Europe trip blog!

AcrossFiveJulys

United States3612 Posts

July 28 2011 01:04 GMT

I just came back from my 15 day long Europe trip. Now, I COULD just write up the highlights of the trip, with pictures, and all that jazz, but I want to try something a little different. I want you guys to probe me with questions, be them vague or specific, and I'll respond in great detail with pictures and stories. Sound good?

Here's a skeleton of the trip to get things going:

We leave USA and land in Frankfurt. Trained to Amsterdam, then to Berlin, then to Prague. I stay one extra night in Prague, then we met up again in Frankfurt. Our goals were to meet interesting people, absorb the culture of each city, and try to do the backpacker thing and get by as cheaply as possible (well, besides the alcohol...)

Now, present thy quandaries!

Greg_J

China4409 Posts

July 28 2011 01:17 GMT

Seems like it might be more intersting if you wrote a propper blog and put pictures up and stuff so theres stuff to talk about things to ask questions about this just seems lazy. Maybe I'm just to old fashioned and been to negative, lets give it a go. Do you have any good pictures you can show us? Just a few of the very best becuase I'm sure you have hundreds.

lizzuma

United States301 Posts

July 28 2011 01:19 GMT

How many sexy women did you sleep with? Which country had the sluttiest girls?

Are we going to hang out when I get back from MLG?

AcrossFiveJulys

United States3612 Posts

July 28 2011 01:21 GMT

On July 28 2011 10:17 Greg_J wrote:
Seems like it might be more intersting if you wrote a propper blog and put pictures up and stuff so theres stuff to talk about things to ask questions about this just seems lazy. Maybe I'm just to old fashioned and been to negative, lets give it a go. Do you have any good pictures you can show us? Just a few of the very best becuase I'm sure you have hundreds.

Hmmm, not trying to be lazy but I can see how it could be interpreted this way.

Some pics!

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Here I am planking the old town square in Prague. Before the trip we decided to take planking pictures in every city for the lulz.

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My travel buddy and I with two amazing American girls we met in Amsterdam, and later ran into again in Prague by pure coincidence. We took this picture after we took them out to one of the most fun dinners I've ever had, at a nice restaurant situated on the river. It's hard for me to recall the last time I've laughed so much.

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Walking along the berlin wall was one of the highlights of the trip. We spent some time walking on each side, and even though the wall itself and the surrounding area wasn't the prettiest, there was something about the history of the wall that struck me as beautiful. The division of two cultures, engaged in a tacit yet bitter war, torn down almost to symbolize the unification of people from around the world.

Greg_J

China4409 Posts

July 28 2011 01:49 GMT

Sorry for been so negative. It looks like you had a great time and got some real life experience of exploring the world. The Berlin wall really does sound like a really unique and interesting place. I hope one day the DMZ will just be a similar tourist attraction too. Prague's meant to be so beautiful but I must confess despite been from Europe I've never been.

How did you meet your 'travel budy'? That description implies he's not a friend of yours that you just went with together. Just someone you met online who wanted to do a similar kind of thing?

AcrossFiveJulys

United States3612 Posts

July 28 2011 02:02 GMT

On July 28 2011 10:19 lizzuma wrote:

Which country had the sluttiest girls?

The czech republic, I think. I heard multiple stories of guys sleeping with czech girls in prague, and I think it was common for local girls to hang out at traveler's hubs unlike Berlin/Amsterdam where tourist bars had pretty much only tourists. I'm not certain about this though, because in Amsterdam and Berlin I basically only hung out with other travelers since I met a ton of people at the hostels.

Are we going to hang out when I get back from MLG?

Hell yeah! Let's get together for the GSL code S finals if you're back by then. GL at MLG, tear up that open bracket~~

Pic for reference:

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We're the 2 badass white guys representing university of michigan at the CES invitational in indiapolis. YEAHHH

AcrossFiveJulys

United States3612 Posts

July 28 2011 02:31 GMT

On July 28 2011 10:49 Greg_J wrote:
Sorry for been so negative. It looks like you had a great time and got some real life experience of exploring the world. The Berlin wall really does sound like a really unique and interesting place. I hope one day the DMZ will just be a similar tourist attraction too.

Me too man. With the way things are going, it seems like it's going to be forever until that happens, but you have to think it's inevitably going to happen one day.

Prague's meant to be so beautiful but I must confess despite been from Europe I've never been.

Really, it is quite beautiful. Here are some shots of typical streets. Seriously, the whole city looks like this:

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And there is also beauty in some really unique bars. For example, this one is carved underground and has multiple rooms connected by tunnels. The novelty of the place made up for its damp feel and musky smell:

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How did you meet your 'travel budy'? That description implies he's not a friend of yours that you just went with together. Just someone you met online who wanted to do a similar kind of thing?

Actually, he's a friend from high school, and in fact, the only one I still regularly talk to (I'm 23). It was pretty interesting traveling with him. I'm more on the intellectual/sight seeing side, and he's more on the partying side, so when we combined our "powers" we ended up doing a pretty healthy combination of both. I don't have that many friends who always, unconditionally, want to drink beer and so we were basically continuously drinking throughout the trip, even on the trains!

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We are both pretty goofy guys and had a lot of fun nerding out reciting youtube videos and just goofing around in general.

AcrossFiveJulys

United States3612 Posts

July 28 2011 03:10 GMT

Since there are no questions, I'll do a little piece on my experience in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam: the capital of the Netherlands, a city famous for its liberal treatment, and partaking in, of sex and drugs. If you've been to Las Vegas, or Bangkok, you might have an idea of what happens here. But what you probably wouldn't be prepared for is all this to be happening in a beautiful, artistic, old setting.

Walking around during the day, I noticed canals twisting gently through the city center, reflecting back the cloudy, rainy sky.

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We checked into our hostel, St. Christophers in the red light district, and appropriately enjoyed a Heineken, a Dutch beer I often consume back in the states.

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Next we went looking for our first "coffee shop", which is Dutch for "trip balls". We carefully selected our first smoke stop: after all, this would mark our first legal consumption of tetrahydrocannabinol. The first place looked a bit dirty, the second a little too mainstream, but the third was the charm: a place called Funny People.

I gleefully bought some pre-rolled joints and a gram of the best weed they had. Sitting down in the smoking room, I realized I didn't have a lighter, but this was a good excuse to strike up a conversation with a local couple relaxing over their own joints. She laughed when I breathed my first legal hit out into my walkie talkie, the sound of which cheered out of its partner in my friend's pocket. The girl was pretty and although her english wasn't the greatest, she did her best to recommend us some clubs for later.

When I tried to return the lighter I had borrowed, she refused and insisted that I keep it. This was my first encounter with this custom: several times during the trip I needed to burrow a lighter, and the donor of the incineration device nearly always insisted that I keep it. Interesting.

Afterwords we went to find a market to get our daily bread/meat/cheese (we wanted to save money).

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That building in the background is a mall, and right next to it is a market. Even these kinds of modern establishments are housed in strikingly beautiful edifices.

Walking around we noticed an abundance of absolutely gorgeous women, mostly likely local as they were bicycling around alone. We high-fived and hoped we'd encounter some of them later at the clubs.

Back at the hostel, we spent a lot of time hanging out in the smoking room. Surprisingly, the hostel's bar was a local hangout, as it was one of the diminishing number of bars that allowed smoking and drinking in the same room. I met a local musician in his 50's and carefully watched him meticulously roll a spliff (tobacco and weed together in a joint).

He told me a little about the history of Amsterdam, and current state and future progression of drug laws for tourists. Apparently, the districts of the Netherlands close to bordering countries were fed up with people coming over the border only to smoke pot, as it was not contributing to their economy but only feeding the pockets of coffee shop owners. He said it was likely that laws would be passed prohibiting the sale of weed to tourists in these border districts, but not in the core districts such as the one housing Amsterdam. Phew. Looks like I'll be able to visit some coffee shops in this city again in the future.

Observing that I had never rolled a joint, and was failing at it miserably, a 16 year old local kid showed me how to do it. Only in Amsterdam would I get taught how to do this by someone barely old enough to drive in America. My second try was a little more successful, and by the end of my stay in Amsterdam I had about 8 rolled joints under my belt and was quite proud of the curvature, strength, and density of my later ones.

That night, we joined a pub crawl as a streamlined way to meet other travelers. If you've never joined a pub crawl, it's an organized group of people, composed almost entirely of travelers, that go from bar to bar and get smashed. The group we joined had over a hundred people. Walking with the group around the red light district, we looked at the canals again, but this time under the shape of night. I realized that this water has probably reflected back more intoxicated faces than anywhere else in the world. I was about to find out how intoxicated my reflected face was going to be at the next bar.

It was called Suzie's salon. It had a smoking room, so naturally I gravitated in that direction, hoping to meet some locals. Almost immediately I met Black Santa, or so we termed him. He was Jamaican, with a huge white beard, sunglasses that covered the entire top half of his face, and a thick leather jacket. He looked like such a character that I had to strike up a conversation with him.

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A realistic portrait of Black Santa, made using advanced image creation software.

I don't remember how the conversation started, but I remember how it ended: arm around my shoulder, he said "hey, mon. All the people in this world, should be togetha. Peace and love brotha. I want you to take a hit of this joint." Not being completely naive, I didn't expect that joint to have only weed and tobacco. But hey, this is Amsterdam right? I took two conservative hits, and after he insisted that I take a real hit, I obliged. Now I've been smoked weed hundreds of times, and this was not weed. Shortly thereafter, I entered an unfamiliar world.

Suddenly the world around me seemed to slow down, in a blurry sense, and I couldn't quite see straight. I half expected to start hallucinating, but it never happened. Even though the world seemed to have slow down, my perception seemed to speed up, as did the rest of my body. It was a strange sensation. I started to feel a little nauseous, and after vising the bathroom I got some fresh air outside. I told my friend what happened, and we got some pizza from a nearby vendor. It felt like it took 20 minutes for us to get a slice of pizza, and by the time we got back to the bar, we had lost the pub crawl. But at least we had delicious pizza in hand, whose flavor must have been enhanced by whatever substance was flowing through my veins.

At this point, unsure of what I was on, we decided to make our way home. I ate about half a loaf of bread and a can of Nutella, then passed out. My friend muttered something about always out-partying me, and left to get into some trouble of his own.

And that was my first day and night in Amsterdam.

Some overall thoughts about Amsterdam: It's a city where people young and old gather to let loose and enjoy life. In the hostel smoking room/bar I encountered a group of middle aged men, half of whom had taken magic mushrooms and all of them were drinking like the Irish (maybe they were Irish?). It's a place where you can drink, smoke, have sex with prostitutes (I skipped this), or whatever the hell you want without being judged. Even though it's fairly easy to get weed in here in the states, it's not like you can just smoke it outside, or in a bar, and not be constantly watching over your shoulder. But in Amsterdam you can indulge freely without being judged by anyone. That's the main appeal of this famous party destination in my eyes.

TranceStorm

1616 Posts

July 28 2011 03:14 GMT

Wow, I am super jealous of your travels. My dad often tells me of how he took a train throughout Europe when he was studying in England and his various mishaps (like running away from gypsies in Rome hahaha). Its nice how close together all the cities in Europe are from one another and how much culture each city has.

AcrossFiveJulys

United States3612 Posts

July 28 2011 04:18 GMT

#10

On July 28 2011 12:14 TranceStorm wrote:
Wow, I am super jealous of your travels. My dad often tells me of how he took a train throughout Europe when he was studying in England and his various mishaps (like running away from gypsies in Rome hahaha).

Ahhh... studying in England. I wish I had at least done a study abroad during my undergraduate study. I have a gypsie story of my own, from this trip.

It's 3am in Prague. We are trying to navigate the seemingly obfuscated layout of Prague to find a club recommended to us by locals, and leaned into a lighted corner of a safe looking street. Out of nowhere, a light-brown skinned, dark haired, strangely dressed woman probably in her 40's comes up to me and mutters "sex, blowjob, sex, blowjob". When I looked at her strangely she suddenly advanced towards me and starting humping me, saying the same words again. I had my hands in my pockets because I felt a certain attachment to my wallet and phone and had to shoulder her out of the way.

Mmmm, and that same night we found out that Nigerian shenanigans are not limited to 419 scams: they would try to recruit us to come to their strip bar, club Magic, and when we refused they asked us where we were going. They then said we were going the wrong direction and gave us new directions. The first couple times we listened and thought we were reading the map wrong, but after happening to run into more nigerians pointing us towards more nigerians we realized they were trying to get us lost and confused so that we would eventually cave and wander into club Magic. Luckily we finally ended up finding the club we were originally looking for.

Its nice how close together all the cities in Europe are from one another and how much culture each city has.

Yeah, it must be nice to live in Europe with vastly different cultures so close in proximity. I was chatting with a bartender in Prague who had been traveling around the world working as a bartender for 20 years, and he said sometimes he will get fed up with life in his current city and drive 2 hours to Vienna, where he can yell and scream in Czech and nobody will understand him.

mucker

United States1120 Posts

July 28 2011 05:27 GMT

#11

Damn man sounds like a pretty good trip. Did you get to check out any shows or catch any cool bar bands or street performers? If you had to pick just one of the cities for an extended visit which would it be?

AcrossFiveJulys

United States3612 Posts

July 28 2011 06:33 GMT

#12

On July 28 2011 14:27 mucker wrote:
Damn man sounds like a pretty good trip. Did you get to check out any shows or catch any cool bar bands or street performers?

Unfortunately, although we planned to catch some live bands and attend some festivals, for one reason or another it never happened. Sometimes it rained, other times we impulsively decided to do other things, whatever. One disappointment was that most clubs didn't actually play electronia, which was unexpected since it's supposed to be mainstream in Europe. Most of the time they played hip hop/mainstream/american music, which is exactly what we didn't want. It may have been partly because the kinds of bars/clubs we ended up at were for tourists, but even when we actively sought electronica clubs, upon local's recommendation, we would arrive and find it was some kind of house/hip hop fusion at best.

As for street performers, there were plenty of good ones. In Amsterdam, this guy was playing a very strange sounding instrument all day:

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Also in Amsterdam, these guys were playing some very nice post-rock and had a toilet for collecting donations:

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I did make some music of my own, however, at kareoke at our hostel in Prague:

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I sang Creep by radiohead, and people were standing up and singing along/waving their arms with me. It was pretty awesome. I'm terrible at singing, so I made up for it by screaming some of the high points of the song :D

If you had to pick just one of the cities for an extended visit which would it be?

I would say Berlin. We visited some really cool sights, such as the Halocaust memorial...

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and the Brandenburg gate...

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And some amazing modern architecture:

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Outside of tourist attractions, I think it had a super cool scene, but it seemed somewhat inaccessible by tourists. I think you need to know local people or spend a long time there to really get a good feel for the city. One reason I think there's a lot to be discovered there is we ended up wandering into a drunk sand volleyball game at 1am under a random bridge:

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And that's just one bridge.

RvB

Netherlands6185 Posts

July 28 2011 08:02 GMT

#13

Hoe long were you in Amsterdam? Aaand where did you go out rembrandt or leidse plein? Most locals (including the hot chicks) go to Rembrandt it's also cheaper you should've gone out with locals though they're awesome!
What weed did you have and what's your favourite weed?
Last question: saw any good cultural stuff in Amsterdam or only weed and party

endy

Switzerland8970 Posts

July 28 2011 08:27 GMT

#14

So you still don't know what Black Santa made you smoke ?
In Amsterdam most common drugs are weed /salvia / mushrooms, but salvia must be smoked with a pipe, and mushrooms must be eaten.

If you can, try Salvia.

Eufouria

United Kingdom4425 Posts

July 28 2011 13:09 GMT

#15

On July 28 2011 12:10 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:
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Haha you look high as a kite in this picture. It seems like you had fun, one of my friends got back from Dam a few days ago and he's still out of it. I wanted to go this summer with some other friends, but I already spent all the money I have on other trips.

The stuff you smoked that you couldn't identify, how harsh was the toke and what sort of high did you get?

Also is it unusual to mix weed and tobacco in the US?

AcrossFiveJulys

United States3612 Posts

July 28 2011 13:48 GMT

#16

On July 28 2011 17:02 RvB wrote:
Hoe long were you in Amsterdam?

We were there for 3 days, 4 nights, spanning Thursday-Sunday. We were planning to take a midnight train out on Saturday but then we realized we would be wasting Saturday night in Amsterdam... so yeah, after spending 3 hours at the train station (FYI for future Eurorail users, they make Eurorail pass holders wait a LONG time for a chance to make a reservation) we just decided to leave Sunday morning.

Aaand where did you go out rembrandt or leidse plein? Most locals (including the hot chicks) go to Rembrandt it's also cheaper you should've gone out with locals though they're awesome!

It's quite funny actually, we tried to go to Rembrandt twice upon recommendation from locals (club Rain, club Escape) but we never made it. I'll tell both the stories.

The first time we tried to go to Rembrandt was Friday night. But as was the case many times on our trip, we got sidetracked from our intended path by impulsive decisions. We were on a tram headed to Rembrandt, and ran into a a group of Germans, which had a couple gorgeous girls around our age. After talking to them for a few minutes on the tram, they convinced us to get off with them and go to leidse plein instead. It seemed like a good idea, but bar hopping in that area we discovered very touristy bars that played hip hop (we wanted electronica) and we didn't quite hit it off with the girls. A little bit frustrated at 3am, and coming down from the night's weed/alcohol, we ended up wandering around for a bit and then taxiing home.

The second time, on Saturday night, we made plans in the afternoon to go to Rembrandt and then an illegal warehouse rave which was a little out of the main city that we'd have to taxi to. A hardcore raver girl with stars on her face working at St. Christophers gave us the directions and password to get in. It was the makings for an epic night, but then we met our roommates.

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This picture was taken in Prague, where we coincidentally met them again at our hostel a week after our time in Amsterdam

Fresh after I'd spent some time in the smoking room, and after my friend had popped some vicodin, we meet our hostel roommates: two cute and very energetic American girls. The four of us spent upwards of 2 or 3 hours just goofing off in the room as we got ready for the night.

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The room where this happened. Notice the windows held up by a water bottle and a desk since the windows didn't have stoppers

It was so fun hanging out with them that we ended up ditching our plans and spending our night with them instead... sort of. We decided to join up with the same pub crawl that we lost a couple nights before due to Black Santa's special joint, at our hostel, and actually go with them until the club at the end (which we mistakenly assumed would play some badass electronia).

After the pub crawl, which we finished this time, we wandered around for awhile, and even used one of the disgusting but hilarious public urinals:

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These public urinals are scattered throughout the red light district. No need to piss in a dark alley!

To conclude the night, we wandered into a pretty chill bar where locals seemed to be hanging out. After a beer we went outside for a smoke, and met some young (17ish?) local Dutch girls. They must get hit on a lot by tourists, because the first thing they said after I said hi was "We are probably too young for you". I told them I wasn't looking to hook up with them, which was mostly true, and we had an interesting conversation that quickly revealed the girls' anti-american attitude. I'm not the type to be offended, so I probed them for details as to why they had such an opinion, and was disappointed to hear their reason was America's debt. I don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but that is not a foundational argument for being anti-american. Anyway, we eventually drunkenly stumbled back to our hostel and watched the sun rise.

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Red light district at "really late o-clock"

What weed did you have and what's your favourite weed?

I ended up buying and smoking 2g of weed over our stay. The first g was White Widow, a sativa strand. It was pretty good stuff but nothing better than I've had back in California. The second g I bought was Amnesia, another sativa strand. Now this stuff was amazing. One or two hits off a spliff and I would be high, and a whole spliff meant being stoned for upwards of 5 hours.

Last question: saw any good cultural stuff in Amsterdam or only weed and party

Pretty much only weed and party. One afternoon we did try to walk to the Van Gogh museum, but after we found it we realized that we had to get back to the hostel to move our bags since we were switching rooms and didn't have time. When I go back I'll try harder to see some cultural stuff (haha... or so I say).

QuanticHawk

United States32026 Posts

July 28 2011 13:51 GMT

#17

Black Santa probably rolled one up with hash (they have a specific name there, i forget) those things will floor even the most seasoned smokers.

sick trip! I'm so jealous about prague because I never got to go

AcrossFiveJulys

United States3612 Posts

July 28 2011 14:00 GMT

#18

On July 28 2011 17:27 endy wrote:
So you still don't know what Black Santa made you smoke ?
In Amsterdam most common drugs are weed /salvia / mushrooms, but salvia must be smoked with a pipe, and mushrooms must be eaten.

Nope, I still don't know the contents of that joint. It seems possible that it was salvia, since I was messed up for like 10 minutes and then it went away. But I didn't hallucinate. Maybe it was just a minior dose.

If you can, try Salvia.

I strongly considered trying salvia directly, but ended up deciding against it. I've never tried a hallucinogen and didn't really want my first time to be in another country. Anyway, it's easily available here in the states so I might try it some time in the future. Maybe when I try it I'll see whether Black Santa's present was salvia. Hohoho

On July 28 2011 22:09 Eufouria wrote:

Show nested quote +

It was very harsh. Much harsher than weed (my lungs have a pretty good tolerance). I coughed a couple times and then suddenly entered a blurry, slowed down world while my mind was ticking just as fast as normal. As I said above it did wear off after 10 minutes or so, so maybe it was salvia, but it's pretty damn tough to figure out what it was because I was already on alcohol, caffeine, and weed. It could have been another type of herb too which doesn't have hallucinogenic effects.

Also is it unusual to mix weed and tobacco in the US?

Yes actually. Most people smoke out of pipes/bongs/vaporizers. I'd only smoked maybe 4 joints in my entire life before Amsterdam, and only one of those was a spliff.

TurpinOS

Canada1223 Posts

July 28 2011 15:03 GMT

#19

Love the blog, I have always loved travelling and went to Europe a couple of times but didnt have the chance to visit the region you were in yet (even though its on my list), and its always nice to have some pictures and the opinion of someone whos been there.

Eufouria

United Kingdom4425 Posts

July 28 2011 15:15 GMT

#20

I'm pretty sure it wasn't salvia. I've never tried it, but I've been told its really trippy, and I think you'd probably know you'd taken something hallucinogenic. I read the description again and it sounds like you almost whitied, if I haven't smoked in a while and I smoke a lot at once sometimes things go blurry and I feel like wind is blowing in my ears, I wouldn't be suprised if that happen in Amsterdam?

If you don't mind me asking, how much did your hostels in Amsterdam cost? Flights there are cheap, but when I staryed factoring in accomodation and spending money it ended up getting to a point where I felt I was better off travelling further than a few countries along. Also did you have any problem with Hostel curfews? Did you ignore them or find places without them?

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