Pat is Visiting Cool Places and You are Not!

Iceland - Our Final Stop

2010-06-30T23:44:00.005-04:00

Okay, let me get this started by stating that Iceland is absolutely amazingly cool. At least from what I have seen online, in videos, magazines, etc. But our stay tonight in Iceland has been limited to the waiting area of the airport because everything in the entire country outside of this airport is closed during the night and even though it never gets dark (I'm typing this at 2:30 am and it is still light out) there is no way for us to get to the city or anything else interesting. So we are stranded here at the airport. So our night in Reykjavik is less then stellar so far. Now I have thoughts of maybe going on a bus or something out into the city as soon as they start up again around 5 or 6 or whatever, but I'm not sure. We shall see. Just have to make sure we would be back here and ready to go for our flight comfortably before takeoff at 10:30am.

On the bright side, there is a trophy here stating that last year this was voted the best airport in all of Europe. Even though it doesn't really seem to be in Europe. Hooray!

Iceland Air has really awesome planes too. Tons of leg room, these cool TVs on robot arms that come up from under your seat that are touchscreen and have a great selection of free movies, tv shows, and music and stuff, most seats (not ours... boo...) have USB charging docks, just good stuff. Makes the long flight home in the morning a bit more optimistic!

So we were really bored and made a little video thing. We ran outta steam very quickly. Here is Europe in review!

Europe - The End Live From Iceland!

PS: Garrett, I hope there was enough star wipe in there for you this time.

See everyone real soon!

Amsterdam Episode II: Return of the Dutch

2010-06-30T23:43:00.001-04:00

Today we had our second day in Amsterdam, and after checking out of our hostel and storing our bags in the hostel bag room for the day we started off by taking the free walking tour about the city. It was really good and kind of sad because it was our last tour about a city. We covered things and saw the sights, so here for the last time is my tour sum-up bullet list:

The Old Church The Red Light District (Briefly, obviously yesterdays tour was more in depth in this area...) The Jewish Quarter The Royal Palace The Jordaan District The Anne Frank House The Begijnhof Covent Hidden Catholic Churches Masterpieces of Dutch Art Multatuli's Giant Head The Marihuana Museum (naturally) Looked at the strange leaning buildings The Manttoren The Dutch East India Company

After the tour we got lunch at a place with the tour group called Boom Chicago, and I had a traditional Dutch meal called... Stampot? Stempot? Something like that I think. I wasn't really paying attention. The only Dutch meal on the menu of a place called Boom Chicago, and it was like potatoes, carrots, little bit of apple all mashed together with gravy and a sausage. It was good. Then we made our way slowly back to the hostel, wandering around the city and stopping in stores and such. I've got a patch for every country we have been to that I'm going to sew onto my backpack when we get home (I stole the idea from Dave I have to admit, he has been getting them all along to put on his jacket he got in Dublin)

Then we headed back at the hostel just to pick up our bags and head on out to catch a train (our last train ever in Europe...) to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Then after a little time killing in the air port, it was time to catch a 2 hour flight to Iceland, and from there we have 11 hours layover in Reykjavik during which time hopefully we can squeeze in something cool to do and see. See everyone real soon!

Amsterdam day 1 - Our Final Mainland Country

2010-06-29T15:28:00.003-04:00

Well today we arrived in Amsterdam in The Netherlands - our final mainland country on the trip. Leaving only our brief stay in Iceland left before we are back in the states!

Now as I mentioned last time I was starting to feel a bit under the weather last night. Well over night I got to be very sick, and spent most of the night awake, you know, being sick and all that. So when morning arrived I was not going to be sticking to the plan of going out to see some last things in Brussels before we left like the Chocolate Museum, Comic Strip Museum, etc. So instead we just kind of all hung around the hostel until check out time at 12:30 and I spent that whole time horizontal. Still feeling quite sick, we left at 12:30 and got ourselves a 1:18 train - our final country to country train ride - to Amsterdam. The train ride proved to be all the difference, and those last 3 hours of rest had me feeling much better by the time we got to Amsterdam. I'm still not 100% but leaps and bounds better, phew!

So we navigated our way to our last hostel, The Bulldog, and it is a pretty cool hostel. We have a 12 person room but I don't really know our roommates yet, it is only 9:35 as I'm typing this and I'm the only person in the room. After dropping our stuff we grabbed the New Europe pamphlet as we are so apt to do in countries they are available in, and found that they were running a Red Light District tour about an hour from that time, so we decided to do it. We got ourselves some Japanese along the way, which was actually really good so finally good Japanese in Europe, and met up with the tour.

The tour guide, Ryan, was real good and funny and we took our tour throughout the district. We saw a lot of girls standing in windows, and yes there are red lights on in windows all about. I also did not take any pictures of any girls in windows, because I don't need no guys coming out and smashing my camera. But it was a real funny tour and a good start to learning the city, now tomorrow morning we will take the full city walking tour and get to know, ya know, the rest of the city.

Oh and a funny thing I almost forgot to mention - On one of the streets we walked down in the red light district, right smack in between some open windows, was the Shelter Christian Hostel. Thought it was a really funny place for it to be located.

I'm not sure how blogging will be working out for these last 2 days... I will definitely be able to post something, but I don't know if pictures will be working... But I will try my hardest!

Brussels, Belgium - The capital city of Europe!

2010-06-28T17:22:00.004-04:00

Weird, right? Why Brussels of all the cities in Europe? Got me...

Anyway today we left Munich at 9:55 am headed for Brussels. We had to get out at Frankfurt and wait for about 20 minutes, so for 20 minutes we got to be in Frankfurt, yay! Then it was back on the road and finally at 4:30 we arrived in Belgium. We got out and took a metro to where our hostel, Hello Hostel, was located. Which is just a few doors down from the Godiva Chocolate headquarters. Pretty cool.

Our hostel looked like a tiny piece of crap on the outside, but once we went inside it was actually really big and nice. We got situated and got ourselves some maps and headed out to explore the city while we could. We first headed to around about the center of the city (for what we could tell on the map) and had a few goals in mind - Eat fries, since they were invented here, and eat a real Belgium Waffle. Just 2 or 3 minutes after getting off the metro we found a big fry place (there are a lot of fry places marked all over our maps) and got ourselves some fries in mayonnaise (the drown em in that...) and they were delicious. So good. I don't know how the others feel but I think they may have been the best just strait fries ever.

So from there we took the short walk to see Brussels' most famous landmark, the Manneken Pis. It was... small. Like really small. Like maybe a foot and a quarter tall. But it was still really cool to see the real thing in person. Apparently they dress him up for all kinds of holidays and events, and a poster nearby had all kinds of costume images it was funny. Right by the Manneken we spotted a few waffle stands, and we got ourselves some Belgium Waffles. I had one that had sliced strawberry and banana on top drizzled in chocolate. It was real good. Nothing mind blowing, but definitely good. After that we continued to walk.

While exploring we went to the national library and the really cool area around it, with these cool gardens and fountains and steps. Then we went to the Royal Palace where Albert II is currently staying, then to the Palace Park, then saw the Parliament building where the EU is headed up, and finally saw the Gothic Cathedral. After that our wandering was done, and we got on the metro to see our final sight seeing destination for the day.

We got off the metro and there right in front of us was it... The Atomium. It was so cool, and just totally massive. It is a giant structure erected in the 1950's for the World's Fair and is a gigantic structure of an Iron Atom (I think, if I remember correctly. Something like that if not.) and inside each giant ball is a room with exhibits in them and each connecting beam is an escalator (or elevator in the center I would imagine.) It was closed for a few hours before we got there so we couldn't go in, but it was so cool to see in person from the outside. I can't imagine the inside being more impressive.

So after that we metro-ed our way back to Hello Hostel and crashed for the night. One other quick note, just thought I would mention that I caught whatever Jen got in Munich and throughout the course of the day have gotten really sick. Throat is real soar and inflamed. Damnit, so close to finishing the trip without getting sick. Here's hoping for feeling better in he morning!

Pat out!

Munich 3.0

2010-06-27T17:04:00.003-04:00

Today for our final day in Germany we took tour trip out to Dachau, one of the largest and most intact concentration camps. We took a tour of the camp and it was a very strange feeling. First of all it was a beautiful sunny day which contrasted in a weird way with the mood of the camp, and then of course there was the fact that it wasn't exactly a pleasant or fun day, but it was important and I'm glad we went.

Dave and Jen actually went earlier because they wanted to do the audio tour on their own, and we went later because we wanted to do a guided tour and sleep in a bit (remember, the two of us did climb a mountain yesterday). So we met up with our guide, which was trickier then we expected because there was this sort of race going on around Marienplatz and we had a lot of trouble locating and then getting to the tour start. We finally did, and then it was off on the metro and then a quick bus to Dachau.

I don't really have too much to talk about, I'm not going to describe every aspect or relay word for word the tour but basically there are some original buildings, some that were damaged and fixed up, and then there was a barracks that was completely a recreation because the US soldiers completely destroyed all the barracks once all the prisoners were out. Each room in the barracks had a recreation of what the beds would be situated like in each of the three time periods of the Third Reich. They basically got progressively more cramped and such.

There was a building that just had rooms of sort of exhibits set up in it. There were like artifacts, stories, propaganda, punishments, showers, the toilet facilities, etc. There was also a building we didn't get to nearby that had jail cells that were so small a person could only stand and not sit in that was used for punishments.

Past the barrack recreation were around 28 large rectangle foundation-like spaces that were where each of the original barracks were before they were destroyed, to give you a sense of scale and help visualize how everything was set up. Behind those were memorial structures to the major religions that were killed in the camp - Jewish, Christian, Protestant, and Orthodox.

But past all of that, through an open gate in the still-standing barbed wire gate, was a small bridge (which was built for the exhibit and would have just been fence and a trench with bushes you could not see through from the camp) that led to the crematorium and gas chamber. Dachau was not an extermination camp but when the so called "final solution" was put into place every camp had to install a gas chamber (pictured with this paragraph), and when it was installed it was of course used. The prisoners were told that they were moving to a new barracks and then told they were taking a shower, even so far as to label it shower and put fake shower heads in the room. Then 2 cans of gas were put into little hatches that would go down chutes into the room. Right after the chamber was the crematorium. 2 weeks (I think it was 2 weeks) before the US soldiers arrived the camp ran out of coal so by the time the soldiers got to the camp they found piles of dead bodies around the crematorium.

So that was uplifting, eh? After we got back into the city and met up with Sarah who was in Munich for an audition (lives just outside the city of Frankfurt) and we got lunch at a really good place called Schnitzelwirt. I had this really good German dish that is sort of like a mixture of little potato dumpling like things and egg noodles in a creamy cheese sauce. I think it was called Spatzle or something like that. I didn't write it down. It was good though! After we walked back to the train station talking with Sarah and then she headed back home on a train and we headed back to the hostel.

So that is it for Germany, we had a blast here. Awesome country. Tomorrow, to Belgium!

Neuschwanstein Castle (and more Munich!)

2010-06-26T18:26:00.003-04:00

Today Sharon and I took a tour out 2 hours away from Munich to the foot of the German Alps to see Ludwig II's Neuschwanstein Castle - the most amazing castle in existance. We took two trains to Fusen, and then packed into a waaay over crowded bus to the base of the alps to start our tour and our hike up the mountain.

At the alps we had to take an easy hike up the mountain for a ways. It was a consistent incline the whole time, but it wasn't steep and it was either paved or gravel the whole time. So after completing the bulk of the hike we all met up again at a split it in the path, and from there headed across to Mary's Bridge.

Mary's Bridge (named after Ludwig's mother, not the Virgin Mary, making it the only thing named Mary that is not named after the Virgin Mary in Germany) is really cool. it is a small wooden bridge, reinforced by iron, that stretched across from one alp to the other almost 100 meters above a small waterfall and river. And looking out from the middle of the bridge you get the most amazing view of the castle. And a word about the bridge itself... obviously it has not collapsed to date so it can handle the weight, but it was really cool feeling and even seeing the wooden planks of the bridge bow and bend with everyone walking on it. It just felt like it could collapse at any time, it was awesome.

So we walked back to the path split and headed along the edge of the mountain around to the other side and took the path up to the castle itself. The castle is so exactly like fairy tale castles, you can see how they are all influenced from this single castle. We walked into the courtyard through the main gateway and listened to the tour guide some more until we got into the castle itself. Unfortunately you aren't allowed to take any pictures inside, and while I got one picture at the beginning they were very strict about it. But trust me when I say, the inside of this castle is amazing.

The rooms (that are finished, there are many rooms just not finished because they never finished the castle) are so ornate and intricately detailed. For example: It took four wood carvers four years to finish the woodwork in his bedroom alone. The inside of the castle was just breathtaking.

So after finishing inside the castle, we headed back down and then took the more scenic path back down to the tour meeting point. We got back on the bus, then back on the trains, and then back to the hostel. We met up with Dave and Jen again and then with two Canadian girls they were hanging out with in the hostel while we were gone and we went back to the Hofbrauhaus to watch the USA World Cup game and eat dinner. I had a vegetarian mushroom soup meal with bread dumpling things. It was awesome. And the US team played like garbage and lost. That was not so awesome, but it's okay because I don't really care. So after that we came back to the hostel, and now it is off to sleep because tomorrow we are heading out to Dachau, the concentration camp closest to Munich.

Mmmm... Munich!

2010-06-25T17:55:00.004-04:00

Welcome to Munich!

Today we arrived at 7:30am to Munich on our overnight train. We got off the train and together with Ian and 2 guys who were in on the train and also looking for our hostel and we headed out in search of it. Our hostel for the next three nights here in Munich is the Wombat Hostel. We had trouble finding it because all the streets we needed to be on were not labeled on the map. But we found it after a little back and forth and it is a really awesome hostel. We dropped our bags and Ian did as well and we headed into the hostel's breakfast. It was a really awesome buffet breakfast and even had a panini maker, wow!

After breakfast we headed over to a short walk to Marienplatz, the center of the old town, right under the Glockenspiel. We hung out for a bit and then headed out with the tour. Our tour guides name was Kevin, and he was pretty cool. We did a lot on the tour, but to be honest it was the least enjoyable of our free tours so far. I don't know why, the tour was fine and I enjoyed it but... maybe we were just tired from the lack of sleep on the train all night. We did cover a good amount of stuff on the tour. Bullet list time!

Glockenspiel, the famous "dancing clock" of Munich. It was pretty cool I guess. Kinda small-world-esque to be honest.
The New Town Hall (which is older then the Old Town Hall due to the old one being burned down and rebuilt)
The Old Town Hall
Church of Our Lady (and the legend of the Devil's Footprint)
Another cathedral that I don't remember the name of... started with a T... haha stupid German names...
Memorial to the German Resistance (Gold brick path along the alleyway they avoided the Nazi checkpoints with)
Origins of Oktoberfest
Hofbrauhaus (famous beer garden and great hall)
Viktualienmarkt
St. Jakobsplatz
Mary's Column

After the tour we went to a nearby place to get some good German food with the tour guide, as they often offer after these tours. We went with a small group of people from the tour, and we ended up hanging out with most of them for the rest of the day. Lunch was good, and we hung out there for quite some time. We were hanging out with Emmett and Justine from Canada, Kathleen from Australia, and of course Ian was with us still as well. It was really cool hanging out all day.

After lunch we went back to Hofbrauhaus and hung out inside. And everyone else got their German beers, regulars of which were these giant 1 liter glasses. We hung out in the beir garten and just had fun for like an hour or two while the football game was on in the background and the crowd was freaking out on and off. After that we headed back to the hostel very briefly just to get our room situated and our bags moved up, then we headed to a bar/restaurant nearby the hostel called Agustiner Brau Mundhen. We hung out there, I got this awesome beef gulach soup, and we just hung out talking and stuff for a while more. We then went back to the hostel and hung out some more in the open air courtyard common area in the center of the first floor, as the end of the football game played. Ian left for his overnight train to Paris, and then everyone else left to get some sleep since they are all leaving in the morning as well. We had an awesome time today with our little Munich Posse that formed, and it is too bad tonight was the last night for all of them in Munich.

Tomorrow, Sharon and I have a day at Neuschwanstein Castle planned, and it shall be excellent. Heaps of fun to be had! Good night all!

Berlin!

2010-06-25T16:47:00.005-04:00

Post about Berlin yesterday...

I love Berlin. This city is so choice. I want to visit here again. I don't know, it is just the vibe I get. There was nothing in particular that was so amazing, I just really really love it here.

Today we spent the day exploring the city. We got up and got breakfast at a nearby cafe. We then got on the metro (got a day pass) and headed to the Brandenburg Gate to meet up with the New Europe free tour. We took the tour, our tour guide was a kiwi named Stephanie and she was really awesome, and we saw a ton of stuff. This tour in particular had the most sort of history lesson type of things and interesting stories, and it was really great. We saw so much, it was the longest free tour yet (3.5 hours) including... (excuse my bad spelling, I'm sure I will butcher some stuff)

Brandenburg Gate
Reichstag
Memorial to the Murdered Jews
Site of the bunker Hitler killed himself in... now a nondescript dirt parking lot. Suck it Hitler.
Checkpoint Charlie
A Standing segment of the Berlin Wall
Bepel Platz
Hitler's Opera House (rebuilt like 4 times)
Underground empty bookcase, memorial to the 20,000 books burned by the Nazis
Memorial to the New Watch
TV Tower, known as the "Pope's Revenge" because all the crosses were taken down in Berlin but the sun reflects off the TV Tower in the shape of a cross.
Museum Island - island formed by the river running through Berlin with multiple museums on it.

The tour was totally awesome. After we wandered around a bit on Museum island, then headed back towards our Hostel meandering around, and then stopped at a beer garden called Prater Beir Garten. We hung out there for a while, got some German food such as brotwurst, and watched some world cup. We then stopped into some stores and fooled around, looking at various things for sail. Caption for the picture of me with the big fake revolver: "I have THIS!"

After we headed back to the restaurant from last night and got another strudel. Sooo good! Then we headed back to the hostel, grabbed our bags, and headed to Berlin Hbf station.

We were waiting for our over night train and met a guy named Ian from Michigan who had been living in Vienna for the past 6 weeks for school and was now traveling for the next 10 days before going home. We hung out for a little while on the train and decided that we would all hang out the next day in Munich and go on the tour together. Then there was the overnight train... which was seats and not beds. Woah... that sucks. So we had to spend all night sitting in the train. Yuck. Oh well, Berlin was awesome and Munich now!

Awesome Awesome Awesome

2010-06-23T16:08:00.003-04:00

I heard a rumor that a certain relative of mine who will remain nameless has devised a drinking game revolving around every time I say the word awesome in my blog. This post is for you!

awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome

Welcome to Germany...

2010-06-23T16:00:00.004-04:00

Guten Tag!

This afternoon we arrived in Berlin. We spent a good hunk of time traveling (5 hour train ride from Prague to Berlin... I watched a lot of Lost... :-D) and got into Berlin around 3:30pm. We hopped a few metros and made our way to our hostel, EastSeven Berlin. The hostel is pretty nice, especially the common areas. We dropped our stuff, gathered maps and stuff, and asked the desk where we could get some good authentic German food, and he directed us to a place that was like a 10 minute walk away. So off we went.

We walked along to the restaurant, called Schusterjunge, and as we walked I was getting a really good vibe from the city, and I'm excited to explore it tomorrow. We got there and ordered our food... I had Shnitzle, Dave had Bratwurst, and the grils had 2 different beef dishes. The food was totally delicious. And it tasted so German. It was awesome. And after we finished, we ordered some apple strudel. Holy crap. That was the best strudel ever. It was insanely good. After we headed back to the hostel and just kind of hung out and planned our day tomorrow. Tomorrow we hit the town, and that night at 8pm we have our last overnight train, to Munich. So Berlin's post will have to be postponed a bit. Only 3 more countries to go after Germany!

So since we didn't really much of anything to report today, I thought I would fill the rest of this blog post with fun facts about our trip so far! Here goes!

Today is day 30 of the trip.
So far we have visited 26 cities in 10 countries, with 6 - 9 more cities (depending on what happens and our time) in 3 more countries to go.
We have been on 28 trains for a total time of about 67 hours.
Factor in the 63 metros we have taken (Be them above ground trains, subway trains, or funicular trains) and we have been on a total of 91 total trains so far.
To date I have taken 3,197 photos totaling 14.8 GB

And well... I can't really think of any other fun facts. Auf Wiedersehen!

Czech It Out!

2010-06-22T16:59:00.004-04:00

Pat Hughes here, reporting live from Prague, in the Czech Republic. There has been a great deal of activity in the area today, and I'm here to give you all the updates.
This morning we got up and headed down to the breakfast here at our Prague hostel, Sir Toby's. The breakfast was not included, which of course stinks, but for only 100 Czech Crowns ($5) You got a cook-it-yourself all you can eat buffet. Eggs, pancakes (first time seeing pancakes in Europe, most countries don't think of it as breakfast!), cereal, yogurt, fruit, etc. It was good and we filled up well to cover lunch as well (always a good thing).

After we left the hostel and got on a tram (Prague is made up of metro systems like subways and trams like subways that run in the middle of the cars on the roads above ground) to the center area of the city, just a 5 minute walk from Old Town Center. Prague's Old Town is really great. The architecture throughout Prague is so varied from Gothic to Art Nouveau and even to the only existing Cubist building in the world. Really great stuff.

At the Old Town Center we grabbed yet another New Europe free walking tour. Every city from here on out has one so we will be doing this in every city to really get acquainted with it from the get go. For free!

The tour was totally great as usual. Some of the many things we covered and places we visited include... (bullet list time again!)

Astronomical Clock
Wenceslas Square
St. Jame's Cathedral (Which has a mummified severed hand hanging in it, relating to a legend involving a living statue of the Virgin Mary, a thief, and a priest with a saw...)
Powder Tower
Rudolfinum
Old Jewish Quarter
Spanish Synagogue
Old New Synagogue
Cubism Cafe
Prague Castle (Oldest and biggest Medieval castle in the world)
Charles Bridge

After the tour we went in some stores, stopped at the post office for Sharon to send out post cards, and headed over to the Franz Kafka museum. Now Sharon and I had no real interest, but Dave wanted to go and Jen went in with him. They said it was cool and trippy, it sounded pretty rad their descriptions actually made me kind of wish I went in. But the area outside was cool, we sat and hung out and there were these 2 statues of guys peeing on the Czech Republic that moved around (It was a water fountain). It was cool.

When they got out we headed back to the Astronomical Clock to see it go off for the 6pm hour. It does this little thing with moving characters and stuff, which in and of itself isn't that impressive... but when you look at it through the lens of being the oldest working machine in the world (built in 1410) it is pretty impressive.

We then headed back to the hostel for the obligatory rest/nap time that is becoming so common these days. Seems like everyone is starting to get run down by the trip (Not me, just to clarify... I usually just sit on a computer or writing in my journal or watching Lost or something during these times) Then the other three were off to a Pub Crawl. I'm sure they are having a bang up time right now. As for me? I headed down to the pub under the hostel with our roommate Emilio and we had this traditional Czech soup they were serving and hung out while a live Jazz band played. It was real cool and real chill. Now I'm just hanging out relaxing in the room, and it is good. Tomorrow? Berlin!

Video Time!

2010-06-21T20:20:00.002-04:00

Hi all! Tonight we arrived in Prague, Czech Republic, and since the day was mostly spent traveling I don't really have anything of note to report. So we put together this video of things we have been up to so far on the trip... enjoy!

Vienna, Austria...it's Naht a Tumah

2010-06-20T14:49:00.003-04:00

So today we rolled into Vienna at around 8am on our overnight train. The overnight train was pretty cool. For around an hour and a half we were just the 4 of us in our own private room, but the rooms were 6 person so we knew we would most likely eventually lose our privacy. We had some dinner we had got at a market before hand and just hung out. We ran into some people who were in our room at Naples the first night we were there so we talked to them a bit. Eventually 2 guys got on and then we put the beds up and all went to sleep. I know the others had some sleeping troubles but I slept pretty well, I like overnight trains.

We got in and made our way to the Hostel. It is located like right next to a metro stop so that is good. We got there and checked our bags before hitting the city. We first decided to go to go to the Schoenbrunn Palace. We got there and found that you could wander around the gigantic garden for free, so we spent a few hours exploring the grounds. While we were there we found that there was a hedge maze, so we paid to go into it. Not only was there a hedge maze, but there were three hedge mazes! It was totally awesome. We ran around and successfully navigated the first one. We wen't into the second one and it was a shorter one, kind of for kids, but it had all these cool things inside it at different parts you had to find your way to. There was a little mirror hall, these pump things, a body of water you had to hop stones to get across, and these panels on the ground that played musical notes when you jumped on them. After navigating out of that one we got to the third one, and it led first to a climbing pole, which Dave and I climbed up (like climbing up a real big fireman's pole to a bell) and saw where the end of the maze was. We got there, a raised area of land with a tree in it, and then got back out.

We left there and looked around the park a little more until we made it too the palace. When we were back at the palace, Dave and Jen decided they wanted to go check out Sigmund Freud's museum/house and we were going to go to Stephansdom Cathedral. So they left and we headed up that way.

The cathedral was really cool, but naturally - like everything else we seem to see on this trip - it was covered up and heavily under refurbishment. But one side and half the spire were showing, and they were cool looking. The inside was pretty impressive, and such a pure example of Gothic architecture. Very cool. From there Sharon and I wandered the area a little, it was a pretty hopping area. We ended up getting a late lunch and then headed back when it was finally time to check in so we could check into our room.

The hostel we are staying in is very cool. It has a good common room and stuff and people are around so we will probably hang out here for the rest of the night (I think my Blog usually displays the time in USA Eastern, but here as I'm typing it is 8:15 so it will post a little after this). Our room is so big and nice, has a private bathroom, and even has a TV. This is only the third time we have had a TV, and the first time it didn't work, so we watched a little in German because it was funny. We saw an episode of Family Guy, I liked it a lot haha. Peter sounded so angry.

So tomorrow we will be going to the Czech Republic to visit Prague, and we will be there for 2 nights before heading into Germany. After a few days in Germany, we will be going to Belgium for one day, and then finishing up for 2 days in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Then after our over night layover in Reykjavik, Iceland we will be home! Everything goes by so quickly...

Venice: The Final Frontier (aka The Last Day in Italy)

2010-06-20T13:43:00.002-04:00

Last night we had an overnight train from Venice to Vienna, so obviously I had no internet. Here is that post!

Yesterday we went to Venice. We got in pretty early, checked our baggage, and booked our overnight train for that night into Vienna, Austria. When all that was said and done, we headed out to hit the town.

Vienna is so cool looking. The way the water just runs throughout the whole city is awesome. No cars, and their taxis and metro system are boats. It is really awesome. We walked around exploring the city some for a while, walking through buildings and along water ways and over bridges. We eventually made our way to St. Marco Square and saw the big cathedral there and all the cafes, but did not go in because the line was too long. We saw the Bridge of Sighs, or at least some of it as most was covered by billboards because naturally it was being refurbished. Like everything in Europe this summer. We walked along the water some more and explored into the city. We looked at some stores, there were so many places selling those Venetian masks... some of them were so ornate, outrageous, and awesome.

We eventually found ourselves at the very end of the city, so we started to make our way back in the direction of the the train station. As we had been walking all this time, it had been raining lightly. Never much more then drizzle really, but fairly consistent for an hour or 2. When we got back to St. Marco Square we found that much of it had flooded. The water table was already high in Venice when we got here, so the rain raised it to the point where water seeps into the city from the roads and the waterways were flooding up some of the entrances into the paths. Everyone in the square was trying to maneuver through the same 1 person wide dry parts and it was causing major traffic. We just walked right around them through the very shallow water to get the hell out of there. We found the city fairly flooded throughout. We stopped in a park and some more stores as we walked.

We split up for a little while, and Sharon and I took a gondola ride around some of the city. It was really cool to ride in an actual gondola through the canals of Venice. Our gondola (pilot? captain?) rowed us and was even wearing one of those big gondola hats you see in movies.

We got our last real Italian meal at a place on the way, I had Spaghetti Bolognese. It was alright. The portion was super small though so we ended up getting a slice of pizza when we were almost back to the station. It was the most similar to pizza at home but the slice was huge and delicious. I had mushroom, yum!

While we were making our way back, we saw a small tornado in the distance. We weren't so sure it could be that at first so we studied it for a while, and there was a crowd watching as well. It was fluctuating in size and shape and absolutely swirling. It dissipated while we were watching after a while.

We got to the station, headed to Mestro station, and got our overnight train to Vienna Austria!

Bonjourno from Firenze!

2010-06-18T17:32:00.004-04:00

We arrived this morning in Florence at around 12 and checked our stuff into the hostel. From there we headed on over to the Ponte Vechio bridge and walked down it looking at everything and seeing a really great view down the river from the center. (Dave and I realized when we were standing in the center of the bridge that it is where Assassins Creed 2 begins, and it looks exactly the same so coool) We then headed down towards the Duomo.

The Duomo... wow. The Duomo was just an amazing building. The details are so unbelievably intricate and the building is just so massive. We had some gelato (of course, again) as we walked around the building looking at it from all sides. Unfortunately some of the building was under refurbishment (like all of Europe this summer apparently) but it was in the back so it was alright. After we circled around we went inside to the Duomo, and Sharon had to put on a little paper cover thing over her shoulders to enter. The inside was alright. It was big with a cool clock and a really cool fresco in the dome, but aside from that it was pretty bland and open inside. But the outside was amazing.

After that we made our way up to the Medici Tombs and the Lorenzo Medici Basilica. It was short and sweet, very cool but very small. But we could not take pictures. Boo. We first went inside the tomb and there were a variety of things. There was the burial site of Donatello, which I did not know was in there and was awesome. Then there was a room that was just full of relics. And by relics, I mean real holy relics that the Medicis had accumulated over time. There were things like scrolls that were written by saints or things, but there were also bones encased in ornate cases of saints and apostles. It was hard to read what was what because there were no English translations, just Italian. There was a big femur of someone, some small bones of a number of people, some sort of relic related to Saint Peter that was to hard to see through the glass, case, and dim lighting, and the finger of Saint Mathew. Literally, it was a gold case thing with an ancient finger in it. Nail and all. It was so cool.

After we left that we went into the Basilica itself. It was alright, there were a lot of paintings and some sculpture in it (again no pictures) including some Donatello works, but the real cool part was in the back. They had the sarcophagus of Lorenzo Medici himself, and you could see into it and see his skeleton lying in it with feet in sandals, body wrapped in a cloak, and crown on his skull. It was totally awesome.

We left there and headed up to the Academia to get on line to see the David (among other works in the museum) We waited a little over an hour and then got in. it was 10€ (instead of 6, stupid summer price hike) but it was totally worth it. The museum is small and you go through seeing some cool things, and then you enter a hallway that just has like 8 - 10 Michelangelo statues lining the walkway. And at first I was like this is insane, there are so many Michelangelo's here but nobody cares about them. But you really always have to end up doing the same thing, because at the end of the path is the David. The gigantic towering masterpiece of Michelangelo, in person. It is impossible to really convey, but after seeing countless pictures of it and the 'exact' (so they say) replica in Florence itself you still just find yourself in total awe in its presence. It was insanely amazing, and I managed to snap 2 pictures without getting caught.

We left there and headed to a market nearby to buy food to cook ourselves a fine Italian meal with real Italian ingredients in the hostel kitchen. We made a dish of pasta (the pasta in the stores just looked hand made, it was s different and delicious), breaded chicken, mushrooms, carrots, a cheesy sauce, bread... it was delicious (but still not quite at the level of our prawn and pasta dish in Liverpool... so hard to top). We cooked it up and ate in the common room with all the people watching the football game between Algeria and England (USA game wasn't on, but both games ended in ties) We met some cool people and had some good conversations, and it was all good fun. Now it is off to sleep for Venice in the morn!

Oh, and we saw Hulk Hogan in Florence. Jen is asleep though so I will be adding that picture later some time, she took the picture not me. I guess I'll leave that as a cliff hanger then!

Naples and the Island of Capri

2010-06-17T19:09:00.003-04:00

Ok well short post tonight, because frankly it won't take long to sum up today. We slept in a bit because we did not have anything too crazy to do, had breakfast, and got ourselves ready. We then headed just across the way to the marina where we got ourselves a ferry ticket to the nearby island of Capri. We got on the ferry, and one hour later we arrived in Capri.

Capri is totally beautiful. It is an island with amazing cliffs and is basically a big mountain, and the scenery is gorgeous. We went onto a beach and the water is crystal clear and warm. The beach, however, is weird. The beaches are all stones and no sand, something I had heard about but it is still weird to see. I liked it better personally since I hate the beach because of the sand, and the water was so much clearer without sand floating in it. The picture makes the rocks look really big too, but I took that picture with the camera resting on them. They are like those small round stones, ranging in sizes from pebbles to a bit smaller then an average apricot.

After a little time at the beach we hopped on the funicular and went up the mountain side. We arrived in a little town area on the mountain and spent some time just exploring. The sights we beautiful. The flowers were so healthy and vibrant, the fruit trees full of round colorful fruits, and the views of the water and cliffs breath taking.

I had some fruit I had brought as we walked around, we visited a little park that was on the edge of a cliff, and we took the funicular back down. When we got back down, it was getting into the evening, so we got our tickets back to Naples. We had about half an hour to kill, so I got some gelato and we sat on the beach right by the water until it was time to go.

Back at the hostel, we met a girl named Sophie from Holland who was really cool. We made plans to watch Memento after we ate, (she was eating at the time) and she recommended a place around the corner she had eaten at the night before. So we headed out and got to the place, funny enough named Sophi, and we had yet another delicious Italian meal. Dave in particular had a really awesome seafood dish. We got back into the hostel to find the DVD player was actually broken, so a no go on the movie. So instead we hung out in the common room talking with some really awesome people from our hostel. We hooked up on facebook, naturally, and then finally after a while it is now off to bed. Tomorrow it is north-bound for Florence!

Naples and Pompeii!

2010-06-16T17:51:00.006-04:00

Okay so now I am all caught up again, today we arrived in Naples, immediately left, and got back again.

We got into Napoli on the train from Rome at 11:30 (after just narrowly making our train by mere minutes, stupid cab driver) and went strait to the ticket area to get tickets to the Pompeii Ruins. We then checked our bags into the station lockers and headed out to the ruins.

Pompeii is so cool. We got in and explored around, they just have this ruined city that you walk around and explore in. Parts are roped off, and there are ongoing excavations in certain places, but the map (which we didn't get but we saw) is just a city map with street names and that is how you navigate. There are just floating columns, archways that lead to nothing, collapsed buildings, stairwells that just stop, altars, water collecting pools, it was really cool. And then there is a section where they have stacks and shelves upon shelves of artifacts (mostly vases) coated in volcanic ash. And mixed in, are the bodies. Almost each section of artifacts has a human body in the middle, frozen in their last moment of life in volcanic material. There were around 5 people, and one dog in a twisted and painful looking pose. After that we explored more of the city until it was time to find our way back out.

On our way out we got more gelati, yay!

So after leaving Pompeii we got on the train back to Naples again and met a really nice Aussie couple and we talked the whole ride back about traveling, McDonalds prices around the world, etc. We found out that we were both planning on going to the same pizzaria at some point tonight, so we worked together using our maps and phone internet to find the exact location of the restaurant. We thought we might have run into them, but we ended up not going until late so we missed them I suppose. But they were really awesome.

So we got back into Napoli Centrale, got our bags, and hiked the long trek to the hostel. We got there, had to take a really shady looking rickety elevator to the 6th floor of a big building complex and low and behold our hostel, which was up to at least the 7th floor as well, since our room is there. The hostel is Bella Capri and it is a really awesome hostel. Our room mates are from New Orleans and are doing a very similar trip to ours, but not completely in the same order and not quite as extensive, and in 5 weeks instead of almost 6.

We hung out for a while in the hostel (free wifi, woo! Hence my 2 earlier blog posts about Rome finally) and then went out around 8 to find that supposed "World's Best Pizza", at Antiqua Pizzeria de Michelle.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject of Naples... this is the dirtiest city I have ever seen. It makes Manhattan look like you can eat off the pavement. There is just trash everywhere. On the streets, sidewalks, huge amounts of garbage. It literally looks like a crop duster dropped loads of garbage across the whole city. I did not get a good picture because I was so surprised as I walked around I didn't think of it until we were almost at the hostel. Maybe tomorrow I can get a better picture, it's insane! Anyway...

We finally found it, a very small place off the main road area, and it had a big crowd out front. We actually had to take a number and wait a while, but luckily they have a fast turn over. We got our seats and ordered our pizza. Now at Pizzeria de Michelle you only have 2 options - Margarrita or Marinara. We all ordered the first, Jen medium and the rest of us Maxi. It was only 5€ for the largest pie, which was about the equivalent to a US medium, but for one person. Pizzas in Italy are cheap and usually personal sized, but man Naples has cheap and good pizza. But it was not the best I ever had, and it was actually a little unpleasant after all was said and done because it was super greasy and thing crust so it kind of fell apart into a soup in the middle and we all felt kinda bad after, but it was very delicious during.

After we ate we made our way back to the hostel, and now it is off to bed (it just hit midnight so, today I guess) the plan is to visit the beautiful near by island of Capri.

Ciao!

Episode II - Revenge of the Romans

2010-06-16T13:20:00.003-04:00

Day 2 in Rome... go!

We woke up, went down and had breakfast, went back upstairs and... everyone fell asleep. Heavily. Like they did not move at all for 2 hours. So we sat and rested and I watched some Lost on my iPod (I have been watching it through again from the beginning in my spare time on the trip, like trains and stuff. I'm almost done with season 1.. just finished the episode where Boone falls in the drug plane if anyone is wondering!) After a while people started to stir and awake a bit, so we started to get everyone awake and plan our course of action. Now the sleeping again was kind of everyone's response to the fact that it was raining when we ate breakfast, but at this point it wasn't anymore. So we got up and went finally at 'round 2:30 ish

We went first to the Palantino and the Roman Forum which were totally awesome. We spent a while just meandering through the ruins.It was totally awesome. There are just columns, parts of buildings, and flowers and trees growing all throughout.

Oh and while we were there we saw Sean, hi Sean! (See picture, he is on the right of the picture.)

We next crossed the road and entered the Roman Colosseum. Is it bad then my first impression when walking through the outer hall (and entering the sunlit center through the entrance way) was how much it reminded me of Yankee Stadium? Aside from that, the Colosseum was still amazing don't worry. It was really really cool to actually be in the Roman Colosseum! We walked around for a while, took the lift to the other floor, explored there, and looked around the gladiator artifacts. We got out about 15 minutes before it closed and headed over to the Pantheon. Unfortunately half the outside is covered up with scaffolding and stuff for renovation, but considering it was closed previously I'm glad it was open! We went in and wow... amazing. Everything old in Rome is just so freakin' amazing.

We sat in the Pantheon just looking around for a while. When we finally got up, we walked over to Trevi Fountain, and that was also beautiful. It looks so great in real life, seriously. After spending some time there, and throwing a coin in to ensure our return to Rome, we headed towards the Spanish Steps. On the way we stopped at a place just around the corner from it called Leonardo's Caffe (Yeah, 2 f's... I dunno) And it was real good. I had Spaghetti and it was delicious. I love real itallian food. After we wen't and Jen and I ran up to the top of the Spanish Steps and waved down at Sharon and Dave. We headed back down and then we all started getting bombarded by the flower people (they try to give you flowers as a "gift", wish you good luck, then chase you later and demand money) and we ran away to get Gelato. We went into the first place we saw, an American with his family told us it was super expensive and if you just order without specifying small they give you a crazy one and it cost them 37€ for 4 gelatos, insane! We thanked him and high-tailed it out of there. We found a different Gelato place and got normal priced delicious one. I had strawberry (always), black berry, and peach. So far I think blackberry and strawberry are the best flavors. We took the metro back and that was it, time for one last great nights sleep and one last amazing buffett breakfast and then it is off to Naples in the morning!

Rome-ing Through Italy - Day 1

2010-06-16T12:37:00.003-04:00

Here is the post from the first night in Rome, 6/14

We arrived the night before in Rome, got to our hostel, and I have to admit it was a really dingey place. Very sketch. So Sharon and Jen didn't feel at all comfortable, and Dave and I weren't exactly in love with the place either, (it had no room keys, what is with that??) So about 10 minutes later... we were on our way to some new lodgings in a better part of the city.

With that squared away we were off to sleep for a day of exploration in Rome.

The next morning we awoke and headed down to breakfast, which was included. Now this was a breakfast! Buffet of eggs, bacon, ham, potatoes, deli meats, fruit, more fruit, croissants, sugared croissants, chocolate filled crossoints, corn bread, toast, nutella, jams, juices, coffee, etc, etc. So much delicious food! At this point I feel I should admit what our new lodgings were for Rome, but I'm not going to. You can find that answer some other way.

After breakfast we headed out and headed for the Vatican. We got there and had to wait on a pretty lengthy line that wrapped around to the back of the Vatican walls but it moved pretty fast luckily so we were in a little over an hour later. While on the line it was verrry hot and sunny, and about half way through we got some Gelato from a place near by... SO GOOD. I'm officially in love with a food from Europe finally. It is amazing here. (The strawberry is the best, but the others I had were good too. Always go with a fruit flavor.) I'm going to have to control myself to not get some every time I see a place.

Anyway, we got into the Vatican and headed strait to the Vatican Museum. The Vatican Museum was totally awesome. When we first walked in, the halls just absolutely filled with statues were so cool. Then the paintings, the ceilings, the tapestries, all so amazing. There was even galleries of modern religious art, and my favorite piece was this really big deformed statue of the pope (see picture) he was so crazy looking and had a really funny face. And finally, after going through the whole musuem we arrived at the Sistine Chapel. Wow. Just incredible. You just stand there looking up with your mouth agape. You are not allowed to take pictures and the guards just keep alternating between yelling NO PHOTO and going SHHH real loud the whole time, so that is all you hear as you look... but I managed to sneak a few photos for you, my dedicated readers! (Thumbs up!)

After the Sistine Chapel we exited the museum area and went around back to St. Peter's Basilica. Wow. The place was gigantic. Just so overwhelming. We payed to go up into the dome, first we chickened out and took the elevator to the mid point (it is over 550 stairs total, just 320 if you elevator half way) and we came out in this walk way that circled the base of the dome, high over the alter. It was a sort of dizzying view. After looking around in the dome, we continued up the 320 steps to the top, and stood outside the dome on the top and it was an excellent view of Rome, and a particularly good view of the Vatican. After we left and walked back down, back into the basilica to look around it more. (I just kept thinking of Assassin's Creed, because you can climb around inside the basilica in it... at the top I looked around and imagined a camera swirling around me like I was at a view point. Haha...) On the way back I got some more Gelato. I'm obsessed.

So we left the Basilica, and by this point it was 5pm and everything was closing now or in an hour, so we had no time to go to any other sites today but tomorrow we plan to hit as much as we can. We headed back to the hotel and decided that it was about that time again that we were out of clean clothes so we spent some time washing our clothes. After we finished we looked up where to find this restaurant, Osteria Qui Se Magna, that in the Chicago air port I read about in a magazine article that was listing the 5 best places to eat in Rome, and this place was high up and super cheap, so we want to find it. We looked up the address and directions to it on Sharon's Blackberry and started tracing the directions on our map. It was difficult. So difficult in fact that we decided to go to a different place. We will try this place again tomorrow night, but for now we were going to go to a place Jen used to go to a lot when she was here, she said it's good, so off we went!

We ate at a place called Evo de Tresevere, right off of the Tresevere Square. The food was surprisingly cheap and really good. We got a margarita Pizza, a mushroom pizza, a 4 cheese pasta, Dave's pasta was somethng involving peppers, and we each got some suppli. The food was sooo good. (but your suppli was better Jamie! For seriousness!) After we ate we headed down to the square (I don't have the spelling in front of me but it was like santa maria de tresevere or something like that) And got gelato from Blue Ice. Yay for more gelato! I hope I didn't gelato myself out already... We walked down to the river and kind of meandered through this big fair thing set up along it as we ate our gelato, and then got a taxi back home. Tomorrow, we explore some more!

Little Update

2010-06-15T02:44:00.000-04:00

Hello there, just blackberry-ing a little update. We don't have any Internet here in rome, so I didn't want to leave everyone in the dark.

When we last left our heroes, they were about to depart Interlaken for a sort of half day in Zurich before moving on to Rome. Instead, we dexided to nix Zurich and head back to Bern because it was easier and faster to get to Rome that way. So Switzerland realllly got shaved down to basically just Interlaken it seems :(

So we spent basically the whole day after Interlaken travellingm Whatever it was fine.

Yesterday (it is 9am here, soo it should be 3am there. Ok yeah so it is yesterday for you too) We spent the day exploring Rome' which we are doing today again. I'll put Rome posts up when we get to Naples (I hope...)

Bye all!

Interlaken, The Land of Awesomeness

2010-06-13T02:50:00.003-04:00

OK, now that I have the last day in Paris and the day in Bern posted below, I'm allll caught up. Today we spent the day in Interlaken, which is a city situated right at the foot of the Swiss Alps and home to all kinds of awesome extreme sports type excursions and adventures for people to do. There is skydiving over the alps, paragliding, zorbing (look it up
if your curious, basically rolling down a mountain in a big hamster ball), river rafting, canyoning, etc etc. Also, there is a Swiss Army knife store every 3 stores. And they have some really, really crazy knives.

We rolled into town early, dropped our stuff off at the hostel, and then went to the nearby tourist information building down the street to find out what we could do today or tomorrow morning and what the prices for everything were. We found that because the weather was a bit iffy (it was drizzling and tomorrows forecast was rain) there were some difficulties. Plus it was obviously too late to book anything that needs booking for today since most of them were already started, so she circled some things we could do today and gave us prices of everything to book tomorrow. Going into this trip I had 2 goals for Interlaken - Zorbing and Sky Diving. Well, Sky Diving was around $350 for the lowest package. No thanks. Zorbing was the price we had looked up previously so we were good to go, but we signed up and they said the weather had kept many people away and nobody else had signed up yet, and it needed a minimum of 4 people for the trip to go through so they took our booking info and said to call back around 8pm to see if it was a go or not.

So we went out and decided that we were going to take the funicular up to this sort of landing that has a scenic view and a restaurant partially up one of the alps and then we would hike some of the trails that departed from that area. We got our ticket and hopped on the funicular, which was totally awesome. If you don't know a funicular is a little tram kind of thing that runs up and down the side of mountains on very steep inclines. It is kind of like the very beginning of a roller coaster, only it goes down the same speed instead of the drop. We didn't get it on the way up, but on the way down we got the front seat and it was really cool because the front is just one giant window and you are going strait down that way.

We got to the landing and it really was a beautiful view. We looked around a bit, found some trails, and some other views. You could see almost a dozen mountains behind Interlaken. Also, there is this big music festival going on today (and yesterday, and tomorrow) in Interlaken fronted by Ramstein and with a bunch of other metal bands, and you could hear it from the mountain which we thought was hilarious. We found the stage, it was even on the other side of the city but it was so loud and the area is so open we could hear it all the way up there (and even to almost the top before it finally faded away)

We then decided to make our way up the trail. We were hiking for a while, it was fun and an easy hike, and after some time we found ourselves hiking strait into a cloud. Clouds like to sit themselves about half way to 2/3rds up the alps and ours had one at the moment apparently. It was really cool. We kept hiking, and after some time Dave decided he wanted to go back and hang out in the restaurant landing, so we said we would meet him soon. We pressed on and got higher as the trail got thinner and steeper. Eventually we got to a point where we were considering turning back to get Dave and go do something else, but we moved forward a little bit more and could see the top of the mountain. So we continued to hike, but after a while realized that the trail was sort of spiraling and zig zaging around the peak, probably because the slope of the rest of the mountain was to steep to go directly up. So we stopped for a minute to decide what to do.

Jen and I decided that things were taking to long, and we would scale the rest of the mountain. (Similar to the last mountain I climbed - about the same slope as the difficult part but this mountain was much more alive with a thick tall grass that we could pull ourselves up on, so it was much easier and more fun) We climbed our way up, and along the way we encountered some small snakes which was cool. We finally pulled ourselves up onto the rocky top of the mountain and stood up to see a really spectacular view from above the mountain. We hadn't realized how much higher up the mountain we were from the restaurant until this moment, and it was very, very high. We looked over one of the other sides and saw that it was a sheer rocky drop off, and decided we better stay away from that side of the peak. We also saw a metal sign facing the opposite side from where we came up, so we walked over to it and saw that it was a really hilarious sign... more so because we came from the side that it was warning about behind it (see picture.) We spent some time up there and then decided to take the trail back down because it would be too dangerous to try and shimmy back down the way we came (and dirty, we don't have enough clothes for that!)

So we took the trail down, which did zig zag and such a lot and got pretty steep. It also had a sort of cliff-like drop off along the side of it for a while which was cool. We met back up with Sharon and then headed back down the mountain. We grabbed Dave and got back on the funicular and had another awesome ride down in it. The funicular ride, by the way, was about 8 minutes. Apparently there is one in Capri which is 15 minutes according to Jen, and I want to take that if we can it would be awesome.

We got back down, checked into the hostel, had yet another room to ourselves, and called the zorbing place as it was 8pm. Nobody else signed up. So no zorbing for us in the morning :(

We spent the rest of the night hanging out and talking to this one girl who worked in the hostel named Karen who was really cool and said it's too bad we were only in Interlaken for one night because she does couch surfing and would have had us over and made us a big meal and she lives right next to a big skiing slope, which we could have gone on. Next time were in Switzerland I guess (I'm sure that won't be too long, right?)

So tomorrow it is off to Zurich, which we will only get to spend a few hours in similar to Madrid, and then off on the long train ride to Rome!! I probably won't get to blog about tomorrow until Rome or so, but that's okay because there probably won't be much to blog about haha.

Enter Switzerland - Bern

2010-06-12T16:08:00.006-04:00

Here is my post from Bern yesterday...

Guten Tag!

Bern - The capital of Switzerland! We got off the train and as soon as we walked out of the station it was a real party atmosphere. Young people were everywhere, and they were drinking, partying, blowing horns, stuff like that. We figured it was World Cup related. Unfortunately we had train issues (things were booked full) and did not get into Bern until real late compared to the plan - 7pm instead of 11am. So we basically lost our whole day for Bern, and did not get to enjoy all the fun. Too bad too, we finally found a city that was busy and open past 6pm.

Little thing I want to mention - Swiss Franks look really cool. Look at them, they are so cool! My picture is just of 20s, but the 10s are cool too. And the 5s are just real big coins, a little bigger then those old 50 cent pieces used to be. Same with single franks and 2 franks, but they are pretty small coins.

We found our way through the city to a park. In the park there were these awesome giant chess sets where the board is carved on the ground and the pieces were like 3 feet high. It was really cool, if we had the whole day maybe we would have played a game ha.

When we arrived at our hostel, it was pretty nice. We had our own room, and the place was big with a sort of gran hall dining area and common room, and it had a real cool mural on the wall outside. We got settled and then headed out. It was dark now, and we were planning on an early train to Interlaken so we decided to get dinner. We were excited because for the first time we were in a place where the dollar was stronger - one CHF (Swiss Frank) = 0.87 USD, hooray!

So we got to the places to eat and... wow... Switzerland is insanely expensive! What the hell?! I mean the dollar isn't THAT much stronger to justify spending money here. I got a super tiny (took 5 bites) salad for 10 CHF. We ended up spending about 30 CHF each on dinner ($27) and a large part was the little unexpected twist... we asked for water, and apparently Switzerland is one of those countries you have to ask for 'natural water' in. Meaning we got seltzer. Seltzer that cost 7 CHF each!. What the hell!? So that pissed me off. The meal was pretty good, but not nearly worth it. And the place looked pretty cool at least, with a waterway running through the middle of the restaurant.

So we turned in for the night. Interlaken tomorrow, very excited! Interlaken was something I was really looking forward too.

Paris - The Finale

2010-06-12T12:42:00.003-04:00

Had to post this late, did not have a chance before. Posts for Bern and Interlaken coming in the next few hours...
Our last day in Paris was a bit less eventful then the first 2 but still very good! We started by sleeping in because we were tired and not sure what we were going to do today anyway. We got up, got ready, and went downstairs to the common room to hang out. We weren't really feeling Versailles too much anymore, with the rainy weather and late day already. We went out and got some crepes and Sharon dropped some stuff off at the post office as we made up our minds. We decided that instead we would go to the catacombs since we hadn't made it there yet either. So we got on the metro and headed south to there.

The area of the city the catacombs were in was actually further south then our map went (it was not a full city map apparently) so we ended up having some trouble because of that. We found the catacombs themselves quickly though after emerging from the station so we got on line. The line was actually very short and quick (I guess the rain kept people away?) and it was a good thing too because we ended up getting in to the catacombs at around 3:35 and it closed at 4. We got our ticket (4€... it's weird but a lot of places in France list prices in this new weirder format 4€, pr 4€50 for 4.50) and went on in. We decended down and down and down, and when we reached the bottom we had to navigate our way through the mostly dark never ending corridors. Luckily Sharon had a flashlight! After walking a while under ground we finally emerged in the first opening of the burial grounds and... woah

The bones were endless! They were stacked as high as me, packed tightly, and stretched on making walls for an endless maze of passages. I'm glad they restrict where you can walk to a set path because it would be impossible to make your way through the macabre maze unguided. There were designs made out of the bones in the stacks as well. There were a number of skull and crossbone designs, and skulls were made into shapes in the pile like crosses, hearts, and archways. We explored there for a while, and at the end we had to ascend the 84 step spiral stair case to the surface. When we walked out, it was suprising just how far away from the entrance we were.

After the catacombs we decided that we should cook dinner in the hostel kitchen tonight. We dropped our stuff back at the rioom and went out to a nearbye shopping market and got some food to cook. We got back, waited for some people to clear out of the kitchen, and started cooking. While we were we met Ben fom Canada and Kristan from Australia and hung out for a while. After our food was ready, we invited Ben to join us for dinner (Kristan had left, but she came back later and had some food as well) We had chicken, rice, pasta, garlic vegtables, baguettes, strawberries, cherries, and a mushroom sauce. It was raelly good! (But not as good as our shrimp meal from Liverpool... that was awesome.)

After we ate and cleaned up Ben joined usa s we went out to the Eiffel Tower to try and see it light up and sparkle. You see, all night the tower is lit up but on the hour for 3 minutes it does this new sparkling thing and we wanted to see it at 11. We ended up getting there at 11:05. Boo. So we sat down in the grass beside it and hung out for a while until it hit midnight and the tower started sparkling, it was beautiful! After that we made our way back (via taxi, the metros were all closed at this point) and turned in for the night.

Next, Switzerland!

Quick little update...

2010-06-12T07:09:00.001-04:00

We are in Interlaken Switzerland right now. Have been busy and had no time to update, but tonight I will probably be able to upload posts for the last night in Paris, Bern, and today.

Paris Day 2: Electric Boogaloo

2010-06-09T15:59:00.004-04:00

Day 2 in Paris is complete, and for the first real time on the trip we had poor weather (cloudy and kinda drizzly all day, no Heavy Rain in France, sorry everyone). Today's main goal for me was to get into the Louvre and see as much as I can without wasting the whole day there. So we had asked our tour guide yesterday the best way to get in and she said that if you take the 1 or 7 metro line to the (and I'm going to butcher this from memory) Palise Royale, Museo le Louvre station it lets out under the Louvre and there is an entrance there you can buy tickets at that not many people know about and you wait much less in line, and you should still show up at 9 before it opens at 9:30 to make sure you get the shortest line. So we gave it a go, and i think we chose the wrong exit from the station (there was a fork and we didn't know which way to go, both said exit) and we ended up coming up right next to the big glass pyramid. Drat, foiled again! However there were abouutt... I'd say 15 people on line, and we were kind of late so they were letting them in already. So total score! We got on line and very quickly were descending the escalator into the Louvre! So cool!

Sharon and i got our tickets (€9,50 - Dave and Jen did not want to go to the Louvre) and we grabbed a map and circled all the things that were most important for us to see. We saw lots of amazing pieces of art, including the Oath of the Horatia, 2 Vermeers, The crown of Charlamange, The Raft of the Medusa, Code of Hammurabi, a Michelangelo statue called The Dying Slave, Venus de Milo, and of course a few de Vincis, naturally including the Mona Lisa. There were a number of paintings in there that I did not know were there - like the Oath of the Horatia, and we would be walking by and suddenly I would turn a corner and be like holy crap (insert painting name) is here?! Awesome! Lots of paintings were bigger then I ever expected (including the Mona Lisa... I have always heard how dissapointingly small it is and it was bigger then the impression I was given.) Except The Lacemaster by Vermeer... that was smaller then I expected. Thing was tiny.

After exploring the Louvre for a few hours we left and phoned over to Dave and Jen to ask if they wanted to go to Notre Dame. They had just left there. So we headed over and visited Notre Dame more in depth then the passing view we got on our tour the day before. We went on in (free admission, woohoo!) And it was awesome inside (just enlarge the picture to the right - so cool!). After exploring there for a while we left and called the others again, and decided to each take a metro to the Arch de Triomph and meet there, so we did. The arch was SOO much bigger and better then the one in Barcelona. It was awesome. And at the bottom is the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier with its eternal flame, burning through the rain. We left there after a bit and headed away from there in search of food. Fun fact: The roundabout that goes around the Arch de Triomph is the most dangerous road in France, and there are accidents every day. It is 12 different roads that converge at a 10 lane wide roundabout. It is so bad that it is the only road in France that if you get in a car accident on your insurance will never cover you, no matter what.

We ended up going to a really cool looking cafe called La Flamme. It was really good. I got Muscles in a creamy sauce that was delicious. When we finished eating we headed to the nearest metro (the one back at the Arch) and got back to the hostel. We rested up there for a bit to get our energy back for our 6pm waking tour we had signed up for yesterday. But first! It was time to get another crepe! So we headed across the street to the crepe place first. I got a Confiture Fraise (Strawberry Jam) Crepe this time, it was even better then last night's. We got to the Moulon Rouge and began our tour, again with Linda.

We headed up to the Montmartre District where all the famous artists of France lived and saw some really cool things.

The Red Light District (which is essentially just down the street from our hostel, ha!)
Paris' last surviving windmill (With a great story behind it about the owner defending it from the Prussians when they invaded and burned all the windmills in Paris. They found it amusing and decided to make an example of him by tying him to a fan blade on the windmill and he died 2 weeks later from dehydration and starvation... but the windmill survived!)
We saw The Montmarte Vineyard, aka Savage Garden, Paris' last surviving vineyard (which is tiny and apparently the wine totally sucks)
Picasso's studio
Van Gogh's house (only the outside, other people live there in fact a women came out of it while we were standing outside talking about it.)
And went up to the top of Sacre Coeur, Paris' highest hill, to the Montmartre Church. The church is really awesome, designed with a mixture of classical styles and made of a material that when it gets rained on excretes a white substance that essentially makes the building whitewash itself every time it rains (like it did today. It was cool!)

So the tour finished up in a cafe with a free glass of wine for everyone, so whatever there for me, but we met some nice people in the cafe including a woman with this really big but super cute and friendly dog. After we headed back to the hostel, and on the way got some Baguettes to sword fight with and then eat and enjoy. We may or may not go out in an hour or two to make a run to the Eiffel Tower again to see it do it's new sparkly lights thing it does every hour and if we do we will hopefully pop by to see Henry IV with his lit up light saber, but we shall see. Either way, day 2 of Paris -

fin.

Day 15 - Welcome to Paris

2010-06-08T23:58:00.003-04:00

Bonjour!

Yesterday was our first day in Paris, and thankfully we rolled into town pretty early so it was very similar to our day in Dublin - travel all night, land in the morning and drop our bags at the hostel, and then hit the city hard and accomplish as much as possible.

At the hostel we grabbed the Paris New Europe flier and found that they did a free tour in the morning and afternoon, so we decided to walk to the nearby Moulon Rouge (literally a 5 minute walk), stop at the Starbucks there, and then grab a metro to the tour starting point. So we did just that. Moulon Rouge has a big red windmill on it. Windmills are kind of cool I guess.

So we got to St. Michel's Fountain and started our free tour. It was excellent, about on par with the Edinburgh tour (Sorry London, you tried your best) and our guide, Linda, was from Philly and living in Paris for about a year now and was really awesome and funny. We travelled to lots of locations, including:

St. Michel Fountain

Notre Dame

Henry IV's stone bridge (which a funny fact is that the strange faces carved along the side of the bridge are people he knew. He had a big party and everyone at the party got super drunk and he had a sketch artist sketch them all so he could carve their faces on his new bridge.)

Statue of Henry IV - In celebration of the 400th anniversary of his death recently, an artist gave him a blue lightsaber that lights up at night, because naturally no man is more powerful then a Jedi. I Hope to get to see him one of the next 2 nights so I can see it lit up. (Look closely at the statue to the right and you can see a line coming out of his right hand. It is actually a long blue light bulb.)

The Louvre - It was closed yesterday so we were able to walk around it and see what it looks like reletively crowd free. Actually going to the Louvre is for Day 2

We saw this permenant exhibition by an artist whose name (sounded like at least) Daniel Verran. It was kinda cool. But the more interesting part was this little pickpocket kid came up and our tour guide was like Oh! Stay away from this kid, he's a thief. Get away! (he stays, playing with some binocular toy. Had to be like 10 or 11 years old. Starts walking into the group again near her) No! Go away you! I hate you!. It was funny.
An Egyptian Obelisk that Napolean took from Egypt. There used to be 2 but in more modern times Egypt wanted them back and France agreed to give one back in a meet-you-half-way kind of deal.

Arc de Triomph (from a pretty long distance)
I stopped into a McDonalds while we were on our break mid-tour, and yes... they do call it a Royale with Cheese. And they do drown their fries in mayonnaise. Score 2 for Pulp Fiction. Made me so happy.

After the tour the guides always say "I'm going to a nearby restaurant, come if you want cheap authentic local food!" Normally we don't but this time we did. So we followed Linda to a café and when we turned the corner to the street it was on we were greeted by metal barricades and French Riot Police that looked kinda like they were gearing up to fight terminators. She talked to them and they said it was fine to go to the café but we just had to be wary that there was a big riot going on down the street. We heard yelling and chanting and such and saw some flags bobbing up and down through the stopped cars and trees down the road in the distance. The waiter told us that we should sit inside instead of in the seats outside because the cops were shooting tear gas at the riot. I looked back and could notice smoke rising from the crowd, aka tear gas. Awesome! Viva la Revolucion!

For our lunch we had wine, cheese, meats, and croquet monsieur (this cheese and ham sandwich thing, traditional French meal). Everything was delicious and I was able to scratch off eating in a French café and eating a plate of French cheeses from my list of food to-dos. At lunch we signed up for another tour for the next night at 6 (with Linda again) that tours other areas of Paris, including Van Gogh’s house and Picasso’s studio! We are very excited for that. After eating we made our way to the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel tower is so. Cool. In person. It was one of those moments where you just look up at it and keep saying “Holy crap that is the Eiffel Tower! That’s really the Eiffel Tower!” Dave and Jen did not want to go to the top so they got the half way tickets (€6,50) but Sharon and I were not missing the top so we got the Sommit tickets (€11,50) and headed on up. The view from the middle (2nd floor, first is a fancy restaurant) was really awesome. It was so cool looking out the elevator window at the passing structure of the tower interior. So after hanging out and taking pictures and such, Sharon and I got on line for the elevator to the top. The first area of the top is a big round enclosed room with flags for probably every country and a city name under it, with the distance from that point to that city if you were to go straight out in that direction, so you could see all around the tower how far it is from each of these cities. (New York was six thousand something kilometers, LA nine thousand something.) After being done in there you walk up a short stair case to the actual top landing, and it was really awesome. Gustav Eiffel used to have his apartment up here, and they have part of it visible behind windows with wax figures of him entertaining 2 guests that you can look in at.

On our way down, we wanted to walk. But the stairs were closed. Sad face. So we got in line and eventually took the elevator down to the middle again where you transfer to the other elevator. Except on this landing, we saw the staircase was opened. We weren’t sure if we could go down at first, because it was a little off to the side and there was absolutely nobody near it or going down it, but there was a huge line waiting to take the elevator back down to the ground. So we just went ahead and started down the stairs. It was an excellent decision because it was so cool to walk down the tower. You could see all the insides, including the gears, pulleys, and cables that operated the elevators. Actually we even found out that the elevator has a sort of secret statue underneath it that you can only see if you walk down the staircase of an old timey elevator operator taking an old fashion elevator down with giant levers that operate it. It was cool. So we got down to the bottom and met back up with Dave and Jen and made our way back to the hostel.

We took some time to rest and such and then it was out in search of dinner. It was late (11pm) and we weren’t sure if anything would be opened, but finally… finally! In Paris we find some places opened later then 6pm! So we got some burgers across the street and our first real French crepes! I got a Nutella and Banana crepe (thanks Eunk! There is the picture I promised to the right!) and it was delicious! So good here! I can’t wait to try a new crepe tomorrow. So that is all for Paris, day 1! (aka trip day 15!)

Madrid - Shortest City Yet

2010-06-08T16:00:00.003-04:00

My Madrid post, a day late due to the over night train we took last night! Today we are in Paris actually, and later tonight I hope to upload today's post...

Well, honestly there is not much to say about Madrid. We ended up getting there kind of late (12) and decided we would reserve our overnight to Paris while we were there. The train station had a giant life-like statue of a baby's head! Weird! We found that we had to take a metro to the other main station, which ended up being the north most tip of Madrid (we were in the main station basically the south most tip) so we boarded a metro and went end to end across the city and asked information about how we go about doing this.

Well... turns out we had to take a number and wait to be called in a very busy ticket reservation area. So we waited. And waited. And a little over an hour later we had our number called and went to the booth and booked our seats. The booking process and stuff took a little over a half an hour, and after all was said and done and we locked our bags in train station lockers it was 2:00/14.00 and we had to be back in the station by around 6:15 to check in for the train which left at 7. So we had no time. On top of that all the museums were closed on Mondays (Except the one with Geurnica... which was RIGHT next to the station across the city we came from.) So we wandered out into the city, hoping to see some sights, enjoy the beautiful weather, and get a good Spanish meal (something we did not get to do in Barcelona). So we walked around. The city is actually very beautiful, and has a ton of trees all around. There were some statues and stuff and I don't know about everyone else but I really liked the city itself.

But we had a problem. Everything in the city goes on siesta from 2 - 5. So all our food places we wanted to go to were closed. We kept walking, and found 3 expensive restaurants and one cheap Indian kebab place opened. So the meals we ate in Spain were Dominoes Pizza, Japanese food, and Indian kebabs. God damn.

We took a little siesta of our own after eating in a nearby park. It was nice, and this old man near by saw Dave shielding his eyes from the sun and made a newspaper hat and put it on his head, it was really funny the man was very funny. He made Sharon and Jen hats too when they came over and laughed at it. One of the only nice people we encountered in Spain haha.

After we took a different route back to the train station so that we could see some different parts of the city. It was very hot so we stopped in a little convenience store place for some ice cream and drinks. The first real plus of the day - everything was like dirt cheap! I got ice cream for under €1 and this super delicious and gigantic fruit juice drink for like €1,80 which was awesome. (Also, aside - while I'm typing that it reminds me to say that it is really weird the way they use a comma instead of a period in their money like that 1,80. Looks weird to me.)

We got back to the train station and boarded the train. It was kinda cramped but really cool. We ran along exploring and there was a dining car and a bar car. The guy told us to get reservations for a time slot to come in to eat dinner so we said 10pm and all was well. The rooms alternated man/woman so Dave and I had this guy in our room who owned a crepe place in Paris we are hoping to go to while we are here and the girls next door had his wife and a nun.

We went to dinner and for the second or third time on this trip we had a real bad experience with the Spanish people that made us not really enjoy Spain all that much. In the picture you can see how happy we were before we met our waiter! Basically the gist of it is that the waiter did not like what we were ordering. He wouldn't let me order fruit. Off the menu. I just wanted what was on the menu and he told me no. They had it, people around me were eating it. He told me in his broken English that I could not order it. What the hell? And Sharon and I were not ordering enough money worth of food to justify taking up his time and the seats so he made Sharon and I leave and put 2 strangers in the booth with Jen and Dave.

Real bad end to Spain, and quite frankly it's the first country I'm glad to leave. First country I didn't really enjoy, and it was a bunch of small things that went wrong all piled on top. The icing on the cake was how mean the people were on a few occasions. More bad then good interactions. Brighter future ahead though! Viva la France!

Barcelona - Days Uno y Dos!

2010-06-06T15:44:00.003-04:00

Note: Be sure to click these pictures to blow them up... you have to see them large!

Hello everyone from Barcelona, Spain! Tonight is actually our second night her in Barcelona and early tomorrow morning it's of to the train station to use our Eurail Passes for the first time to get to Madrid.

When last we left our heroes we had a long productive day about town in London, met up with Klair and Carl, and everyone crashed back at the hostel. Well the next morning we checked out and all met up at the hostel breakfast. After that it was time to part ways as they decided to spend some more time in London and we of course had to get down to the underground to get a metro train to the airport to catch our flight to spain. We got a metro, which trainsferred to another metro, which transfered to a regular train, which eventually took us to London Gatwick Airport. We checked in (with our boarding passes we printed out waay back at Michael and Tara's house) and sent our bags on their merry way down the chute and then went through security... wow. This airport suddenly turned into a shopping mall. 2 floors of nothing but food places, stores for everything from travel supplies to super cheap alchohol to designer bags, and other mall-like things.

We ate lunch at a place called the Flying Horse and I had some sort of English meat pie and it was onward and upward on our Ryanair plane. Ryanair was pretty cool, it's goal is super cheap airfare to get you from A to B as cheap as possible, and I know Carl and Klair were saying how they tried recently to make a plane that was even cheaper and just had everyone standing with hand rails like a subway train sans seats but they weren't alowed (Gee can't imagine why) but the plane was actually perfectly fine and not super cramped, but it was funny because it was choose your own seats their were no assigned seats. We ended up being one of the first few on so we were fine.

The flight was about an hour and a half and then it was hello Barcelona! Well... Sort of. We were at Gerona Airport and we had to take a bus that was around 45 minutes to the station a little ways outside the center of the city and then we metro-ed our way over to our hostel. The metro system here is extremely easy, without speaking Spanish (and remember, Spain-Spanish is not the same as the Spanish we study in America, like Mexico-Spanish) we have been able to get around... let's see... as of typing this I think I have taken 6 trips on the metro each one with one or two transfers and not really had any problems. It is clean and efficient, and while on the subject the London Tube, which was a little bit more confusing but I think only because there were so many more stations, was also super clean and effecient. I'll never be able to look at the NYC Subway the same again.

Our hostel is super nice, our room big and comfy, and we have 4 roomates who seem to only even be here late at night (last night around 1:30) and don't make any noise (but also don't speak any English, so that's no fun)

We got in too late to really go out on the town, as everything was closed when we got here pretty much. We hung out and planned the next day's (i.e. today's) adventures and got to sleep.

This morning much of the planning fell through. We had no early morning by any means, but it was raining a little I suppose (which stopped by the time we set out and only flared up again as a light drizzle here and there) and for whatever other reasons there may be Dave and Jen decided they didn't want to go out and see Barcelona. I was of course not going to travel all the way to Barcelona and spend the day in the hostel room sleeping/reading like that, so Sharon and I set out to see the city.

And am I glad we did! While our area is basically like any blah city, we headed to some specific areas that were a marvel to behold (basically all thanks to the genius that is Gaudi. Look him up. Or just look at my pictures then you will want to.)

We first headed to Parc Guall, also known as Gaudi Park (Guall financed the park, Gaudi designed everything) which was just phenominal. The buildings and park layout were beautiful and surreal, something kind of out of Dr. Suess (but predating him.) We explored the park for a while, which had many levels as we continued to go up, we found ourself often suddenly walking to a cliff and seeing it was the top of a large structure we were just in and there were crazy houses to explore. The center of the park was an oversized hypostyle hall with a large staircase leading up to it. In the center of the staircase were three fountains that were sort of connected and each was unique and awesome. Deeper in the park was the house Gaudi lived in, but it was crowded and expensive so we did not go in.

After we got back to the metro and headed to Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece. He died early in the construction (but of course he had the plans drawn and most of the parts modelled already) and in the Spanish Civil War the cathedral was attacked and desecrated, with most of the models and drawings being destroyed. After the war artists and architects put the models back together and found the plans and construction / reconstruction resumed and it is still being built today, seemingly almost done in the grand scheme of things.

It was beautiful. Insane. You have to see it (especially the inside hall) to believe it. I wish it was finished because I could see what was intended and it would have looked awesome. My only gripe is that is was too windy and rainy to climb up the tower, which stinks. But that was great, and we went into the crypt which is now a sort of Gaudi museum abotu him and particularly the creation of the cathedral.

After that we headed to the Arc de Triomf and that was very impressive. It is massive and beautiful, I wish it was sunny instead of the over cast day because after getting to Spain yesterday evening we had a transfer at Arc de Triomf metro station and I saw it for a momemnt from a few blocks away and it was amazing looking in the golden evening sunlight.

After that, we metro-ed our way over to the Gothic Quarter and walked around there, seeing sights like the Barcelona Cathedral (also unfinished) and more Gaudi work.

When we had travelled all about we headed back to the hostel, exhausted, and crashed in the room for awhile. After resting for about an hour and a half we all got up again and headed out in search of dinner and planning to go to this bar called Chupitos (I think) that is supposed to be totally awesome with over 200 unique shots and each shot has a funny name and they do these elaborate things for each shot like light the bar on fire or dress you in a costume. The only place open we found to eat was a Japanese place, and I'm surprised they let us in because they seemed to hurry us up and close immediately after we left. It was real good though! Kinda heavy on the Onions, but aside it was great. No Staten Island Chinese or anything, but much better then the noodles we got in Glasgow (extremely meh.) We made our way there and it was closed, even though it said it was open until 2:30 on Sunday and people don't even start to get there until 10 (it was 11:45) and we hear how Barcelona has such a great night life (everything was closed and not many people were out by 10ish). I'm glad I didn't come to Europe hoping to party all night with drinking and clubs because everything closes earlier then freaking Walmart does at home. So we got a cab back and it is always funny to me hear how the language barrier isn't such a problem even when we dont speak any Spanish and they no English. Also humor is always still present.

Also, funny story - when we went back to rest like I said above, Dave and Jen said that we had a new roomate who was the smelliest person in the world. I didn't think much more then laughing but he came in and seriously. It was the worst smell in the universe. I have very limited experience, but it was by far the worst smell I ever smelled. We were gagging and our eyes were tearing. I don't drink or smoke or anything, so I can confidently say that the smell was the most destructive thing to ever enter my body. My lungs probably look like a 20 year chain smoker's now. It was sickening. We went down and got our room moved and then ran in holding our breath (he had stepped out and contaminated the elevator, and you could smell his... residue... on the whole first floor) and grabbed everything and bolted to our new room on the second floor. So much better now. Seriously. I had to shower after. Sickening. Hillarious now though haha.

Smelly roomate aside, Barcelona was great (for Sharon and I at least)! Tomorrow, onward to Madrid!

Look Kids, Theres Big Ben....

2010-06-05T16:03:00.005-04:00

Well today was our big London Day, and I feel like we really accomplished a lot...

We got up and made our way to the free walking tour, which we missed by 20 minutes, but we walked then to Buckingham Palace and met up with the group there to hop on. Buckingham Palace was alright, kind of not an elaborate palace looking place but it was pretty cool. What was cool was that we got there as they were doing the changing of the guard so there were horse guards and royal guards marching around with their big fuzzy black hats. We went along the tour seeing o’ther royal homes and monuments, we got to the house of the princes and got to get close to royal guards to mess around with them, and we made our way towards Big Ben and the houses of Parliament. We saw the headquarters of MI6, aka the agency that Bond belongs to, which is still ‘concealed’ from WW2 with ivy all over it, so German bombers would think it was more trees from the park it is adjacent to. We then went to West Minster Abbey which was really cool but unfortunately we didn't get to go inside :( and to end the tour we sat on the spot where Guy Fawkes was hung and the guide told the story of Guy Fawkes (we were all like ahh V blew this building up! haha)

After the tour we headed back to the National Gallery to meet up with Dave's friends from outside London Claire and Carl. We found them and hung out with them the rest of the day as we toured London some more. We headed to a sports bar to have lunch, and made our way to the River Thames to explore the area around there. We showed Carl the Big Ben clock tower for the first time, as he had never been to London before, which was really cool and funny showing someone from this country around - we won't get to do that again! So we headed down the river and found the Tate Museum, which was sooo much bigger then I ever thought. With free admission, we went on it and did a sort of quick run through the museum, which actually was not as full of artwork as I thought, with like a whole 2 or 3 floors of wasted space. After finishing the Tate we headed out and took the 2 minute walk over to Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.

The Globe was really cool and we really wanted to go in but they were putting on a performance of Macbeth soon so we could not tour it. So we thought, wow awesome! Macbeth in the Globe? Let's do it! But the tickets were £35 so we had to pass, but we looked around the shop and stuff and it was really cool. After that we walked down the Thames more and crossed over that bridge that gets destroyed in the last Harry Potter book to St. Paul's cathedral. We looked at that for a bit and then continued more down the Thames to Tower Bridge, which was awesome. After that we got on a tube in the London Underground, which is way cleaner and it seemed faster then NYC subways. We quickly got back to Picadilly Circle, and had to decide where to eat. We looked around a bit and ended up deciding on, funny enough, Planet Hollywood London.

Planet Hollywood was good, the food was the same but the area was a lot more sparse then the ones in America I have been too. However, they had 2 really cool props that elevated it real high. One, Indiana Jone's whip... the other? Han freaking Solo encased in Carbonite. The whole thing. It was so cool.

After dinner we headed back to the Hostel, Claire and Carl missed their train so they got rooms in the hostel as well, and we all hung out for a bit before going to sleep.

In the morning we all got breakfast in the hostel, and it was off to the airport for Spain. I consider this the end of our first leg of the trip, I think it is 1/3rd through now actually as of today, and it's goodbye English speaking countries!

Also, we are in Spain now so from now on the time difference is 6 hours instead of 5 hours... if anyone was curious.

Goodbye English Language!

2010-06-05T10:02:00.000-04:00

Sitting on a plane in London Gatwick Airport waiting to take off for Barcelona! Didn't get to use internet last night, will hopefully upload my London post tonight! (Assuming the hostel can...)

I was Waiting for a Cross-town Train in the London Underground...

2010-06-03T19:33:00.004-04:00

Well day 1 in London is over! And by day 1 I really mean just the night because we didn't really go out into the city until around 6ish after rolling in and everyone passed out asleep (which is when I snuck away to blog earlier) and we headed out towards the river, specifically in search of the London Eye because we were not planning on going on it while we were here and it is not on our walking tour's list of things to see for tomorrow. As we walked we saw a slice of the city that started out being like Broadway in NY, changed into Chinatown, then started getting progressively more awesome (and more British!)

We continued on and then got to Leicester Square where around 6 roads converged and on each corner was a different restaurant so we crossed from corner to corner looking at menus until we decided to eat at a place called Spaghetti House (Yep... Italian in England. Oh well.) which was really delicious. Also, I stopped into a real English red phone booth to call home from. Only I didn't want to pay so I used Sharon's blackberry inside it. Also nobody picked up at home so I didn't really talk to anyone, but I left a voicemail. Oh well. After eating our meal we headed back towards the water, and after a little while of walking all of a sudden Big Ben jumped out from behind some buildings on the left. That was a pretty awesome moment, we were just kind of cruising through London like "Yeah, this is pretty cool..." when just bam - woah guys, this is London!

We ran around all giddy taking pictures of the area (seriously, this is London!) and then got to the River and saw the London Eye across the way. We crossed the bridge and headed over to the Eye, which actually closed as we were walking there. We checked it out, it was pretty cool. The view became really cool too because it was getting dark the whole time but now the lights all turned on by the time we got across and everything looked awesome. We walked down past it to another bridge sight seeing before heading back over the bridge (I think it was the Waterloo Bridge? Or maybe that was the next one over because it was a train and footbridge and I don't know if it was on the map or not because it was not a car bridge.

So we are back at the Hostel now and are excited for tomorrow which is shaping up to be a busy day. We are going on a walking tour of the city to hit all the major sights (and since it is the same group that did the Edinburgh one, and it's free, we totally expect it to be awesome) and we are possibly hitting the London Eye since you can get a pretty decent priced combo ticket for the Eye and the London Madame Tussades (why not?) and we are going to meet up with Dave's friend Claire who lives outside London and is going to show us around as well. And at night we have a host of options we are debating between, such as the Sherlock Holmes Museum, the Tate, etc. So it's gonna be a good day!

Tune in next time - same Pat time, same Pat channel! Cheers!

Oly Oly Oxford Free!

2010-06-03T10:39:00.006-04:00

Wow okay that was really bad. Anyway, late blog post for Oxford because our hostel did not have computers it only had internet jacks but we had nothing to jack into with so it had to wait. But to be honest we did not really have too much to blog about for Oxford. We sort of spent our time in Oxford doing fairly normal things we would do if we lived there, and all our touristy kind of plans were dashed for various reasons. The first problem with doing things like that was we did not get into Oxford until a little before 4, and as previously stated everything in Europe so far closes around 5/6. And ho-ly crap, Oxford is like bike capital of the world. Seriously, look at that picture! That is the third basically bike parking lot we came across, there were massive amounts of bikes parked everywhere. And people were riding them all around us. We considered renting them but we never really came across a place to do so surprisingly and the hostel guys were not sure where we could, but whatever it was pretty late in the day anyway so we would have had to bring it back quick. So we checked in, dropped our stuff, and then went out on the town. Our hostel is pretty cool, and we had our largest room yet – 18 people. But the room is sort of divided into 2 sections, so all 18 were not in the same area there were 6 in a different area from us. The place was cool though and the guy at the desk was great and we liked it.

So we went out into the city with some things marked off on the map and first decided to head to the nearby covered market. We got there to find all the doors locked but we could still walk around for a few minutes to see in the windows and such and it looked like a real cool market, just happened to miss it. Oh well. As we walked down the main streets of Oxford we stopped into a bunch of stores to look around, including a few book stores (one of which every book inside was £2! Jen and I got a pair of really awesome hillarious books. The picture of the Bush book was a book we found there, it was Yoga instructions using a Bush doll as the model and written in mock-Bush sounding words.) Next on our list we headed over to Christ Church, which is where much of Harry Potter was filmed, including the Hogwarts Dinner Hall (This wizard kid is really dominating our trip lately, eh?) To find that while it was actually not closing for another half an hour, they stopped admitting new guests a half hour prior. So that was a bust. Then we walked some more and everything was closed so we sat down and decided that we would grab some dinner before all the pubs closed and then see a movie, because the cinema was opened until late!
So we ate at a Pub called St. Aldate’s Tavern and I got Fish and Chips, because it was something I just felt I should get in England. It was very good; the home-made tartar sauce was awesome. After that we headed down to the Cinema, Odeon Theaters’, and planned for the girls to see Sex in th City 2 and Dave and I to see Prince of Persia. We found that the theater we were in was only playing Sex in the City and Robin Hood, but that around the corner was another theater playing Prince of Persia so the girls got their tickets and we went around the corner to get ours. The ticket prices are very different here. Cinemas have assigned seating based on your tickets, and 3 available seat types – regular, about £6, premier (what Dave and I got) about £7, and Deluxe Luxury or something like that for £9 (which the girls got, and was not offered in our theater because it was like a quarter the size of their giant one). The regular were normal seats, the three middle rows of our theater (which only had 6 rows and was super tiny) were our premiere. And for the girl’s their luxury seats were in the front 2 rows of the mezzanine (yeah, their theater had a balcony) and were big comfy love seat couches. Crazy. So we saw Prince of Persia and I don’t know if anyone saw it yet but we thought it was awesome. Also British commercials before the movies are really funny, we saw a hilarious A-Team commercial for a cell phone company over here called Orange. Youtube Orange A-team ad its real good.

After the movie we hung out back at the hostel with our roommates who were finally there, Alex and Kate from San Diego, Travis from NY but currently living in Germany, Logan from New Zealand, and this girl from outside Toronto was there for a while but left. We hung out in the room and then the common area for a long time and it was good.

This morning we checked out but checked our bags back in so we could go back out into Oxford to try and make up some of the things we missed, and Travis came with us. We ended up going to a farmers market that was real cool, and a little mall thing including a Gap store which as you can see by the picture Dave was not happy about ha ha. We went to Christ Church and walked through the outer green, and came upon the buildings which were all under heavy renovation. We decided it was not worth it to drop the £4.50 to spend 10 minutes tops walking around and hoping we were able to get into what we wanted too since much of it was closed. So that was a bummer.

So anyway, the next 2 days... London! We are here in the Picadilly Backpackers Hostel just outside Pickadilly Circle and ready to see what we can see! We are hoping to go on the same company's free tour that was so awesome in Edinburgh and I may or may not post again tonight but I may just save it for tomorrow, we shall see.

Liverpool

2010-06-01T19:11:00.004-04:00

Well here we are in the final leg of our Ireland/UK leg of the tour starting out England with Liverpool, home of The Beatles! Apparently the intensity of our trip caught up with us for the first day this morning and we over slept our alarm by 2 hours, so we missed the train we initially were planning on grabbing from Edinburgh to Liverpool, so we had to go to a different one. But it was ok because we didn't actually have tickets reserved for this train so we didn't miss anything but time so we got some more rest and felt better then we were expecting to when we were planning on getting up at 6:30. So we hopped a train and started the long (4 hour) train ride to Liverpool. The tickets for this particular train were rediculously priced, but we did not get them in advance and buying in advance online a few days is DRASTICALLY cheaper for rail travel in this area. So we paid an insane £54 each for the ride. (for example, we got our next train in the hostel here a day early and it was £24, and had we gotten it a week ago it would probably be around £10) Oh well, live and learn.

So we got to Liverpool a bit late, and we had to twice ask someone for directions, and both times they were the nicest people. The first guy showed us where to go and actually walked with us a few blocks showing us the buildings and such since he was headed in the same direction, and the second guy was very nice as well and gave us his card in case we got lost and asked us to email him when we found our diggs to let him know everything worked out alright. So our hostel (Everett Hostel on Everett Street) is located pretty poorly. The location itself is actually quite nice, but it is a half hour walk minimum from the actual city part of Liverpool. But aside from that it is a truley awesome hostel. There are bowls of free fruit in all the rooms and the common area, free cereal, tea, coffee, cookies, snacks, milk, etc. all around. It is very homey and we actually have our own kitchen, wash/drier, and bathroom in our room. Our hostel mates are alright, one girl walked in only real late and went to sleep we didn't talk, another guy spent most of the time on the computer but was nice and I actually was able to help him book his trip from Ireland to Scotland (he wanted to do Belfast to Stranraer to Edinburgh, and I just so happened to have detailed notes on that exact stuff in my journal!) and theres a cool kid from Hamburg, Germany and a guy and girl from Finland who are cool as well.

After the train ride and considering the money we had already dumped into getting here everyone seemed pretty uninterested in doing all the Beatles things we had planned (visiting Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, the church where Paul and John met, the Cavern Club they played 292 times at starting their career, etc.) but Sharon and I still wanted to so we got a taxi and made it 3 minutes too late to the Beatles museum, but managed to convince (i.e. beg) our way in. The exhibit was totally cool and we got to see all kinds of great information and I think I learned a lot about the Beatles I did not know. They had lots of cool things including the replica (I think it was a replica, I assume they didn't actually get this) interior of the plane they flew to America for the first time in, a room set up with images of girls screaming everywhere and loud footage of them screaming blaring over everything so it was hard to hear the narrator talk, and best of all a yellow submarine you walked into complete with periscope and observation windows that were fish tanks with real fish making it seem underwater.

After Sharon and I got a cab back to the hostel and we all went out across town to a supermaket (ASDA, basically a Walmart it even had rollback prices and a yellow happy face inside) and got stuff to cook a big dinner in our kitchen since it was there, and it ended up being a super cheap and delicious/filling dinner (only £4.5 each!). Because what better way to spend your first day in England ever then going to a super market? Exactly, I didn't think you would have a better idea. We made prawns (shrimp) fried up in mixed chopped vegtables, seasonings, and a tomato basil/garlic sauce, pasta, and absolutely delicious garlic bread. The dinner came out amazing it was so good, and we over ate to the max.

After dinner we had some left overs (not a lot... but we had already stuffed ourselves so much...) and we tried to give the rest away to any of our roomates but we keep forgetting how late our eating times seem to people in Europe and they were all full having eaten a while before and it was too late to eat for them... too bad, they missed out. We also got ourselves some eggs and bacon to add to our breakfast tomorrow (so dinner was a little less then £4.5o each since it included the breakfast and the snacks we got as well) again, to make full use of the kitchen while we have it! Tomorrow we have a relaxing morning, not leaving until 11 and not having to leave the room before we go down to get breakfast since we make it right here. Also I'm excited about swiping some food for lunch to save from buying lunch tomorrow making 2 free meals, help play catch up for the expensive train ticket today. We will arrive mid-afternoon in Oxford tomorrow, and I'm very excited to see the sights! Not going to lie, Liverpool is extremely unimpressive looking, especially after coming strait from picturesque Edinburgh. But we still made it a totally excellent day. Well considering it is 00:36 right now, I think it's time for bed. Goodnight all!

Edinburgh

2010-05-31T15:24:00.004-04:00

Hello again, so today we spent the day touring Edinburgh. And what better way to start seeing a new city then to take an awesome and FREE walking tour, provided by Sandeman's New Europe tours. The tour was awesome, our tour guide Andrew was awesome, and we can't wait to take their free walking tours in many of the other major cities we will be in.

We saw so many things and places on the tour it is going to be pretty hard to sum up... I was keeping a running record of the tour as we wen't along in my journal so I'll just kind of bullet point some things from the tour and you can google them if they pique your interest.

Edinburgh City Chambers
Market Cross
St. Gile's Cathedral
Lady Stairs House
Writer's Museum / Stairs Close
Edinburgh Castle
Balcony where some of Burke and Hare's murders took place
Greatfriar's Kirk
Black Mausoleum
The school Hogwart's is based off of, and the graves around are where the names of many characters in Harry Potter came from (Malfoy, Longbottom, etc.)
John Grey's grave and the statue of Greatfriar's Bobbie (this HAS to be the story that inspired that super sad dog episode of Futurama, its the same thing but in real life!)
Elephant Cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first few Harry Potter books

After that we hadlunch at a place called Garfunkel's on High Street (what the Royal Mile becomes if you go down a bit more) and Dave and I split a haggus to give it a try, we are in Scotland after all. It wasn't bad... it wasn't great or anything either, actually kind of bland. But it was okay and I'm glad I tried it.

After we stopped into some small shops and looked around, got some deliciuos smoothies from a place called Hula on Victoria at the corner of the Grass Market, and went to a food mart to buy some stuff to make in the hostel kitchen for dinner (hooray for 50 pence dinners!).

Later tonight we are going to go back out and take a ghost tour (from the same group that did our earlier tour) of all the haunted places and paranormal happenings in Edinburgh. Edinburgh is quiet the paranormal hot spot apparently, and we are excited because it is like the only thing that seems to be around to do after 8:30 here haha. (There are actually a lot of different ghost tour signs all over the city)

Edinburgh - night 1! (Also, I posted another below this! Look!)

2010-05-30T20:45:00.003-04:00

2 posts in one night! Huzzah! Make sure to check the one below, the pictures are awesome.

So we got on the train to Edinburgh which was 50 minutes, and as soon as we stepped out of the station we were in awe. Now THIS is something truley new and wonderful. The city is amazing. We walked down what is known as the Royal Mile and passed architecture like you wouldn't believe. Cathedrals, Spires, Churches, Parliment, statues, all older then any building in our Coutnry leading right up to Edinburgh Castle on a giant volcanic cliff. And our hostel is right next to the castle! Castle rock is the name of our hostel and it is really awesome, maybe the best yet. We rolled in pretty late so we didn't have much time to get started, but tomorrow looks to be a great day ahead of us. I'll put some pictures of our hostel up. We met 2 of our 6 roomates, the others are probably there by now but I have not been back in the room in a bit.

Gary is from England and he just walked into the hostel after running (and placing 3rd!) in a 104 mile race, and it took him 25 hours of strait running through Scotland north of here. He started pretty near where we were at one point on our tour (my journal is with Sharon so I'm fuzzy on the details) and it sounded insane. He is dead tired so after a very interesting but understandably brief conversation he turned in for the night. We also met Felix from Germany and he is very interesting as well! He has studied and travelled all around Europe and is in Edinburgh for the next 2 days to look at a school here for Post-Grad studies. We talked in the room for a while and then all went out together to walk around and find a pub. We found a lot were closed, which is a problem we have run in to with things closing real early here but he was actually surprised aparently London and Germany things stay open later. No one thought to check what pub we ended up in but it was good fun.

crap out of internet time, pictures tomorrow!

There Can Only Be One... post about the Highlands

2010-05-30T19:56:00.007-04:00

That title, of course, being totally untrue since there is a post about them below this one. Anyway.

So as I said before we got a bus tour that took up a very large portion of the day (8.30 - 19.00/7:00p) and took us first to the William Wallace Monument. It was a really tall castle-looking spire on top of a pretty high hill that had a winding spiral staircase to the top and contained the actual sword of William Wallace. (which, by the way, is gigantic and it said he had to be at least 6'6" to even wield it!) The view from the top was awesome. Little did we know that we had not even begun to see awesome views of Scotland yet... (and remember, always click my pictures to enlarge!)

After the monument we headed up to Aberfeldy and got a really delicious big lunch. Scottish beef is amazing, the best beef I've ever eaten. All our dishes were excellent. We got back on the tour bus and were kind of late since the restaurant took a little bit too long for our time limit but everybody had to eat there because it was the only food place open on a sunday in the town (ha!). We got to Dewar's Whisky Distillery and had to take an abridged version of the tour, so we saw a video and looked at the exhibits but then skipped the actual walk into the distillery part and went strait to the whisky tasting. I don't drink so of course that wasn't really a big deal, but I had a sip of my dram anyway since I took the tour.

From there we started a long but increasingly beautiful drive into the Highlands. For the rest of the trip the scenery just got more and more beautiful as we went north. We stopped at a viewpoint to look out to some mountains, stopped again at a the Falls of Dochard (picture right) which was awesome, stopped at a Yew tree that is older then humanity (5,000 years, second oldest living organism on the planet - I took a piece of it haha) and then stopped at Falls of Falloch (or, "Rob Roy's Bathtub", below) which totally trumped Dochard.

After the falls we drove all around Loch Lomond which is quite possibly the most beautiful place I've ever seen. My only regret for the day is we did not get off the bus here, and there were so many trees I was not able to get any real good pictures but it was amazing. A 40 km lake that is just giant sitting surrounded by giant wooded mountains and the colors are just unbelievably vibrant. Really, all the colors in Scotland are crazy saturated and vibrant. There are these yellow and blue flowers that grow everywhere and just make the hills glow unreal colors, and I have already forgotten their names.

We lastly drove through a conserved old village that looked out of a story book where you can actually rent a house on holiday, it was really cool. We got back at 19.00 to Glasgow and then... well... ate at a McDonalds before going back to the Hostel for our bags. (Yeah, I know... cheap and fast though!) We got our tickets from the booth and the guy gave us 20 quid back because of a sale we did not get to take advantage of online, so that was awesome! We got the train to Edinburgh which is just under and hour and... I'll make that a seperate post. This is alll about the Highlands.

Hello from the Scottish Highlands!

2010-05-30T08:31:00.000-04:00

We are sitting in a pub called Schielhallon waiting for our food in a small village in the mountains called Aberfeldy. (Home of J.K. Rowling!)

We are in the midst of a coach tour through northern and western Scotland. Starting in Glasgow, we took the coach to Sterling and climbed the William Wallace memorial (saw his broadsword... It is gigantic!) And have since been making our way through scenic roads in the mountains. Too bad I can't put pictures up just right now!

Day 5: Glasgow, Scotland (And Photos from the Ferry)

2010-05-29T17:33:00.009-04:00

Hello all! Here we are in beautiful Scotland! After the ferry from the last post we arrived in Stranraer and immediately boarded another train which went to (after a transfer) Glasgow. (You can see a horrible photo through a rainy window and kind of blurry of some scenery haha)

After arriving in Glasgow we made out way to the hostel, Euro Hostel Glasgow, and checked in. We have another 4 person private room, the last for quite a while on the trip, and it is sooo awesome. Private full bathroom and shower, even a desk! So after dropping our stuff and getting settled we headed back out and got some lunch. So... Glasgow is basically a Scottish New York and our options were KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and a Chinese Noodle Place and for some reason or another we decided on the noodles, which were very different from home (okay... not great... much prefer home's!)

Not going to lie... most of today was on the trains and spent hanging out in the hostel. We have been back and forth with looking at tours, booking things, and doing our laundry so far. Tomorrow we are leaving bright and early on a tour to the Scottish Highlands, Sterling Castle, and some more things, so much more exciting blog post tomorrow. However, I will now leave you with as many pictures as I can upload in my final moments before my internet timer runs out from the amazing Ferry to Scotland. Cheers!

Simple Ferry, or Cheapest Luxury Cruise Ever?

2010-05-29T07:58:00.002-04:00

Wow so... We are on the ferry to Stranraer, Scotland right now and it is amazing. £25 and it is gigantic, beautiful... With cafes, comfy seats everywhere, music, places to eat, curious george-themed childrens area, arcade, slot machimes, movie theater, places to eat, bar, free internet, quiet lounge, nail salon, and some more!

The ferry ride is 2 hours to Scotland, and to be quite honest I kinda wish it was longer. This place is awesome, and I hope I get hungry soon to try the food.

I first typed this on the ship computer but the connection is understandably bad and I lost it all, so now I'm on Sharon's blackberry... No pictures :( but first chance I get pictures of this cruise are going up! Either ill edit this post to have 'em or make a new one, we shall see...

Oh well, off to Scotland!

PS: uncie, uncie, uncie, uncie, uncie... I accept checks or cash

Ireland: The last hurrah!

2010-05-28T17:34:00.003-04:00

Hi all! Shorter, picture-less post today due to lack of USB port on this computer and only a few minutes before my timer runs out. But it is okay because today was not too busy anyway.

We started by waking up a bit later then normal (8/9) and having an absolutely delicious breakfast courtesy of Aunti Merlin and Uncle Tadhg. We had cereal, fruit, tea (total tea count thus far: 6), orange juice, black pudding, eggs, bacon, and delicious Irish sausage. Little better then our toast, jam, oatmeal, and water choices so far in the hostels.

Uncle Tadhg took us after to the Cork train station and it was good bye Cork, good bye family, and hello Northern Ireland. We took the train to Dublin (3 hours) and then had lunch at a cafe on Marys Street, it was alright I had a pretty good nice thick chicken soup and role.

We made our way to Connelly Station and took another train, about 2 hours, to Belfast. After taking a 10 minute transfer train to the area of our hostel, Belfast International Youth Hostel. The hostel is nice, our first 4 person room with no other backpackers :( but it is not as nice as the Dublin or Killarney, those were exceptional (and Tadhg's of course!)

We only really had time for dinner, and the only thing near by we saw open was a KFC.. but we found a pub named Lavery's near by and it was excellent. Affordable, delicious, but most importantly the people were the nicest people in the world. The manager talked to us about traveling and told us how to get to Scotland most efficiently (I was correct!) and where the ferry was, and our waiter gave us free chips (fries), a 10% discount, and a free bottle of white wine for my birthday! (Which I'm told was the best white wine they ever had, ya know not drinking and all.. but I did try it and it was not gross like most I have tried haha)

So now its good night, hang out at the hostel, and get the ferry to Scotland in the morning! Hopefully the next hostel has a computer with USB for pictures! No real pictures for today anyway..

Bye for now!

Cullen, Blarney, and County Cork!

2010-05-27T20:35:00.005-04:00

What a busy and awesome day! So for starters my Uncle Tadhg picked us up at 9 from Killarney and we packed our stuff up and went onward to Cullen to see some of my family, some houses, and my great grandparents' graves. Cullen was beautiful and then from there Tadhg took us to Blarney where we explored the Blarney Castle and, of course, kissed the Blarney stone. While we were there we actually ran into a girl who was in classes with Jen at TCNJ, weird right? Somehow we ran into someone with relation to every person BUT Dave, instead of the other way around as expected!

So after Blarney Tadhg took us to Cork City and dropped us off at the Cork Goal, which is an old prision where we took a tour that was actually really cool and we liked it a lot, plus we had never done a head set audio tour before so that was kind of neat. When we were done there we walked down into the city and explored for a little while, and after crossing the river we stopped in a cafe and had some nice food and just sat and relaxed in the cafe for a while looking at the river. After we were done we had 20 minutes to get to St. Patrick street and find "Sevoy" which we later found to be a shopping complex, and had no real idea where we were going. So we wandered about and managed to find Patrick Street, but wen't up and down and could not find Sevoy. We asked and got sent back and forth until we stopped and walked to the street and looked up to realize that the sign was over our heads the whole time and we couldn't see it from our position. Just as we realized we were in the right spot Tadhg pulled right up to get us again. Perfect.

Next we went back home with him to Glenmire and his house is - the same with every house we saw in Ireland today - beautiful. We stayed and a bunch of family came over and we had a delicious dinner. Tara brought the kids over and we met them (finally! Cute kids!) and when all was said and done, it was time for the main event - a sailboat race!

Micheal was unfortunately stuck late for work so we went with Tadhg to get his boat, the "Lady T" (named after Tara of course!) and we took it out into the water for a race for the Cork Yacht Club (I think it said open since 1720? Crazy!) We of course were no help really, aside from being dead weight to balance the boat out, but it was an awesome race. We sailed around for an hour and ten minutes in total and came in second place in the race, first in the league after today! It was awesome, and it involved lots of scrambling back and forth from side to side on the boat to keep the balance even on turns, and once the sail came swinging back and pinned Jen to the railing and smacked dave in the head... from my angle it was totally awesome though because it sailed right over my face so I was cool, haha! (Dave and Jen are totally fine by the way, Dave did get a little bit of a bloody nose though but he's a trooper!)

After claiming our prize at the award ceremony (a pack of Heiniken) we headed over to Micheal and Tara's place (again, beautiful house) and we hung out there for awhile. It was geat, and when it was finally time to go (around 11:25pm) we headed back to Tadhg's and sat around with everyone talking in the living room for awhile (including singing happy birthday to me at midnight) for quite a while into the morning. The day in Cork was the best day yet, and it is hard to think that tomorrow on the train and in Belfast can compare! Talk to you all soon!

Killarney! (a day late)

2010-05-27T20:13:00.005-04:00

Okay! so we had no computers at the Sugan hostel in Killarney yesterday so there was no chance to update the blog, so I'm going to do a brief recap before moving on to a new post for Cork. We arrived in Killarney after the 3 hour-ish train ride (which was excellent compared to any train I have ever been on) and checked into the Sugan Hostel, which was excellent. We had 2 roomates, a pair of girls from Germany who had just left Cork and were going to Dublin next, our opposite funny enough. They were fairly shy so we did not get to talk to them too much.

We went to the Killarney National Park next and spent a few hours walking around and exploring the park, seeing the Swans, flowers, trees, and little Irish girls in fairy costumes having tea parties in the woods. We got to Ross Castle and explored there as well. After that we then went back and got ourself some real Irish Shepards Pie at a pub called Silver Fox, and it was the best shepards pie I have ever had in my life, hands down (naturally).

After our shepards pie we went back to the hostel for a spell to rest and decide our next course of action, and we decided to go out around the town to find a pub where someone was playing traditional Irish music and spend some time there. We eventually found one (Killarney was quite empty that day) called Danny Mann and there was a group of 2 men, a guitarist and a fiddler, who were absolutely great and we listened to them for an hour or two. When they finished we got out picture with them and talked to them for a while. After that we were quite exhausted and went back to the Sugan for the night.

county cork... in progress!

2010-05-27T09:59:00.001-04:00

We are sitting in a cafe called city gates by the river lee I'm cork city and I wanted to put a quick post up on sharons blackberry.

No computer in the killarney sugan hostel last night so no post:( but it was awesome!

Spent the whole day so far with uncle tadhg, saw cullen and blarney, then he dropped us off in the city for a bit.

Time to go meet him again on patrick street actually! Proper full post coming soon I hope!

Bye for now!

First day in Europe! Dublin, Ireland

2010-05-25T14:34:00.005-04:00

Hello world back home!

Coming to you live from the Barnacles Hostel in Dublin!

The time here is 19:20 (7:20 pm) and we have had quite a busy day so far! (And it is not over yet!

We landed in Dublin Airport at 9:00 and took an aircoach bus to Trinity College (picture 2). While there we explored the campus and saw the Book of Kells, as well as walked through the "long room" library full of ancient tomes and books, busts, etc. It was amazing and looked strait out of Harry Potter movies! (No pictures allowed...)

From there we came to the hostel to check in and drop off our bags in the back lockup and then went out to explore some more. We visited St. Steven's Green and then walked back up Exploring Dublin some more. We stopped at St. Patrick's Park by the church and rested in the grass for a while and it was very beautiful. After finally pulling the girls up off the grass we continued through the city (next picture).

For lunch we stopped at a farmers market set up in front of Dublin National Bank, loaded up on free samples, and than Dave and I had a... Shredded Hog Sandwhich? I don't remember exactly I don't have my journal on me this moment. Anyway it was delicious, and the girls had falafels and said it was also good.

After lunch we wen't to the Guiness headquarters and took the tour and it was very cool. We went through the processes of making Guiness and learned how they have been using the same exact Yeast that Mr. Guiness himself first discovered and just keep growing it in an area under lock and key. At the top we got to a totally awesome 360 degree gravity lounge with free Guiness and Coke where we could see all of Dublin.

After that we made our way back to the hostel, stopping at all the churches and cathedrals we passed along the way, and detoured to Dublin Castle before getting there. So now we are taking it easy for a bit in the hostel before going back out, the plan is to go to a real Irish Pub for dinner (probably the Temple Bar Pub down the road, a real classic looking 160 year old pub)

Talk to you all soon!
-Pat

And here we gooo...

2010-05-24T02:01:00.003-04:00

Well, here we are... 15 hours from now I will be on a plane to Ireland! So let's get a little stuff ready on here before we go...

I won't be updating every day here, but I will do it as often as I can, just about every night we have access to the internet. I'm going to be putting some pictures in these posts right here, but also if you look in the top left of the blog you can see that I have a stream of photos from my flickr account on here as well, and you can click there to look at all the photos. (or click here)

Here is our planned itinerary...
May
25th - Dublin
26th - Kilarney
27th - Cork
28th - Belfast
29th - Glasgow
30th - Edinburg
31st - Edinburg

June
1st - Liverpool
2nd - Oxford
3rd - London
4th - London
5th - Barcelona
6th - Barcelona
7th - Madrid
8th - Paris
9th - Giverny
10th - Versailles
11th - Bern
12th - Interlaken
13th - Zurich
14th - Rome
15th - Rome
16th - Naples (and maybe Pompeii)
17th - Capri
18th - Florence
19th - Venice
20th - Vienna
21st - Vienna/Prague
22nd - Prague
23rd - Berlin
24th - Berlin
25th - Munich
26th - Regensburg
27th - Neuschwanstein Castle (the city name is too crazy to remember)
28th - Brussels
29th - Amsterdam
30th - Amsterdam/Iceland (for layover)

July
1st - Leave Iceland, Land in JFK

So let's get ready for a wild ride!

These Shoes Were Made For Walkin'

2010-05-10T23:57:00.004-04:00

And that's just what they'll do...

Got my Europe shoes and I'm currently breaking them in. I got my Eurail pass in the mail last week as well!

Also today I mock-packed my bag, everything fit fine just have to pick up one or two small little things, so I'm basically all good to go!

2 weeks to go! Ahhh so excited!

Welcome to my Travel Blog!

2010-04-13T01:41:00.002-04:00

So this is the beginning! I created this blog so that I can update it throughout our trip as a way to let people follow us along our adventure from landing in Dublin, Ireland on May 25th until we depart from Reykjavik, Iceland for home on July 1st. How often will I update this while I'm away? I have not a clue, but I hope to do it quite often which shouldn't be too hard since hostels all have areas with computers and internet access. So no promises, but be sure to check back often since this will be my only real communication line back to everybody!

Above is a map of our planned travel route. Now I didn't get into specifics within the countries for cities or anything, the lines are just arbitrarily placed within each country. We depart from Newark Int. Airport at 5:00 PM and Land the next morning at 8:30 AM in Dublin Airport, Ireland. From there we hope to explore Dublin, Cork (to visit the relatives!), Blarney Castle and up to Giants Causeway to name a few plans. Then we aim to take a ferry over to Scotland and see the sights of Edinburgh and Glasgow before heading down the UK to England. After exploring England we will be hopping on a plane to Spain where we will see the sights Barcelona and Madrid have to offer and then hop a train to Paris, France. After a few days in France we will get on a train once again into Switzerland where we will have an exciting day in Interlaken at the foot of the Swiss Alps, as well as seeing Zurich and the capital Burn. From there we will travel all the way down to Naples, and over the course of the next 5 days work our way up Italy hitting Rome, Florence, and Venice. From Venice we will grab an overnight train into Vienna, Austria where we will only spend a day adventuring before getting back onto the train for the 4 hour ride into the heart of the Czech Republic: Prague. After our time in Prague we will be heading into Germany for days of exploring the countryside, touring the Rhine River, and seeing the cities like Berlin. After departing Germany, we will be making our way to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. During our final 3 days of the trip in Amsterdam, we will hopefully take the hour and a half train ride for a day in Belgium just next door, before returning to catch our flight out of the Amsterdam International Airport just to land for a wonderful 11 hour layover in Reykjavik, Iceland. After spending our bonus night in Iceland we will finally come to the end of our adventure and leave for home, landing at 12:30 PM in JFK on July 1st.

So that is our intended trip, but as of right now we have nothing but train tickets booked, so while Friday we are getting together to book some train passes and hostel rooms, the real adventure is landing in Dublin and knowing that one way or another we have 36 days to get to Amsterdam and make our flight home.