and she invites me to stay at her student accomodation the following night, an offer I take up as we talk over pizza 'after the show', he he.

Austria seems to be kind of a small country... the next day, a man in a red shirt comes up to me and tells me he saw me at the airport in Brussels, that we caught the same flight to Salzburg together, that he saw me playing in the street in Salzburg AND that lo and behold, here we both are again! Uncanny... another woman tells me she saw me in Salzburg as well - what's happening here?!

As well as rediscovering how small the world seems to be, I feel like a children's entertainer all over again when I'm playing on the main street and three young mothers stop with their strollers all filled with under one year olds. All of a sudden I have a captive audience of three sets of wide blue eyes, all not sure what quite to make of this big mouthed singer in the middle of the tram lined street. When one of them starts doing a little dance in his seat it's a great moment. Yet another mother and child stop out of the blue to watch what must look like a children's show by now and I feel like I'm back doing pre-school storytime at the library (an old job of mine).

My last busking session is a great one - I play right opposite the main tram stand on Hauptplatz, it's busy and sunny and a great way to say goodbye to Austria, this country I've loved for a week. A man stops to sing 'Guten Abent Gut Nacht' with me (German lullaby I learnt in singing class ten years ago) and kisses my hand goodbye with a flourish. I take this as my cue to pack up, and leave in good spirits. At the train station I eat a typically Austrian lunch of Sauerkraut on pumperknickel bread and prepare to board my train into Slovenia, eyes open in search of the place where country merges into country and Western Europe becomes more Eastern, where perhaps I can enter the kind of places I've been longing to go for a while now...

HALSTATT, AUSTRIA - LAND OF ALPINE MAJESTY

I sit in Karly's kebab shop, listening to wonderful Turkish music on his discman and gazing up at the incredible view. It threatens to rain but I've finished my set and have just celebrated it with a vege kebab on the house, so hey! I'm content... Along with some fizzy peach flavoured water gifted to me as a busking present by three Korean travellers, it's a fine end to a perfect busking day... What a place! Halstatt has amazed me with it's beauty.

Arriving by train a day earlier in the pouring rain, I took the small ferry across the calm clear lake and was silenced almost straight away.. the sheer magnitude of those Alps, the vast amount of greenery prevalent everywhere you look... unbelievable. It's definitely one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and reminds me of New Zealand a lot...

Anyway, back to the busking... it's Saturday morning and the sky rings clear as a bell, so I take a place at the other end of town near the bus stand (ten minutes away from Karly's kebabs which I'll come to later...). Before I even start to sing, a nice German tourist has taken pity on me and put two whole Euro's into my case. Perhaps she just feels sorry for me standing out like a sore thumb, because what follows is a hell of a lot of strange looks from those just descended from the big yellow tourist vehicle... Tired of being ignored, I decide to change tack. I move across the street to a park bench and begin to sing / fingerpick only the quietest of my reportoire - I'm getting better at sensing what songs are best to play on particular occasions, and though I make less than most days, most people end up looking my way with at least half a smile ...

When I take a break at 2 p.m I remember Karly's offer of free food if I play at his place and decide to keep on playing, only at the other end of town... I don't think it will be a very profitable place at first, but geez am I wrong! I trundle on down, he sets me up his best high stool and I set out my case as per usual. I've changed my strings the night before and my voice must be resonating with this fine mountain air or something, because people begin to respond straight away and it ends up being a fantastic place to play. Yep, I end up rocking the joint! he he, sorry for the blatant self-aggrandisement - just wanted to slip that in...

I'm happy to stop an hour later when Karly brings out a 'vegetarisch' kebab. Unfortunately it's smothered in mayonnaise so that's my veganism out the window, for a day at least... having this diet in Europe is proving more difficult than I thought. I eat it anyway and listen to music before the sky opens and rains down on suspecting tourists.

My work for the day done, I walk into the foothills of these amazing hills, forget which country I am in for a minute... My highlight of the day is seeing two wild deer running away from the sound of my footsteps, and while I'm relatively alone in this place, I feel like I've touched the real Austria somehow... such a gift.

Beauty aside, two nights is enough for me here. SO after I've filled my cup back up, been woken up by my Korean roommates at 6 a.m (why so many plastic BAGS??) I hightail it for my next port of call, my next place of trial and error... Graz.

BELTING OUT TUNES IN A DIFFERENT KIND OF BURG

Salzburg, Austria.
Home of Mozart and the setting for ´The Sound of Music´, factors that probably result in the 'singing bridges' that have classical music emanating from hidden speakers as you walk over them, whilst gazing at the amazing view. Yep, it's all mountains, lakes and greenery here and it makes a nice place for me to unwind a little bit. Along with all of these beautiful phenomena are some rather grandiose buildings, as well as various Mozart statues dotting the naturescape.

The town centre is ridden with tourists, and thus it´s here I venture to on Wednesday morning after a precious day off from busking (busses, trains and trams from Amsterdam as well as little sleep meant I was kind to my body and took the whole of Tuesday 'off work'). I busk illegally on the main walking street for almost two hours, though I´m unaware of the lawless nature of my actions until a friendly magistrate kind of guy approaches me and tells me I´d be much better off playing near the Cathedral. I´ve made a good fifty Euros however so decide to call it a day. As I´m packing up I talk to a Scottish man from Fyfe about the similarities between Salzburg and Edinburgh - both beautiful, touristic and slightly posh to be honest.... though don´t think I´m complaining. I do find a great, cheap and healthy food joint called 'Indigo' that does amazing veggie / vegan curries for only €3.70. And that´s a bargain!!

The following day it rains, and rains, and rains... I end up watching ´The Sound of Music´ which plays daily at my hostel (probably to the dismay of all those who work there). I get so caught up in the music I end up staying another night instead of heading to Hallstatt, but I don´t mind so much as it's nice to do nothing and just listen to the rain sometimes...

Though its threatening to rain on Friday morning, I go out regardless and play for an hour beneath a nice cosy wee arch. The acoustics are beautiful and I make use of them by playing only slow soaring songs which have people stopping to listen for a while before making for the next tourist attraction. One fair headed fellow hides behind a pillar for the entirity of ´A Case Of You´by Joni Mitchell before handing me a Five Euro note - always a nice present, thanks! Two Austrian / German girls stop and listen for a few songs before I hand my spot over to a Croatian violinst - apparently the busking slots are an hour long each in this town, as there are so many hopefuls here trying to make a buck on the streets.

I don´t mind leaving though, as to be honest both my instruments need some kind of fine tuning - my throat is sore from the cold (not owning a pair of shoes doesn´t help) and my guitar is in dire need of a string change. So I pack myself up, stop at Indigo for a last cheap vegan curry, walk over the singing bridge one last time all the while gazing at the same view Julie Andrews sang so operatically about, and make for the station to get the next train to Halstatt.