European Expeditions

Au Revoir Europe! Bonjour Minnesota!

2008-12-18T16:09:00.002-11:00

My last day in Brussels was pretty boring. I walked around a little bit more before decided to just go back to my hostel and kill the rest of the day there reading. In the morning, I walked to Brussels Midi, the main train station, and bought a ticket to Paris. Only a one and a half hour ride, wonderfully short! When I got there, I tried to get to our hostel but didn't print out directions or an address, but I thought I remembered the directions. Either they were bad directions, or I didn't remember them well, or both... So after wandering around for a bit, I saw someone else in the group and we found the hostel together.

After catching up with the people who where there, we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower and climbed the stairs to the 2nd level, 668 stairs. Not that bad. We would have walked the whole way but it is a hazard or something thing to walk to the third level so we took the elevator. It was a clear day so the view was really nice, except for the smog, but oh well, it's a big city after all!

After we walked back down, I split up from the group to do some last minute shopping and walked around the city for a few hours. I impressed myself because I walked from the Eiffel Tower to our hostel and wound my way around the city without getting lost! Yeah, I'm pretty skillful. That night, Carly, Ian and I went out to get one last French dinner. I got creme burlee for dessert! I had to have it at least once in France right? Mmm, twas delicious! After a bit more socializing at the hostel, we all went to bed. We had to leave at 930 for the airport. Our flight left at 230 and we got through security and to out gate without much problem. Until I tried to get on the plane. As I gave them my ticket, they pulled me aside and I had to go through security again. A full check, pat down, take off shoes and swab them, look through my carry on, everything! They kept asking me where and when I went through security. Apparently I should have been searched when I first went though but they didn't see the ticket on my ticket, I dunno. But I got on the plane fine and started off to the USA!

The 10 hour plane ride went by really fast. We watched a few sitcoms, Wall E, and National Treasure 2. Also, it was nice to know the people in the program better so we could talk about our travels and what not. We got into O'Hare, and customs was a breeze. When we got to our next gate, I got my first American food in 4 months, a Chicago style hot dog with everything on it. It was amazing! Then the ride back to Minneapolis went by like nothing. An hour and 20 minutes seems short after a 10 hour ride right?

Finally! I'm home!!! I didn't sleep at all on the plane and I got home at about 11pm, had a beer with mom and dad and went to sleep! So I went to bed at a normal time and haven't experienced any jet lag! That's nice, I'm pretty good at fighting it off I think. It's good to be home and I am looking forward to going back to school in the spring.

So!

I went to Paris, London, Geneva, Leeds, Knaresborough, York, Dublin, Maynooth, Nancy, Evry, Levanto, Rome, Catania, Rethymno, Athens, Thessaloniki, Budapest, Prague, Berlin, Brugges, Brussels. I read 11 books, was on a train for far too long, and slept in a lot of different beds. Now I have my own bed! It's good to be home.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

2008-12-09T05:52:00.005-11:00

From Prague, I took a train to Berlin where I would meet my friend from high school, Micah, at the train station. The ride was about 5 hours, and went by really fast. I was reading my book and when I looked at the clock I was like, "whoah, we're almost there!" Guess that'll happen when you are used to 19 hour rides... But I prefer the shorter rides, that's for certain. So I met him at the station and we took the metro to his apartment. It's a really nice place he has. South Berlin, one roommate, his own room. Full kitchen and bathroom. Nice place. After a little settling in, we went to get a case of German beer to have. That night we ended up having a crazy fun dance party with his roommate. Good times of singing and dancing.

The next day, Micah had class from 2-8 so I had some time to kill. After I did some laundry, I went to do what I do in most cities; wander the town for a while. Micah had given me a metro map and wrote where the Berlin Wall was so I started in that direction. I didn't really know where I was most of the time but I just kept close to the underground and would match stations to my map to find out where I was. I walked through a Christmas market on Alexandarplatz and got my first German brat. Tasty. Then I kept on walking because for as far as I've gone, I was only half way... I got to the station Micah said it was by and wandered around there for a while. I would have thought that being something that seems kind of important and could be a tourist attraction, there would be signs pointing to it, but no such luck. So I took the metro back because I had walked about 4km to get there.

When I got back, I went online and found that the Aussies from Budapest were going to an opera then going out after that night. So I decided that I would meet up with them after the opera but they didn't really give me clear directions on which one it was. So after a bit of searching and guess work, we found one so I gave it a try. I got off the train and took a right and walked till I found an opera house. I waited there for 20 minutes or so and no one came out (part of the guess work was that we knew it got out at 22h00) so I was majorly bummed and didn't want to go back so I went for a walk instead. After a walked a few blocks I came across another opera house that had just let out. Darn! So close! Still missed em though... So I kept going on my walk and had a nice time wandering in the dark.

I have been wanting to go to a German Christmas market for a while because everyone says they're so great. So Micah found one online and we went there, and it was totally lame and dead. Bummer. Micah's roommate Hannah came with us and knew of a gay and lesbian museum so we were like, what the heck, why not? It was an interesting exhibit thing, yeah, interesting... And a little boring, but maybe that's because everything was in German so I could only look at the pictures. Whatever. After that we wandered around so more looking for a German restaurant but came up short, so we had kabobs instead. That's basically German.

Today, Micah and I went to see the Berlin Wall since I missed it when I tried. Now I had someone who knew where it was! When we got off the train, we got a currywurst each and some famous shop. I dunno, but it was good! Then we started off for the wall, but when the wrong direction... So much for knowing where he was going. But after a short right turn we randomly ended up at the wall! How convenient! It was cool I guess. I peeled a little of the wall off and Micah yelled at me, but then he realized it was just paint and then didn't care as much. There was at least an inch of paint on there. We thought the whole wall might have been made of paint, then we wondered how they did the first layer...

Well, after the wall, we found 2 playgrounds and played on them for a while. I like playgrounds, who says they're just for kids? Eh, I'm basically a kid anyway. Then more wandering around Berlin. After all the walking we were getting tired, thirsty, and bored of the area we were in so we decided to jump on the train to a new area. We also bought a Beck's Green Lemon beer. If you can call it a beer... But something unique to Germany (I think) is you can drink pretty much anywhere. On the street, the metro, bus, whatever! So we took around "beers" on the train and headed off. When we got off and walked a little, we ended up find a 2 Christmas markets. So we walked that for a while. I don't remember why, probably cuz we didn't have anything else to do but then we went into the mall next to the market and it had an awesome fountain in it. I probably can't describe it very well, so I won't try and leave you all in suspense!!! Eh, it's just a fountain, don't get all work up. I think we went to another place and found yet another market. On the day that we weren't even trying we found a bunch of nice markets! What's up with that?! Don't ask don't tell I guess.

After wandering around the market and smelling the good smells, we were getting hungry so headed to a German restaurant. I like to sample the local food, and I couldn't skip out on sausage, kraut, and beer now could I!? I got a brat with potatoes and kraut and apple strudel for dessert. It was all really good! Especially the kraut. I know! Since when have I liked kraut?! Does it matter? No. So it was a good meal and then we headed back to his place to relax the rest of the night away.

Since the market smelled so good before, we went back to indulge in some German market food. I got a half meter brat (long, but skinny), some pocket kabob type thing, and chocolate covered strawberries. All delicious. Then we went to his friend's apartment to watch some soccer. After the game was over, I noticed that he had a Sega Genesis (but over here it's called a Megadrive). So we busted that out and played Sonic 2 for a while, along with a few other games, but I like Sonic, so there. But that was a good time. We then went to a dance club and danced the night away. There were 2 floors; one was a normal type dance floor and music and the other was playing some techno polka stuff. I liked that one better. So it was a fun time too. Then we went back to his place because it was late and we were tired. Crash.

Saturday was a very laid back day. I spent the whole day reading The Green Mile and finished it. Micah was doing school work so there wasn't much to do. When we were both done we cooked up some dinner, yeah, it was pretty good, mostly because we can cook pretty good. Jealous? After that, we went to a party someone invited Micah to, I tagged along because I could. It was a pretty laid back party. I felt a little awkward though because of the language everyone there could speak at least 2 languages (minimum). But dancing is a universal language so I did that. It was another late night and I was heading to Brugges in the morning. Time for bed!

I woke up early (8am! Well, I have been sleeping in lately) got pack, said ciao and went to the station. It was a 9 hour ride to Brugges and for most of the trip I was facing backwards. I don't like to face backward! I get sick feeling... So I tried to ignore it and sleep but it was a long time to just sleep! I got in around 18h30 and went to find my hostel. The directions from online said to look on a map. How helpful. For some reason my compass wasn't working right or I wasn't reading it right because it took me far to long to get going in the right direction. So eventually after walking around most of the city, I found the hostel. After putting my stuff down I went to get dinner. I found a nice little restaurant not too far away and had a good little 3 course meal. Delightful! Sleepy.

The next morning after breakfast, I circled places I wanted to see on my map. I saw Michelangelo's Madonna statue and went on a beer tour. I also rented a bike but needed gloves so my hands wouldn't freeze so I picked up a nice pair that worked very well! After the tour I got some fries and headed out on what ended up being about a 40km bike ride. I rode from Brugges to the North Sea and back. It was a nice easy ride but I must have bruised my butt because I am not used to sitting in bike seats and I'm sure that one wasn't designed with distance riding in mind. When I got back, I went to a little cafe that was suggested on my map and got a huge bowl of spaghetti that made even me think that I should have gotten the small one. It was only 5.50 euro though! And I finished it pretty easily, after all, I had just rode 40km! I also got a cherry beer that was quite refreshing! Then I returned my bike, showered, and read (since I finished the Green Mile, Micah traded me one of his books) until I feel asleep.

Since I only have a few days left, I only spent 2 nights in Brugges before moving on to Brussels. I will only spend 2 nights here as well. Then Paris for one night then I will be back in the US of A. So I got into Brussels after a really short train ride (45 mins is much better than 40 hours) and found my hostel. After checking in, I walked around Brussels and I think I covered the whole city, so now I have to figure out what I'm gonna do tomorrow! Oh well, it's a nice city so I'm sure I can find something! Right now I'm gonna go find a restaurant and have some mussels for dinner! Should be delicious!

Czech This Out!

2008-12-01T06:47:00.004-11:00

I bought a ticket to Prague there so I wouldn't have to deal with it later. Then I found my hostel without much trouble. I went to my room and ate some food I bought at Tesco after I got off the train. This hostel was called the 11th Hour Cinema Hostel because they had a large movie collection. When I was down there, someone put Family Guy on so I grabbed a bean bag chair and chilled for a while. I think I deserved it after my ordeal. I watched it for a few hours and when people came back from dinner, they asked "you're still here?" and "have you moved?". Whatever, I was comfy. The hostel also served hot wine which is one of my new favorite drinks. When they were first making it, it smelled like cookies! It was really good. Next, someone put on "No Country for Old Men", quite a strange but good movie. Yeah, that's about all I can say. A little gory though... Well anyway, when I went back to my room, some people who were watching the movie were there and said they were going on a cave tour tomorrow. Cool, I want to do that, and they said I could tag along with them. And tonight I got to sleep in a REAL BED!!! Good sleep.

In the morning I asked at the desk and paid. When they came down, we set off the walk the town for a bit before the tour started at 15h45. They were 4 people from Australia. Dan, Tom, Tom, and Teagan. After a bit of talk, I found out they were going to Berlin at the same time I would be there, so we would try to meet up there. 3:45 rolled around and we set off to the meeting point. Someone had told me the caving tours were cool and the tour guides start off being closed and quiet when you first meet them but when you get in the cave, they open up and are crazy. That's exactly what happened with ours. It was really funny because I could not understand half the stuff he said but that didn't matter. Before we got in the cave, we got suited with overalls and a helmet with a light on it! Sweet! Being in the cave was a lot of fun and I climbed around on all the rocks and had a good time crawling through the little spaces. I'd probably be a good spelunker because I'm so skinny!

Once back at the hostel, I didn't shower even though I was covered in cave dust, eh, I'm not trying to impress anyone. We got some more hot wine and watched Juno. It was really nice to have time to chill and watch a movie. Seems like I haven't gotten to do that in a long time. I said goodbye to them then because I would be getting up early to catch a train to Prague.

In the morning I walked to the metro and walked passed the ticket office without noticing it and ended up at the train, so I thought I would risk it and see if I got caught or not. Well, I got caught. And paid 6000 Fourint, about 30 dollars. Oh well, that's what you get! I caught the train to Prague just fine and made my way to that hostel. After I got settled in, I asked the reception where a good place to get some turkey would be. After all, today is Thanksgiving! I ended up at a place and ordered turkey stuffed with cheese and cranberries with a side of Bohemian potatoes and a Budweiser! Pretty good Thanksgiving dinner, and Czech Bud is really good. Too bad the US had to ruin the name...

The hostel I was at (Czech Inn) let you rent an unlimited public transportation pass for 70 crown, or about $2.50 so I did that. My first mission was to get breakfast which I did at a bakery. The next was to buy myself a sweatshirt. After looking around for a while, I decided that I would not be able to get a good sweatshirt, they were all too thin! So I went on a search for a jacket. I found one I liked at Tesco. It's comfy and warm. Kinda looks like a pilot's jacket. I also bought a new long sleeve shirt because all I had was my plaid and for some reason, people picked me out as American really easily. I don't know why. When I put this jacket on, I all of a sudden got a lot of people approaching me thinking I was Czech or a local or something. Guess it worked in that regard! Now that I had food in my belly and a warm jacket, I was ready to see the city! I took the tram to Prague's Castle and went in the Cathedral. That was big with a lot of cool stain glass. After a bit of wandering around there, I went to the mini Eiffel Tower next. Climbed to the top of that and got a good view of the city. Since it starts to get dark around 3, I started to walk back. I walked across St. George's bridge on the way back, neat thing, but I don't know much of the history there. While walking, I picked up a cup of hot wine for 35 crowns. Mmmm. Then I was getting hungry and wondering if it were dinner time, but it was only 16h30, so I got a kielbasa to hold me over. That was tasty! Except I dripped mustard everywhere... Finally after waiting, I found a restaurant and ordered an amazing mixed grill with sausage, duck, ham, turkey, bread and potato dumplings, and cabbage. I also got a side of cole slaw. Delicious dinner! Czech food is good!

The next day, November 29th, I got something I've been craving for a while: a real breakfast. My hostel served an all you can eat breakfast so I got 2 plates of eggs and break, 2 bowls of granola with yogurt, 4 glasses of OJ and some tea. So good, so full. Most of today was spent wandering the many markets because they are a fun place to be around. I saw St. Wenceslas' square, which isn't so much a square as a really long thing. After a day of walking, I went back to my hostel and went to a book store nearby and picked up a new book since I'm done with all the ones I bought in England. This time I got The Green Mile. We'll see how I like it. For dinner I got Goulash! Never had that before, but it was pretty good too. Well, now I'm not really gonna complain about food. I've come to have little peaks of what it's like to not have it. I'll take what I can get!

Again I had an awesome breakfast and set off to wander a while. Before I left I asked the front desk if there were any hockey games going on and after a little searching, we found one in town, sweet! One thing I really wanted to do was go to a Czech hockey game. The game was a 5 so back to the markets for a while where I bought myself a new hat! It's really warm an green! When 15h00 rolled around I made my way up to the arena and bought my ticket, 200 crowns (10 bucks) for a really great seat! When I got in, I got my first beer at a sporting event, a 30 crown bud, beer is so cheap! Gonna be weird to go back home... Then the game started and I was really happy because I haven't gotten to watch a hockey game for a really long time and I'm missing Wild and Falcon hockey right now! Aye aye aye. It was a good game and the home team won. One thing I noticed was the refs were not sissies. When there was a fight or something like that, they jumped right in the middle to break it up. Not like the NHL refs who watch it happen and don't interfere until they fall. I know, it' for the fans and what not, but still. Tough refs!

That was my last night in the hostel and in the morning I caught a train to Berlin. I changed my status on Facebook (for you who don't know what that is, don't worry, it's not important) to say I was going to Budapest. One of my friends from high school saw it and said he was making a trip to Budapest in December. I asked him if he was in Europe and turned out he is! He's got an apartment in Berlin and it letting me stay with him. So I'm on his computer typing this now and that makes it free!

Ok, I've been typing for a while because I had a lot to catch up on but now I'm gonna go catch up with him. Hope you enjoyed the read!

I'm Going Off the Rails on a Crazy Train

2008-12-01T05:51:00.005-11:00

Hey there gang, how ya doing?! That's good to hear. So, where was I? Rethymno? Ok. Well, I ended up switching rooms because I didn't want to deal with that guy anymore and ended up with a room to myself the whole stay. Always a nice treat when you're staying in a hostel. My main reason for going to Greece was for the food. Did I mention that before? I don't remember, if I did, it's for reiteration, if not, it's for information. Anyway, I basically went around from day to day waiting for the next meal. Let's see what I ate: Lunch: Tzaziki, Wild Rabbit and a Mythos, first time I've had rabbit, it was good! and the tzaziki was good too. Dinner: A simple gyro plate and a Mythos, it was alright, didn't really care for the restaurant. Breakfast: Chocolate filled croissant and a cherry Danish. Lunch: Chicken Souvlaki in a pita, quite tasty. I ate it on some rocks by the water, a delightful lunch! Dinner: Stuffed Wine Leaves, Moussaka and a Mythos. The stuffed wine leaves was good, basically grape leaves with rice. Moussaka was good too, I'm gonna try to make that when I get home! Lunch: A gyro in a pita, simple but good. Dinner, since it was my last night, I treated myself: Greek Salad, Feta from the Oven, Chicken Souvlaki, and an Alfa. The feta has something like vegetable stew on it and it was super good! In case you didn't (k)no(w)tice, Mythos and Alfa are beers, Hellanic Lagers to be exact. I liked Mythos better than Alfa. So that was my food, and it was delicious!

Hmm, what else did I do there? Well, in Rethymno, there is a fortress so I wandered around that for a while. That was a cool little bit of old stuff. I also went on a hike around the city, and climbed a little mountain/hill. Twas a nice day around town. That night (Nov 21st, special day anyone?) I was to catch a ferry to Athens. It would take 8 hours and that is where my adventure begins........

I took a bus to the port which was about an hour from Rethymno and boarded the boat. I bought a deck ticket so I did not have a specified chair or room or anything. Just chill around the boat until we landed. It was an 8 hour ride over night. So I got on and went into a lounge and watched Demolition Man with Sly Stallone and Westley Snipes. Terribly awesome 80s movie. In the lounge, they would not let you lie down on the couches so I sat up the whole time. When the movie ended, I walked around to find a place I could lie down and sleep for a while. I found a covered area on the deck that people were sleeping on so I found a little piece of the couch for me and settled in for a few hours. I slept lightly because I wanted to be aware of what was going on around me. After a few hours I got a little chilly because all I had was my flannel and rain jacket on, not too warm. So I went inside and found a place on a stair landing (people were sleeping there too). I didn't like that though, I was too paranoid about someone walking by me or waking me up. After I was a little warmed up, I went back out on deck and we docked about 30mins later. So it was 5am in Athens. I had booked a hostel for one night so I wouldn't have to stress about getting in and out right away.

I found my hostel at about 8am and checked in and was oddly enough let into my room at that time. I found that strange because most hostels won't let you in until 1 or 2. But I wasn't complaining. I took a 2 hour nap because of obviously not sleeping well on the boat. From there I set off to see the Acropolis! That was really neat to see. I started off walking the park area around it and saw a few temples and other old stuff. Then I bought a ticket to go in and see the Parthenon for 6 euro. I snuck a 50% student discount from them, but I'm not sure if I really should have got one. It was really cool up there too but there is a lot of scaffolding on the Parthenon because of the big reconstruction process they are going through. Still, cool to see. As I was about to leave, the it started to clear up (it had been cloudy all day) so I took a few more pictures in the better light and explored more of the grounds. Pretty nifty stuff going on there. I ate lunch at some restaurant and got had the worst gyro I've had, so that was very disappointing. Oh well.

After all that, I went back to my hostel to use the internet to plan out the rest of my travels. After looking around a bit, I went to the train station to find a way to Budapest. After getting an itinerary and rough price, I went back to search for a better deal but didn't find any so I booked some hostels (Budapest and Prague) and went back to the train station. The itinerary went as follows: 23h00 Athens to Thessaloniki, 009 Thessaloniki to Bukuresti, 18h00 Bukuresti to Budapest. So according to that, I should have arrived in Budapest the next day in the evening. Well, I don't know my European geography very well so I didn't know how far it was or anything like that so I went with it. When I went back to the station to buy the ticket, the train that would leave for Thessaloniki tomorrow was full so I would have to take the one that left tonight if I were to stay on the schedule. Alright, whatever. I bought that ticket and cancelled my hostel, but it wasn't that bad. 10 euro for a nap, place to keep my bag and internet, I'll pay that. So I waited around until it was time to leave which took quite a long time. Finally I got on the train and found my seat. It ended up being a 7 hour ride that took all night.

At the next station I bought my ticket for Bukuresti that left at midnight that night. So I had all day to kill in Thessaloniki. The day was spent with me walking around with my pack on for a while until I went to a Starbucks and stayed there for about 6 hours. I read one of my books, The Lonely Hearts Club, cover to cover. Now, Thessaloniki was a nice town, but I didn't want to lug my bag around with me all day because that thing gets heavy! So I relaxed in a Starbucks. It was a nice time, I talked with a Greek couple for a little bit. Then I set off to find the train station again and wanted to hit up a grocery store to buy food for the ride. Well, it was a Sunday so all the stores had closed already... I ended up buying 2 sandwiches from the station, some pringles, cookies, and water. I ate half of that for dinner and the rest would be for lunch.

After a few more hours of waiting, I got on the train and found an empty compartment. After fiddling with the heat for a while, I figured it didn't work so put on an extra tshirt and pair of socks. It was really all I could do. So I huddled up using my bag as a pillow and went to sleep. When I woke up a few hours later, there was a Greek guy on the bench across from me. He woke up a little later and we talked for a while, mostly about how cold it was. Then, at his stop, they made everyone get off as they switched the cars, maybe because the heat wasn't working in the first one. Well, no I was alone and the heat still didn't work. So I went to sleep again to kill time. This time, when I woke up I was WARM! The sun had been shinning in on me while I was sleeping and made me nice and toasty warm! It was a very pretty ride through a ravine or something, so quite enjoyable. Except that it took 19 hours... So it ended up being my best and worst ride I've had, neat! I killed the rest of the time reading, sleeping, and throwing cards into a hat.

I got into Bukuresti at 7pm and went to buy my ticket for Budapest. I bought that ticket and the train left at 23h45. Well, this made me pretty upset and with the lack of sleep and food, it kinda got to me. There wasn't much I could do but wait so I went into the waiting room and caught up on my journal. While I was writing, a Romania lady started talking to me and we had a long conversation with a big language barrier. I don't know if it was because I was too tired to analyze it or I knew some of the Latin derivatives but I could understand a lot of what she was saying. She also kept says "supero" after everything she said. She kind reminded me of Aunt Gail because she was friendly, talkative, and looked similar. Well, at about 11 I went to get dinner and caught my train. I did not realize when I bought it, but I got a sleeper car. I probably would have declined because it costs more but oh well. It ended up being really nice. I was alone so could sleep without any disturbances and got a full night's sleep. I really needed it because I woke up feeling a lot calmer than I had the day before. So it was worth the extra money. Plus, it was the fanciest sleeper car I've seen. It looked like a cabin on a cruise ship just a lot smaller. So that was cool.

I finally made it to Budapest! I arrive at about 14h45 on November 25th. About 40 hours total on a train in 3 days. It had been 4 days since I slept in a proper bed, even though the last night was nice, I don't really consider it proper because it was on a train... And I had yet another lacking of food, but again, not on purpose, there was just no way for me to have known it would be so crazy. It's not what the guy at the first station told me. Whatever, I made it to Budapest and only lost 1 night of my 3 night booking.

Roamin' Rome

2008-11-17T21:18:00.003-11:00

A group of 8 of us set out for Rome at 9am. It was a 6 hour train ride with one transfer in Pisa, so kind of long, but not really I guess. We just stretched out our legs and enjoyed the ride. It was raining on and off the whole ride so we got to see a few rainbows too! Always neat. When we got into Rome, 4 of us were at one hostel 3 at another and 1 at a hotel. So we set out to find them. Ours was only 2 blocks from the train station. I'd call that conveniently located! It was kind of a strange place though. I booked a room with Heidi and our room wasn't located where the reception and other rooms were. We had to go outside and half way around the block to get to our room. It was located in an apartment type thing. I'm pretty sure we slept in the utility room because it was small, completely tiled, and the water heater was there. But whatever, we were only going to be using that for sleep.

A nice thing about that hostel was it served dinner, included in the price. So we ate there, and boy, I sure was hungry! I hadn't eaten much except a smaller hostel breakfast, and an orange and a cookie on the train. Now it was 7pm. And don't you go and think I'm not taking care of myself because there are times I don't eat. Trust me, it's not because I don't want to, it's because there is no food around at all and I wasn't expecting that to be the case. But I ate dinner and was still hungry so Heidi and I went to the grocery store and I got sammich materials and after that, I was feeling much better. I got to talking to a few boys from Leeds and we played cards for a while. Then a few other people came in and we pretty much talked the rest of the night until "curfew" at 1130, then bed.

In the morning, we had a hostel breakfast and headed to the Colosseum to meet up with everyone for a day of exploring the city. Well, half the group decided to go to the Vatican first. Whatever. We then went inside and walked around. It was very cool and one of the places that I actually wanted to pay for to go see. It was 12 Euro to get in. We could have gone on a tour for 22, but they didn't want to. I did, but after walking around and seeing other tours, I realized that I still don't like tours regardless, so I saved money. But it was still very cool inside. Imagine yourself there when the games were going on. 50,000 people fit in there. 50,000 screaming Romans, must have been intense. Heidi and I then went to see the exhibits they had, basically it was old art. One thing I noticed and thought was strange was when referring to the gods, they used the Greek names instead of the Roman. Weird right? Maybe I'm just a nerd... Well, after that, we got split up from the other people and stuck around for a while looking for them. At this time, the rain had really started and looked as if it didn't want to let up. It didn't. So we looked inside and didn't see them then walked around the building twice and didn't see them and by that time I had to get away from there. In Rome, I think there are people that live underground and when they feel one raindrop, they all pop out and try to sell you umbrellas. Since we didn't think it was going to rain, we were a prime target. After being asked so many times, I was getting very frustrated and ended up yelling "No, I don't want an umbrella, leave me alone!" Well, of course after I said that 3 people simultaneously said "My friend, do you want an umbrella?" Oh my goodness gracious, can you see why I may have gotten a little upset? I was just tired of people approaching me trying to sell me something. There were also people trying to sell me a tour of the Colosseum. They would approach you and ask "Do you speak English?" As we were about to go in, one guy did that to me and I tried to ignore him but he wouldn't go away so I said I didn't speak English and was from France. Then I started to walk toward the entrance and turned around and said "No, I'm just kidding" to his reply "Well, have fun waiting in a 40 minute line!" So I thanked him and went on my way. I probably should have said I was deaf because I know more ASL than French...Next time right?

Anyway, we started to walk in the opposite direction of the Colosseum to get away from tourist-town. We were also getting hungry and a little chilly; I was only wearing my flannel. We stumbled upon a little pizzeria and the people there were very friendly. Before we even said anything they handed us paper towels to dry off a bit. They also offered to let me put my flannel on the pizza oven. I refused but later thought I should have taken them up on that. I would have gotten wet after, but at least it would have been warm when I put it back on! But they were really nice and just what I needed after the money hungry solicitors. Plus, the pizza was really good.

After lunch we decided to go see some other sights, but it was still rainy and we were still cold, so we thought, let's walk for a while and then stop for some tea or hot chocolate or something and then see what we want. Well, we certainly walked for a while. The rain was constant but varied in intensiveness. So basically we were soaked to the bone and wanted something warm. We found one place and needed to cross the street to get to it and while we were waiting at the stoplight, a kind local came and sheltered us under his umbrella. I had heard that the Italians where kind of stuck up, but I think that it is just the ones by the popular spots or something because once a little off the beaten path, people were nice to us. Maybe just out of sympathy since we were soaked to the bone, through the bone, rain was coming out of our bones. Well, we got to the restaurant and asked for some hot chocolate and the guy behind the counter asked if we wanted to sit at a table, so we did. Then finally, after all the walking though the rain, we got our delicious hot chocolate. It may have been the best I've ever had, and not just because I was cold. It was thick, the hot liquid pudding! Mmmm, good. They also gave us a menu to look at so we looked to see how much hot chocolate was. Before, I was thinking I would get another cup regardless of the price. Then I saw it was 5 euro, holy crap! It was good, but kind of small for 5 euro. Then we got the bill and there was a 20% table charge so we paid 12 euro for 2 cups of hot chocolate. We got ripped off! But oh well. Then we walked back to the hostel and saw another rainbow! Once back, we changed into dry clothes and Heidi showered. I wrapped myself up in a blanket and read until I fell asleep. I think I took a 2 hour nap or so. Musta been tired. We had dinner at the hostel and went to the grocery store to buy food for our train the next day. Gonna be prepared this time! We only stayed in Rome for 2 nights and I was glad to get out. I have not been a fan of the big cities, they are too big... Back at the hostel, we talked again till curfew. There was a guy from Cali, New York, a Frenchman, 2 Brazilians, and one guy from England. Quite a mix. I had a fun time talking with all them.

Our train went to Catania Sicily and left at 7am. This one was a 9 hour ride but we didn't have to transfer at all. So there was a lot of reading and playing cards. And I was so happy we stopped for food otherwise I would not have been a happy kid. There was a food cart that I could have bought stuff from but it would be over priced. We got into Catania and it was dark already. And we had no idea where the hostel was. So we started walking and asked 3 or 4 people but no one knew where it was. Finally, I asked a taxi driver and he told us where it was, or he could drive us for 10 euro. So we took the cab and good thing we did. I don't think we would have ever found it. After checking in, we went to a laundromat because we still have wet stuff from the day before and I hadn't washed for about 3 weeks. Seemed like a good idea. Clean clothes are nice. We signed up for a volcano tour of Mt Etna for the morning and then went to bed.

It was a nice hostel except for 2 things. The beds were really loud when you moved around in them, and their were little mosquitoes and ate you alive in your sleep, so I woke up itchy. We went down for breakfast and learned that the tour was canceled due to bad weather so that day we decided to go for a walk and explore the coast instead. It was supposed to storm in the afternoon but ended up being a beautiful day with only a little rain in the morning. So we started out toward to coast and walked up and down it, I have no idea how far. Approximately all day. But there were a lot of stops for pictures. When we went back, we stopped at a market to buy stuff for dinner since the hostel had a kitchen. Ground beef, spaghetti, parmesan, tomato sauce, lettuce, and broccoli. Made spaghetti and meatballs. We didn't have real dressing for the salad so we used olive oil, red wine, salt and pepper, and cheese. A pretty decent dressing. It made a lot so we had left overs for the next day! At this hostel, we met 2 aussies, 3 english guys, and 2 dutch girls. What else is there to do except a some wine, talk and play cards all night? I think I'm getting the hang of this hostel business because these last hostels have been fun. We also signed up for another volcano tour but after Heidi went to bed, I talked with one of the aussies and she said she and her friend were going up there tomorrow too but not taking the tour. I thought that sounded more fun but I didn't cancel until I found out it was ok with Heidi. That morning I found out it was so I cancelled and waited for everyone to get ready. But, since it is not tourist time, there are not many buses that go to Etna so we missed the only one going. Darn. Another day of exploring the island. And buy did I have fun. We took the bus till we were a little further than we went yesterday I walked north. Pretty much the whole time we walked, I was running and jumping over the rocks. That was so much fun! Made me want to go to Interstate park when I get home but then I realized it would be the middle of December...

The end of the line for us was at _____. Yeah, I don't remember the name but it is where the Cyclops threw huge boulders at Odysseus after he escaped. They are still there, neat huh?! We ate at a shore side restaurant and I had seafood risotto. They know their food they do! Then after stopping to get gelato (pistachio) we jumped on a bus back to the hostel. We met another Aussie and Heidi invited him to eat dinner with us since we weren't that hungry and had food to eat. I had also invited the other aussies to eat so now I thought we might not have enough food. But the new aussie (Alex) felt bad so bought more pasta and sauce. I think he was going to buy the normal sized 90 bag but he came back with a kilo of pasta! No shortage now. The stove I was using was like a little camper stove that had a lid you could close when no using it. It was leaning against the wall and I thought it was semi secure. But when I was moving around pots I bumped it and it fell over pushing off this huge pot of boiling water and pasta. Fortunately, with my quick reflexes and shoes I moved out of the way and only got a splash on my shoe that started to get hot. No serious burn. Also, the pot landed up so we only lost a little pasta! Kind of funny. Good thing it wasn't the sauce or that could have been messy!

After 5 of us had eaten, there was a lot left so Heidi searched the hostel to find hungry people. I guess no one was really there cuz she only found 2, and older German man and an Asian kid. So we fed them with more leftover. What to do that night but more talking and cards? Good stuff. After an hour or 2 passed, I got hungry again and ate the rest of the food.

My nest destination was Crete. I bought a plane ticket here with 2 transfers that cost $350 but got here in one day. I could have taken the train but it would have been 200 something dollars and taken a day or 2. So the plane sounded better. The first flight left at 710am so I got to the airport at about 5. When I was checking in, something happened that that flight might have been cancelled so I got switched to an earlier flight that was leaving very soon. So I ran to security and budged A LOT of people but I didn't care, I didn't want to miss that flight. I made it, got on and fell asleep. I think that might be a good way of doing things. If I had a day of travels ahead of me, just stay up really late the days before it and sleep during the travels. On 2 out of 3 of the flights I don't remember take off or landing. I also took a nap in the airport waiting for the next flight but got kicked awake by the police who told me to sit in a chair. You couldn't lay down in the chairs though cuz there were arm rests, and the floor was so comfy! Oh well, I had to get my boarding pass anyway. I flew from Catania to Rome to Athens to Crete, 7 hours. When I got to Crete, I grabbed my bag and found they took everyone out of the top pouch so I lost all my pens except the one I had with me. Usually I keep a mini notebook and alarm clock there but I had those with me. I don't remember what else might have been in there but it wasn't important. Sucks I lost my pens though... Well, then I caught a bus to Rethymno and found my hostel. Seems like a nice place. One of the girls in the program stayed here and really liked it. So I dropped off my stuff and went out to eat. I wanted a nice Greek restaurant and found one. For dinner I had a Greek salad, feta from the oven (awesome), and a gyro. It was all really good and I was nice and full and happy. Then it was off to the shower and bed.

Well, I was sleeping good but I guess I was keeping someone awake by snoring. At about 3 or 4 in the morning he shook my bed and came over and said "You're snoring, stop it." Like you can make yourself stop snoring. Whatever, I ignored it and fell back asleep. Then 2 hours or so later he kicked my bed again but didn't say anything. The last time he kicked it was at about 7 or 8 and I am pretty sure I wasn't even asleep. It was pretty irritating and he's kind of a jerk, or maybe had a bad day. In either case, snoring is to be expected in a hostel. Deal with it. Well, this morning, I talked to the manager and switched rooms so I don't have to talk to him or deal with him for the rest of my stay. Seriously? Stop snoring? Some people...

I Climbed Lady of the Lake

2008-11-11T05:40:00.005-11:00

Nancy was fun. It was a lot of fun to see someone in Europe who I know and could show me around his town. We went to a few cathedrals and the park and went on a hike. The nature hike was a lot of fun. Blake said that there were no squirrels or wild life in Nancy and I did not believe him at all. So on our hike I had my eyes pealed for a squirrel and I did not see one! I was so shocked. Seems really weird that they wouldn't have any. But they have a lot of pigeons and crows. We did see a couple rens and bats. That was neat. A bat is like a rat is like a squirrel. Does that count? Dang. But the walk was fun anyway. Nice to walk through the forest for a while. I could not do that in London.

After the walk, we had dinner in their cafeteria. I haven't eaten cafeteria food in a while, but it wasn't too bad. Then we went out to another bar but again, I didn't really want a beer so I got a nougat milkshake instead. Only it was more milky than shaky. But it was still good I guess. Then another early-ish night. I got the floor this time and it wasn't that bad. Just a couple blankets laid on the ground but good enough for me!

There was also a little zoo we went to a few times. They had peacocks that just walked around wherever they felt, in a fenced area or out. There were also goats, rams, and various water fowl. The best thing was a family of macocks, they're like monkeys. They were funny little guys that got into lots a of mischief. Their was a baby that clung to his mummy the whole time. Also, there was a little guy that liked to start fights with others. It was fun to watch them but also said because they were in a zoo...

On another day, we went to the library and I got on the internet and Blake studied for a bit. After that was done, we went a got a pastry! Yummy, mine was called religious (but in French) and had a lot of chocolate filling. Oh it was good! We ate that in the park and then went on another walk around the town. The day after that, I caught my train back to Paris to connect to Evry. That ride went just fine. I got there and jumped on the RER to Evry and checked into my hotel without much troubles there.

Now, Evry is next to Lisses and Courcouronnes. These towns are were David Belle and his friends started parkour, so it was fun for me to go and see all the places I've seen in the videos. There is a climbing wall called la Dam du Lac that is very iconic in the parkour community. Technically, it is blocked off to the public, but just by a fence, so it's not hard for someone like me to get over! I climbed on it one day and it was really cool to do. I will have to come back in a few years and climb on it again. That was basically all I did while in Evry. Everyday I went to the Dam du Lac and just looked at it. Fun for me!

The first day I got into Evry was the 4th, I think we all know what was going on on that day. I tried to watch the coverage but I only have French channels. There were some covering it, but speaking french so I watched those a caught a bit of English and looked at the pictures. I wanted to stay up and watch the electoral votes come in, but at 2 McCain was winning 13 to 3 and I was tired, so I set an alarm for 7 to see the results. When I got up, I wasn't exactly sure who won, but they were talking about Obama a lot so I could only assume he did. It really wasn't as exciting as it would have been to hear straight up 'the next president of the US will be Barack Obama'. Oh well, he won and that's all that matters. Thank goodness!

The last day I was there, I caught a train back to Paris and spent the day there wandering around because my train to Milan didn't leave until 745pm. Not much excitement here, I saw the Arc de Triumph which was neat for a minute or 2. Then I got bored. That night I wanted to have creme bruleé but didn't, so I have an eclair instead. A real French one too! Just as good right? I'll be back anyway, I'll get it then. The train to Milan was a sleeper so that was an experience. I didn't really sleep though because, again I was nervous about getting the right stop and the ticket man took my passport but he took everyone else's so it must have been normal but I wanted to know when I would get it back! So I got about 3 or 4 hours of sleep and got into Milan at 540. My train to Levanto left at 610 and was just a few platforms over so no worries on that. I slept a bit on that train and got to see the sunrise which was very pretty! Didn't get pictures though cuz I didn't want to get my camera out, sorry. I got into Levanto at 9 and found our hostel. Ian's wife was there on the computer and I sat down next to her and said 'uff-da'. She turned to me and without recognizing me (she really had no reason to do so) asked where I was from. I said Minneapolis and she said, me too, well 30 minutes from there in a town called River Falls. So I said, oh, I actually go to River Falls. She was surprised and said really?! But then it dawned on her. Kind of funny to play a little trick on her. Funny to me at least.

I was the first person to get there so I went on a hike with her and Ian. There are 5 villages in this area with paths between them so we walked one of those. I had been in shoes for a very long time and it was finally warm and safe enough (no glass) to go barefoot which was lovely. But I did get many strange looks again. I don't understand why though. One lady even took and picture of my feet. Weird right? I didn't care, I was happy with the cool mud I was walking on. The hike lasted about 3 hours and ended in a beer by the water. We then headed back to see who else had arrived. We got back and I went with those people to find food but it was about 430 and places around here don't open for dinner until 7 so we had to wait around hungry for a few hours before we could get any food! Ended up at an Italian place (surprised?) and got pesto! It was good, but I thought there would be more food because I was still hungry, but oh well. Time for bed.

The next day, I went out with Heidi and climbed around on the rocks by the sea for a while. I love doing that and Heidi isn't very experienced in that area but she was a trooper and did everything I did (almost). I was proud of her and I think she surprised herself. I liked coaching her on hand and foot holds. I think I could be a good rock climber coach! But I've been doing that a lot back home at Minnehaha Park so I have some experience. We went probably half a km before heading back. Then we walked on the beach and I made a sandcastle! Of course I did. It was a nice one too. Just a mound of sand, but I gave it rocks on top and rock windows and rock doors and a moat and a bridge. Very nice. Then I jumped on it. My philosophy is that when I leave, if I don't jump on it, someone else will, so why shouldn't I have that fun?

Well now I was dirty so we jumped in the water and swam around for a bit. It was chilly but you got used to it. Then it got chilly again. Maybe I just need a bit more fat on me to keep me warm in the water. Or not. The shower warmed be back up. Then a lot of card games before dinner. That night, we went to another Italian place (is that worth saying?). I got spaghetti frutti e mare. Sea food pasta basically. It had mussels, prawns, shrimp and calamari in it. It was yummy! Then someone couldn't finish their pizza so I ate that too! Ended the night with some gelato, and was that good! I had strawberry, pistachio, and chocolate, mmmmm. I like Italian food. After that, we went to the beach and talked in groups for a while. Not much night life in Levanto so we had to do something!

Today I went out by myself and played on the beach for about 4 hours. There is a little fresh water run off stream that goes to the sea so I found a coke can and made a little boat with a rudder and sail to float down that. I also made a few sand dams and just threw sand into the water for fun! It was a good time. When I got back, I found people playing cards again so I joined them and we played for a while. Then I got on the internet and it is free here, even though it says you need to pay, no one does, and no one says too. So yeah. Gonna have a group dinner in a bit so I have to shower up before that.

Oh yeah, one more thing; Now that I'm starting to travel, I don't know where I will be able to find internet or for how long. When I do find one, my first priority will be to find where I will be staying next so I cannot say how often I will be able to update this but I will do my best. So if nothing comes for a while, don't worry, I am most likely ok, I just haven't been able to find time and a computer. Got it? Good, I'm gonna go shower...

Halloween night

2008-11-11T05:09:00.004-11:00

So, it started out just dandy. At 7pm, I went and got dinner from a middle eastern place which was good. I got a large kabob donnar or something like that, it was good though. Then I met Carly at the Greenman and we deiced that we would go out with the big group of people who were going out too instead of us just going together. We hopped on the train to go to the Fabric again but once again, the line was half way around the block so we all said screw that, we aren't waiting in that. So then we were gonna hop back on the tube and go to Leicester Square because apparently there are a lot of clubs in that area. But I didn't want to pay 4 pounds again because that's like 8 dollars so I just followed behind someone to get through the gate. When we got off, I had a little scare because when I followed someone back, I kind of ran into the gate as it was shutting but managed to squeeze though. I thought the guards saw me so I walked casually out of their sight and waited until everyone was out. And I didn't get caught. Even if I did, it was only a 20 pound fine so not really THAT bad. We then hit up a club that had a nice short line. I don't know what it was called but that doesn't matter much right? So we got in and I checked my coat and they gave me a ticket and I was like, dang, I hope I don't lose this... After that, we hit the dance floor. I really liked that club because they didn't constantly play crappy music. There was actually good music going on and a variety. When we first got in, Michael Jackson was playing so it had to have been a good place right? Then we danced the night away, but I could only dance half the night away because I had to get back to catch a bus to the airport at 3.

Now here is where the fun comes in. I left the club at about 2-2:15. I went to the coat room and realized I did lose my ticket and there was no way for me to get my jacket back. So I lost my Dickies sweatshirt. Good thing it wasn't my Carhartt though. I asked some people who were staying if they could try to grab it at the end, but they weren't able to so oh well, don't cry over spilled milk, right? But I really liked that sweatshirt...I did decide that I would buy one in the Czech Republic and then could say I got my jacket in the Czech Republic which would be pretty cool, plus, I think that's where I'll start to need it. Anyway, I ran back to the Greenman, about 2 miles I'd say. I only stopped when there was a car. I always amaze myself when I can run for a long time without having worked out in quite some time. Plus, it probably helped out that I was warmed up from dancing.

I got back at 2:45, grabbed my bag and ran to the bus stop. That was only about 4 blocks away, so not bad, but still a annoying to run with that big bag. When I finally got there, I was tired and hot and ugh! But I caught my bus okay. On the bus ride though, I was getting pretty queasy running, and car sickness but I managed to hold it in. My head was certainly spinning though. I caught my plane fine as well and slept the hour flight. Being asleep makes flights go by much faster.

I got into Charles de Gaulle, Paris at 840 and my train for Nancy left at 905. So I ran to an info desk and asked where the train station was, which was a 10 minute walk in the airport from where I was. So I grabbed my bag and booked it again. I got the the train station there and went to another info desk and she said I was at the wrong station. Crap. So I missed that train. I jumped on the RER (metro) and went to the right station, Gare de l'Est. When I got there, I looked for a ticket office but had a hard time finding it. Eventually I did though and waited in a 20 minute line. At the desk, the guy said that refunds could only be made within an hour after departure and it had been and hour and 10 or 20 minutes. But he was nice enough to refund it anyway so I only had to pay 20 extra Euro. That helped out the day a bit. I jumped on the train at 1042, about the time I was supposed to be in Nancy, but I wouldn't get there until 12:15. I was meeting my friend Blake there and hopefully he would be there or something. I was trying to send him my thoughts saying I was on the next train. So while on that train, I slept sporadically. I don't like sleeping on something where I don't know where I am because I don't want to miss my stop. Well, I successfully made it to Nancy but Blake wasn't at the station. So I wandered around looking for an internet cafe because I though he would have sent me a message. I found an apple store so I got on for free. Sneaky eh? He had sent me his number so now I needed to find a phone. The dumb thing about Nancy is that their pay phones will only accept a credit card that has a smart chip. I don't have that. So I ran around town looking for a phone I could use. I found a Best Western and asked in there. The lady replied asking if I had a room and obviously I didn't so she said 20 euro. What? do you mean 20 euro or 20 cents? Nope, 20 Euro, but I'd get it back. Kinda strange. So I made the call and it ended up only costing 90cents. And I finally got to meet Blake at the station. Quite an ordeal eh? Then we went back to his room and I met a few of his friends but had a very hard time keeping my eyes open. I think I took maybe a 15 or 20 minute nap and was dead to the world, according to Blake. After that, we went to get some food because I hadn't eaten much except 2 apples and something from a vending machine since 7pm the day before. It was now about 7pm the day of. After that we went to a bar and had a few drinks. I didn't want a beer so I had 5 glasses of water. It was good. Then finally we went back to his room and talked a bit and then went to sleep. That night he gave him his bed while he slept on the floor. Nice guy. So all in all, I had been awake with only an hour or 2 of sleep for about 40 hours. Wow. But why not? I'm in Europe. And it hasn't been too bad of a story right?

3...2...1 BLASTOFF!

2008-10-31T05:30:00.003-11:00

Sunday I woke up and looked at the clock and it said 9 so I thought, eh, I missed breakfast, I'll sleep some more. Then I woke up an hour later and realized I needed to turn my clock back. Dang! I could have got to breakfast! Oh well. So I got up and went downstairs and watched New Zheland vs Austrailia rugby and went to Tesco for breakfast. Then at 130, we had a "family dinner". Every Sunday, the pub has a special menu with Sunday roast on it so we all got that and pushed some tables together. That was nice. Now, the thing about this last week was that nothing really exciting happened, most days were the same. Not that that is bad, I had fun but it was wake up, get on the computer to write my outline and progress report, plan travels, go get dinner and hang out in the pub with people. That was pretty much it. But of course I had fun. Ate a lot of pizza from that sketchy pizza place. It was the only thing open late in London so it was a very good and cheap find. I hope I can find more cheap pizza places in my travels. I have a few things planned out already. This Saturday (tomorrow) I am taking a plane to Paris at 6am and will then catch a train to Nancy France to stay with my friend from school, Blake Doyle, who is also studying abroad right now, just in a different program. I will be with him until Tuesday when I will go back to Paris and go to Evry and Lisses to see where parkour started, do some myself, and hopefully meet some people. It would make that trip very cool. Then on the 8th I will catch another train from Paris to Milan to Levanto for our group meeting on the 9th. I should arrive at 9 or 10 on the morning of the 9th. Stay there for 3 days then off to Rome, but I haven't got that part planned out yet...

On Tuesday I pretty much did the same as I have been but at the pub, Carly started to get hit on by some Egyptian guy. She talked with him for a bit and then said she needed to go to the bathroom. When she got up and walked around a little wall, she turned back to me with a look of desperation on her face and mouthed "help me". So I tried to think of something we could do for a while until they left the bar and decided on a walk. It had been rainy that evening and even hailed for a bit. When we got outside it was sleeting so we started to walk. After a block or so, we saw some books lying outside next to a thrift store and I stopped to see if any where good. While I was reading one, Carly started screaming and I looked up and out of the corner of my eye I see a mannequin and think it is someone about to attack us, but then she yells "SNOW!!!!!!" and I looked up again and see little flakes started to fall in the sleet. Well, since we had learned that it snowed a little back home, we were feeling pretty jealous of that, but now we had our own! As we walked, it picked up and big flakes were falling. It was a wonderful walk which ended in buying waffles from Tesco. People said that that was the first snow in October in London in 70 years. It must have been because of Carly and me. When we got back to the pub, we were super happy because of the snow, but there were people from Australia who had never seen snow before, so it was pretty cool that they could see it while we were there.

Friday, I had a meeting with a sword maker. He works in a town called Thaxted, Essex. He told me to take a train to Stansed Airport and catch a cab from there. So getting there was pretty easy. He was a really cool guy to. Helped me as much as he could. I also found out that Minneapolis has a very large arms and armour community and there is a society based in Minneapolis named after Ewart Oakshott, who was a big name in historical swords. So that may come in handy when I am writing my paper in case I forgot to write something down! After that meeting, I felt I am done with the research that I wanted to do here so now, let the travels begin!

Today is Halloween and kind of sad because Europe doesn't celebrate it like the US does. But Carly and I plan on going to a different club, and actually going on. I wish I could dress up but I don't have anything special and I don't really want to buy anything because I'll just throw it away the next day. I can't carry around useless things! I do not have a bed tonight but that's okay because my bus leaves for the airport at 3am so I can just have a late night and sleep on the plane and train. No worries there! But it should be a fun night.

Wander-lost

2008-10-26T04:08:00.005-11:00

Alright alright, I'll update this thing...

Hmm, let's see...RIGHT! My day of fun filled traveling! From Dublin I was to take a ferry across the channel then hop on a few trains to Leeds for another sword fighting lesson and one last train down to London. In order to make that work, I needed to catch the ferry that left at 8am. I got up at about 6 because of snoring and my brain not wanting to sleep and end up sleeping in. So took and shower, got ready and headed out. I started to try to find a place to get a quick breakfast and walked for a while, then when i realized it was 730, I needed to get to the ferry! Unfortunately, I had been walking the wrong way the entire time! So I caught a cab and got there with a few minutes to spare. Close one! And they had food on the boat so I got a full breakfast and had my first black and white pudding. It's not really pudding is it. I guess it's just another one of those "jelly isn't jelly" things isn't it? It wasn't too bad, but I am getting sick of English breakfasts.

It was a very nice ferry. They offer 2 types of ships, a cruise and a fast one. The Cruise boat takes about 3 hours and the fast one, about an hour and a half. Well, it was really windy so only the cruise was available. But I was ok with that. I took a nice nap along the way. Rocked to sleep by the waves. A nice ride. When we got to Holyhead, I got my train directions and started off on that. It was a 4 hour itinerary to Leeds so I arrived in Leeds at about 6. From the train station, I walked to the Royal Armouries museum and timed myself so I knew I would make my train to London. That train left at 840pm and the class didn't end till 9 so I would have to leave a little early. It took me a little less than 15 mins to walk there, so I would give myself 20 to get back. Then I had a light dinner from Tesco and off to the lesson. It was a good one, very technical which is what I wanted, but I won't bore you with the details, if you want, you can read my paper at the end of all this.

So I split class early and again, made it to my train with a few minutes to spare. It is hard to run with a 20 pound backpack on... The ride back was nice, I was pretty tired from travel so I read and zoned out for most of the time. I got into London Kings Cross at 1140pm. That made a total of about 11 hours travel time for me. Yeah, I was pretty worn out... From Kings Cross I took the tube to a station a couple blocks from the hostel, checked in and checked out.

The next day I pretty much spent in the hostel and pub chilling because I was tired. I ended up talking to a guy at the bar who was from Rhode Island for about 3 or 4 hours. Nice to have some friendly conversations. Then Carly showed up and we went out to eat and caught up on our adventures. Definitely and laid back day but hey, after 11 hours of travel, I think I deserved it.

Wednesday I went back to the Wallace Collection to try to do more research but after a week and a half of nothing, and a really dry book, not much good came from it...But I tried. So then I wandered around again for most of the day. Then I went back and hung out in the pub again. We met some Dutch boys and hung out and played pool with them. That was fun. Always nice to meet new people!

I did not want to spend all day in the pub again so I tried to think of something that I could do. It then occurred to me that I wanted to go to the natural history museum on my birthday but didn't because I was at the science museum all day. So I went there. I liked it. They had a lot of cool rocks, stuffed animals and DINOSAUR BONES RAR! So that was fun. I have been spending a lot of time in the pub during the evening, but that's where I know people and I wouldn't know where to go out if I wanted to.

Most of today was spent running errands and the like. First, I tried to mail my absentee ballot at a fedex but they said I needed to go online and fill out some form and that was the only way to send it back to the states. It's not a bad thing though because it is cheaper than sending a normal envelope to the states ($20 compared to £33) and it is supposed to arrive the next day. Cool. Then I got on the internet to try to plan my next travels. I am planning on visiting a friend who is in Nancy France and from there, head to Paris for a few days (well, a suburb, Lisses) and then from Paris to Levanto for our group meeting. I also made a phone call to a sword smith and will have a meeting with him on the 30th which is great. That is the last thing I feel I need to do here for research. Sweet. Then I will be free to travel! I am very excited about that, I would very much like to leave London. It is just not the city for me. I also looked in a newspaper a few days ago and saw that a new Mexican place was opening and they were going to give away free burritos on their grand opening. So I went there are got a free burrito. The line wasn't that bad either. I just pulled out my book and read until I was at the door. Maybe 20 mins. It was pretty good by England's standards but nothing against Chipotle. While walking back I remember another Mexican place and thought I'd compare burritos in case I needed to go back and get another one. That one wasn't free, it was £5. But hey, that's 2 burritos for under $5, not bad right? The 2nd one wasn't as good as the first therefore a mile off Chipotle. But you can't really get any good Mexican here. Just have to wait till I get home I guess.

That night, Carly and I decided that we would try to go to a club so we asked a few people and we recommended to go to the Fabric. So that's what we were gonna do. But we were told not to go too early because no one would be there. Being not very experienced clubbers we took this advice and didn't leave until a little past 10. But when we got there, the line was half way around the block. WHAT!? A 3+ hour wait to pay £10 to get into a crowded room? Yeah, not gonna happen now. So we wandered around looking for some other place we could go but didn't find anything so we ended up getting a pizza and heading back to the hostel.

Yesterday was another round of karaoke at the pub so we did that and it was fun. I sang 3 different songs. Sat with a bunch of people and talked and sang all night. Then after karaoke was over, we went a got another pizza and ate that in the pub. Now, I was expecting people to stay up and have something to do in the pub that night, but no one was there. So instead of staying up all night with people, I went to bed.

Is maith an scathan suil charad

2008-10-17T21:42:00.004-11:00

The next few days at Maynooth have been uneventful but nice. Have time to myself to just relax a bit. I went to a few places but didn't get any research done, but that's ok, I liked the time anyway. Ireland is cool, and the people talk funny and dress like Irish people, so that's cool. I went to Dublin yesterday and walked around. I went to Trinity College but didn't see the Books of Kells since I didn't know what it was (until Aunt Gail told me) and it cost money to see so I wasn't gonna spend money on something I had no idea what it was (not yet anyway, I still have a long while here). I walked around the city though and ended up at Chester Beatty library and didn't know what that was either, but I checked it out and it was free! So I walked around there. I wouldn't really call it a library, but maybe it's the whole jelly isn't jelly thing again. It was a museum basically on the history of the book and it also looked at a few bigger religions (Christianity, Buddhism, Islamic, etc). There was some cool stuff there. Old stuff. So yeah.

After searching around in many book stores, I finally picked up the second LOTR. Why is it so gosh darn hard to find that book? It's popular right? So it should be in bookstores right? Whatever. They always have the one I don't need. Like before I couldn't find the 1st one, but they would always have the 3rd. Now looking for the 2nd, I found the first plenty of times! Well, the 3rd one I've seen the most so hopefully I will continue to when I resume my search. For now, I gotta start reading! The thought also occurred to me that when I start to travel, there will not be many English bookstores around, so I need to stock up before I start. Lucky for me, a few blocks down the road from my London hostel is a used book store. It is very English too. The shoppe keeper reminds me of the shoppe keep from Beauty and the Beast, just younger. If you don't know what that looks like, go watch the Disney movie and imprint it in your mind. It's a good movie. Anyway, before I start my travels I will load up on books. I know that I can get some from other hostelers, but I wanna make sure I get books that I want to read.

Now back to Ireland... I bought a ticket from Dublin to Leeds for Monday that is a sail and rail deal so I will get to take a ferry across the channel and a train to Leeds. Pretty neat and pretty cheap. There are 2 ferries that go across. One is a leisure cruise that takes about 3 hours and the other is a fast ship that takes an hour and a half I think. I don't know which one I'll take, both would be nice though. I am going to Leeds only for the night, I will then take another train down to London to stay there. I am planning on taking another sword fighting class, so that should be fun. Unfortunately, my train to London leaves at 20:40 (8:40pm) and the class doesn't end till 9 so I will have to leave early to make sure I catch that. That's okay, I just need to make sure that I get there.

Today is my last day in Maynooth. Actually, after I'm done here I will catch a bus back to Dublin and find my hostel to stay in for 2 nights. While I am there, I plan on going out to the country and enjoying a little bit more relaxing time in Ireland. I think that's what this country is for.

Ireland; Land of the Green and Home of the Brave

2008-10-14T23:57:00.005-11:00

Ok, I am back with the internet in Ireland! But more on that later, now it's time to catch up on lost days! Now, where was I?

Saturday 11th October:
Today, I decided to go to the parkour jam at the library and since I was at the library and had some time to kill, I went on the internet to send a few emails and what not. Then I went outside and met a few guys and hung out with them for a while. On of them took charge a bit and took it upon himself to show me around to different spots. That was cool, he just started about a month ago, but is from Leeds so knew his way around. We hit up a lot of spots for a bit and the last one is kind of funny. It is a set of scaffolding that is set up next to the police station. They say they go there a lot and have gotten kicked off maybe once. That made me laugh.

After that, I caught my train up to York. I got in around 4pm and started to look for a place to stay because I didn't have a bed booked for that night. I wasn't too worried and thought that if I couldn't find a place to stay, I'd just stay up all night on the streets. I walked all around the city and every guest house and B&B were full because the parents of the students at the University were in town for something. I dunno. And I couldn't find a hotel that wasn't £50+. So after walking around for a few hours, I thought I'd just stay up so I was gonna spend my time in a pub for as late as they would let me. I found one and had dinner there. Then decided I didn't want to stay there until 2am went out and talked with the bouncer. He told me that it probably wasn't a good idea to camp out because of the druggies and muggings and stuff, so I was like, ok, I won't. And went back on my search for a roof. I walked to the hostel that I was going to stay at the next night to see if they had anything for me, even a couch. They didn't. But they did call around for a place which was very helpful. Ended up finding on for £25 which I took and was lovely. Nice place with its own bathroom. I'm glad I took it because otherwise, it would have been a very long night...

Sunday 12th October:
Today I got up and went back to the YHA so I wouldn't have to carry my backpack around all day again. That thing gets heavy! After that I went back into town and walked the wall around the city. It is a medieval wall surrounding the city to protect it. It is about 2 miles long and was really cool. It was a strange sensation to be on something that was that old.

After walking around for a bit I found a Pret (yes, they are everywhere!) and ate lunch while watching a Mayan (I think) band, sort of, play. I thought it was strange because we were in York, no where near the southern part of the Americas. Whatever, good lunch time entertainment.

After all that walking, I went back to the hostel and booked a plane to Dublin for the 13th. A couple of sucky things happened with this. I used Ryanair because it's the only airline with a flight from Leeds to Dublin. The ticket cost less than the taxes and fares. £29 for the ticket and £34 for the fees, plus £16 for checking luggage and another £12 to get to Leeds from York. This trip was stressing me out because I didn't want it to cost that much.

THEN, I woke up at 3am and realized that I had the hostel booked for the night of the 13th and that when my plane left! Uh oh, double booked it. Fortunately, I was refunded for the night I missed, so it all worked out in the end.

Monday 13th October:
I got up today and packed all my stuff again, but I had a lot of time to kill because my plane didn't leave until 10:30pm. At the front desk, they told me a few things I could do. I ended up going to the Jorvik, a viking museum. It ended up being very Cheesy. It was like a Viking version of Epcot. First, we went back in a "time machine" and then got on a little car the drove us around through a viking village. Whatever, it was alright I guess.

After that, I really didn't know what to do so I went back to the hostel and got my stuff and caught the bus to Leeds Bradford Airport. I got there at about 4pm so had many hours to kill. It's kind of a small airport and like most, not much around it to do. So I read, wandered, and sat around a lot. Finally it was time for our flight to leave and it did so without too much hassle, always a good thing when flying.

Ok, now I'm gonna stop with the date thing, ok? Whatever, you don't have a say in this anyway.

So I got into Dublin and left the airport at 1am. I am currently staying an a town called Maynooth which is about 15 miles outside of Dublin. Because I got in so late, there we no longer any buses or trains out there. So I had to cancel my first night at Maynooth and find a hostel in Dublin. Fortunately, there was one in town center that was 10 euro a night. Nice and cheap. So basically, I got there and went to bed.

That morning I found a bus that went to Maynooth for 2 euro. Much better than a possible taxi ride that would have cost around 50 euro. So I got to Maynooth and checked in without trouble. And they were kind enough to refund my money for the first cancelled night.

After getting myself acquainted with the town, I met up with my mom's (former) boss' cousin, Gerry. He is a really nice guy with a very Irish accent so it was fun to hear him talk. We went to a pub and got a bite to eat and talked for a while. After being in Leeds without too many people to talk to, this was really nice. He has also done a lot of work for me in finding contacts and possible places to go. Don't worry, I have thanked him many times for this.

After dinner (second dinner for me :D) we met up with his son who is 19 and I hung out with him and his friends for a while. We went to a different pub and did the quiz. We didn't win. I only got 11/20 questions right. But they were pop culture and stuff. I did get the question "which US city do they call the windy city?" right, I better have at least. So that was a fun night. Nice to get out and do something with people ever once and a while, right?

Today I am going to check out a few of the places Gerry suggested I go. And the nice thing about being in a college dorm is I can get on the internet for as long as I want (well until 11pm and while being considerate of others who want to get on) and for free. I like free.

Jelly is not Jelly

2008-10-12T15:37:00.004-11:00

Ok, where did I leave off? It sure has been a while, but I seriously could not find internet access anywhere in Leeds. Right now I am in York and it doesn't have any internet cafes either. My hostel does have access, but their "discount" deal is 3 hours for £8. Normally, it is £4 for an hour. Holy s*** it was a pound an hour in London! But I needed to get on to book my stuff for Ireland. Now, let's go back a week and sum up my expeditions shall we?

Saturday 4 October:
This was the day that I was to leave for Leeds. I got up and took a really easy morning because the only thing I needed to do whilst in London was catch my train! It left from Kings Cross station at 1pm. So while I was there, what else should I do except go see Platform 9 3/4! That was neat, and nerdy. Especially because there were a lot of people dressed up hanging out around there. I took a few pictures and was set. Then I walked around in an attempt to find a book store that had LOTR and by golly, I found it! So I went back to the station and read until my train left. Ooh, exciting, I get to ride a train! Got into Leeds and found my way to my hotel. See, I booked a hotel because I couldn't find any hostels in Leeds to stay at so I figured I could get there, and walk around to find a place to stay. It was a nice hotel so I pretty much just stayed in my room. I even ordered room service! That was neat! First time, can't say last, but I doubt I'd do it much anyway.

Sunday 5 October:
That morning I got up and had some comp hot chocolate. Chocolately. Yesterday I found a B&B to stay at for £20 a night. That was pretty much the only place I could find so I went for it. It was about 1.5 miles from the Royal Armouries museum so not that bad. I started to walk there but decided to go to the museum first to see if they knew of anything closer and cheaper. They didn't. But I did see sword fighting going on so I went to investigate. It ended up being a seminar that was being taught, but they did offer classes at the museum on Mondays and Thursdays. Also, one guy at the seminar was staying at a B&B that was about a half mile away and only £15 a night. So I went there and they had room so I stayed there. It really wasn't the prettiest of place, but it was a roof over my head to say the least. Kind of dirty, the heater didn't work, smoking was allowed, eh, let's say I basically used it for sleeping. At least they were really friendly, so it wasn't terrible. That night I went to Tesco and bought stuff for dinner as well as other stuff for breakfast and snacking purposes.

Monday 6 October:
One thing I picked up at Tesco was jelly. At least that's what it said it was. So I was gonna have a PB&J for breakfast. Upon spreading it on my sandwich, I realized it was not jelly. So instead for breakfast, I ended up having a peanut butter and jello sandwich. Interesting. So in England, jelly is not jelly. Remember that all.

After that fiasco, I went to the museum. I was going to go to the library, but ended up looking at the museum all day. It is quite a big place with a lot of stuff. They also had a special exhibit up of arms and armour from the movies so they had stuff from LOTR, Narnia, The Last Samurai, and King Kong. Cool to see some of that stuff.

The museum closed at 5 and the class didn't start until 7 so I had some time to kill. First I found a patch of grass and sat down to read, but it was a cold and cloudy day, so I ended up going to Starbucks, getting some tea and finding a nice comfy chair to read in until the class started. I very well would have missed it if I didn't look at my clock, it was about to start! So I went over to the museum, just a block away, and met people for the class. We were going to be using long swords. It was fun and weird because I am not used to a 4 foot piece of steel coming straight for my face. But it was cool anyway and should help out my paper. Another cool thing about it is your first class is free! Sweet!

Tuesday 7 October:
Today I finally got into the library. I won't bore you with the details of my research, but I did some. After that I tried to find an internet cafe and after wandering around the city center and finding nothing, I gave up, defeated. It has seemed like my days here have all been the same. I wish I were at a hostel so I could meet people. Staying at the B&B, because I don't really like to be there, I get up early, go to the museum all day, get dinner and eat it, then go to bed. Repeat until I leave Leeds.

Wednesday 8 October:
Again I went to the library and got a lot done which is always good. Then I was determined to find a computer. I ended up at the public library and they let me on for free for 2 hours so I got a little bit done. Sorry all, but updating this blog isn't on the top of my list when I have important emails to send out and figuring out where I am going to live next. Anyway, as I left the library, I saw some kids vaulting a wall so I went over and talked to them. They had only been doing parkour for about a month but told me about a jam that was happening on Saturday that would have more people. Cool. I ended up hanging out with them for a while and going to a few different spots. After that I went to find dinner. I wanted a warm meal instead of cold cut sandwiches so I found a restaurant called Nandos. They had chicken so I got a half a chicken with medium spiciness. It wasn't spicy at all...Maybe I can take more spice? At least it was good.

Thursday 9 October:
Today I was supposed to have a meeting with a curator but he has been out sick all week and today was no different. So I went around the museum myself again and tried to find examples of stuff I've researched. I did find some, but it was hard to take a good picture of behind glass. Whatever. Tonight was another sword fighting class so I did what I did last time. Found a patch for grass to read for a while then moved on to Starbucks for tea until it started. That's a good way to kill time. This class was the long sword again so we continued with what we learned last class. Fun. The people are friendly too and helped me out by correcting anything that was wrong. It's kind of a complex art it is. A lot of stuff to think about and go against your instinct to keep the pointy metal thing away from your face. But if you push your sword away from you, it opens up your body for another attack so you gotta keep it close when on the defense.

Friday 10 October:
Since I had been doing a lot of research lately, today was meant to be fun, but I went to the library anyway. I was going to talk to the librarian, who was also at the last class, about swords. He showed me an original manuscript from the 13th century I think. Really old and really cool. Then we talked for a bit but decided to call Dan, the teacher of the class, because he knew more about swords. So I talked with Dan for a while about what we did the previous night.

After that I continued with my original plans. I went up to Knaresborough and saw the Petrifying Well. It is a natural spring that has a really high mineral content and turns whatever it touches to stone. They have a lot of stuff hung up under the drippings like a broom, socks, a lobster, and teddy bears. They say that it will turn a teddy bear solid in only 3 months. Pretty fast. Works the same way as a stalagmite (or stalactite). It was also a very pretty town that I walked around in for a while. Quite a nice day out. Once I got back to Leeds I went to Nandos again and got the Hot half chicken this time. Hotter, but still not hot. Eh, England just doesn't know what hot it, and why should they?

Well, I am going to have to leave it here. Sorry about the different format. I've been keeping a journal of what I've done and this was the easiest way of remembering it. I'll post up more of what I've done later. My next stop is Ireland. Hopefully they will have internet cafes that I can use!

Nothing quite yet...

2008-10-08T04:48:00.003-11:00

Hey all, I am in Leeds right now and cannot find internet access very easily. I am at the library right now and after all my other stuff, am almost out of time so I can't write much. But never fear! Once I find some easy internet access, I'll have a week to report on, so it'll be all good.

So keep your eyes open fellow Waldo Watchers (in England, they call him Wally, lame.)

Happy Birthday Big Guy!

2008-10-03T04:36:00.004-11:00

Again on Tuesday, I went back to the library to do more research. Our first progress report was due on the 1st of October so I wrote that up and sent it out along with a rough outline of my paper. I've always thought that a 40 page paper like this one was not going to be any problem and after writing up the outline, I see that I have a lot to write about. I probably won't even think about pages until I'm done writing everything I wanted. By that time I bet I'll be over 40 pages. No worries on that one. I ended up staying at the library until about 2pm, so fairly late. Got lunch at you know where and ate it outside. The rest of the day was a hunt for the first Lord of the Rings, which I never found, but I did get to walk around a part of town I hadn't been before so that was nice.

Dinners have usually been at restaurants where I can get 3 courses for anywhere from 9-12 pounds. I've known this to be a little much but didn't think much of it because I was getting a good quality meal which was important to me. Tuesday night however, I went to a local cheap chain grocery store called Tesco. I bought 2 rolls, a chunk of cheese (don't know what kind but it was pretty god), salami, and a muffin. All that cost me about 3.50, I'm gonna do that more often! It was a bit of food too. So nothing fancy for dinner, but I shouldn't have fancy every night anyway. Good thing I learned this early on!

As you all are (or should have been) aware, Wednesday was my birthday! It started out with breakfast at a little cafe by Hyde Park, nice and simple. After that I went to the science museum. It was cool but also kind of boring. Most of it seemed to be a history of science museum. Are most like that? I like St. Paul's better, but maybe that's because there are dinosaur bones there. I don't blame London's for not having any dino bones because the museum of natural history was next door. I was going to go there, but ended up spending all my time in the science museum and had to head back for dinner.

On the walk back, I have to admit, I was getting lonely on my birthday. But I stopped at a library and got on the internet and I have to say thank you to everyone who sent me an email of facebook comment because it really did cheer me up. Being in London is a good way to spend your 21st, but it would be a lot better if there were more friends to enjoy it with.

Anyway, I met up with Carly and we went out to an Italian place which was nice. I was going to treat myself because, hey, it's my birthday! So I got a martini, at least that's what it said on the menu. I told the waiter when he asked me how I wanted it to make it however he wanted. So he did. I don't know what he did, but I was expecting a gin a vermouth or something of the like in a martini glass, James Bond style. It ended up being something brown in a tall glass that was only like 1/8 full. Found that a little strange and disappointing, but that's okay, I'll have a James Bond style martini somewhere else.

From there, we headed back to my pub and had a few more drinks throughout the night. We also talked with a few different people, so the morning may have been lonely, but that evening made up for it with all those people. Ended up going to bed around 3 or 4, cuz you can't have an early night on your 21st right? That's what I thought. I did plan on buying a whole cake and eating it, but that never happened because I didn't see any. If I see a cheap cake, I still might do that. I have walked past a couple bakeries, but their cakes are expensive and fancy and I would want to share that. So can't do that. Maybe Tesco has cakes.

Thursday I got up feeling just dandy so I took another walk around town, starting in the new part I hadn't been in before. I went in a few more books stores to find LOTR but none had the 1st one. I saw the 2nd and 3rd but you can't really skip over a book with a story like that can you? Well, unless it's the prequel, but I just finished that one! Then I came on the computer and tried to find a train and a place to stay in Leeds, my next destination. I found a train quite easily, but could not find a cheap place to stay for the life of me! So I'll be in London for a few more days until I can figure that out. I may just have to get a hotel for a few days until I can find a hostel. How frustrating!

Today was my last day at the Wallace Collection's library for a while. For these days I can figure out what I am doing about Leeds. I may come back later to do some additional research but there is a library at Leeds too. While there I used their computers to try to find a place to stay in Leeds. Something will work itself out. I got an email back from a curator there and will have a meeting with him on Thursday.

It's a cold and grey day here, not good for much. There is a guy in my hostel who is has LOTR and will do a book trade with him when he finishes (hobbit for Lotr) so maybe he'll be done and I can spend the rest of the day reading, with a short trip to Tesco in between :)

I think I'm gonna like it here

2008-09-29T08:51:00.004-11:00

Well, these last few days have definitely been fun! Friday I finally got to do some research at the Wallace Collection's library. Then the rest of the day was pretty chill. Then, on Saturday I had my meeting with Ian. We met outside the Wallace Collection and talked about my project for a while. He said that it sounds like it going pretty good and should turn out well. Made me feel a bit better because I feel like I haven't got much done. Then again, I have been trying to contact a lot of people and work out where I can research. So it's been a good start I guess, now is the time when I can really get to work!

After that we went into the collection and I showed him around a bit. It was kind of cool how much I learned from that one day of research because I was answering a lot of his questions and looking at stuff I recognized stuff I've read about. Who da thunk reading helps you learn? Then came lunch! Yum, we went to Pret and had a nice lunch sitting outside. After that we made our way to the Imperial War Museum and along the way, he showed me some of the sights and gave me a little bit of history on them. That kind of tour I like more because it's more personal rather than one guy leading a group around. So that was fun. Then we got to the museum and went through the WWI and WWII exhibits. That was fun because we both knew about them so it made it more interesting. The neatest/weirdest thing I saw in there was a painting of Hitler where the artist lightened his hair and gave him blue eyes. Thought that was strange, but interesting.

After all that excitement, we took a bus back to my pub where we met up with Carly and went out to dinner. After talking for a while with Ian, he had to go so Carly and I went to do some karaoke! I did the Devil Went Down to Georgia and Are You Gonna Be My Girl by JET. So that was fun. There, we met a guy who came to our table to ask if we would sing in a duet with him if his partner flaked out. She didn't but we talked with them for the rest of the night. He was from Missouri and I think she lived in Nashville(?). We talked, we laughed, we played pool. A good night. Ended up going to bed at 5am though. But that's okay cuz I didn't have anything to do on Sunday.

However, it was a very relaxing day. I slept in till about noon then got up and tried to find breakfast since the hostel's breakfast ended at 9. I walked pretty far and settled with Pret, it's not breakfast, but it's pretty cheap and really good. Can you tell I go there a lot? It's pretty much lunch every day. Anyway, I ate and read for a bit in Green Park which is a park right next to Buckingham Palace. Then I found a nice patch of grass in the sun and took a little nap. Unfortunately, I was woken up by protesters in the street. But that was ok because it was time for me to head back anyway. Carly, Andrew (Missouri Guy), and myself were going to go out to dinner at 6.

We ended up at a Thai place because my nose has been a little stuffy and I wanted something spicy to clear it out. I got jungle curry with duck! It had a little heat but I can safely say that England has no idea what hot is. And that's coming from me! It was still good. The neat thing about this place is that it opened about a week ago and is a restaurant/karaoke bar! So we got to do karaoke 2 nights in a row! How fun right? Even better, we were the only ones in the restaurant so we picked songs for each other without telling and then we had to go sing it. We walked all around the restaurant singing a lot of different songs. haha fun. Then, 2 guys came in to eat so we figured we should probably not disturb their meal with our "beautiful" voices. So we went back to my pub and had a pint before bed.

Today I got to do some more research at the Wallace Collection but around 1 the fire alarm went off. It wasn't a drill and I don't know what happened, I think an electrical fire. When we were evacuated, I went to get lunch (yes, at pret) and by the time I got back, the last of the people were stepping inside. So I ate outside and while there, a few electrical vans pulled up. So there's my reasoning. After that excitement, I came back to the hostel and did something even more exciting, laundry! Now my clothes are clean once again! I just got back from dinner at an Italian place and had a Belgian waffle for dessert, awesome. It was so good! Topped with ice cream and berries? Oh yeah. I think I'm gonna like it here.

CERN: European Center for Nuclear Research

2008-09-26T04:08:00.004-11:00

I'm back from Geneva! It was fun to go to a get away from London for a bit. Even being there for that short of time, it felt more like Europe that London does. That makes me excited for my travels and to get out of here. I also liked it because it is a very clean city. Even the huge lake the city surrounds is clean. You can see straight to the bottom, I don't know for how deep, but it's crystal clear! I wonder how they do it...But it was cool, I bought myself a new Swiss Army Knife! FROM SWITZERLAND!!! Neat right? I think so. I was however confused about money. I could not keep the conversions straight in my head, even know I don't know how much stuff cost. The Swiss franc and dollar are about even, but menus seemed really high. So when I was walking around looking for a restaurant, I finally had to say forget it and just picked one. It didn't help that I've been thinking in pounds for the last 2 weeks...

So my flight out there was flawless, I took a bus to the airport and got there in good time. After I checked in and walked though the doors to get the through the security check point, my jaw dropped a little because there was a line of 100 or 200 people. I was like "crap, this is gonna take forever!" But it didn't and for the amount of people, it went really fast. The US should take some advice from our foreign friends. When I got there, I took a cab to my hotel which ended up being really close and literally 1 block from the France Swiss border. So that was cool. Then that night I was going to try to walk to Geneva Center but didn't know how far it was and didn't have a map, so I started to walk. Then it was starting to get dark and I was like, "I'm not gonna make it any time soon, and if I do, I still have to walk back." So I found an Italian place and ate there and walked back. It wasn't a bad walk except that I ate a lot and then walked back fast so my tummy got a little upset, but I told it to calm down and it did. There was really only one scary part on the walk and that was just before I got to the hotel I had to walk though a pitch back section of the walk. It was DARK! Fortunately, I had my little LED light that showed me the way!

My hotel room was nice enough, it was a 2 star hotel and yeah, it was. On the pamphlet in the room, it said you could rent DVDs and after channel surfing, I found of the 10 channels, 1 was English and it was CNN...But they didn't have any DVDs anymore, that was an old service. So I watched something French for a while. Then when I was going to go to bed, the Pursuit of Happyness came on and it was in English with French subtitles so I was like sweet! and watched that then went to bed.

In the morning I got up at 8 because when I picked the hotel it said it was close to CERN and I wanted to get there early to be sure I was at the right place and all. I asked someone where it was an he directed me to it, and said it was about 8km away. I know that 8km is a long way, about 4 miles or so, so I walked, and walked, and walked. There are no signs around the said I was going in the right direction. And there were no buses on the road I was on. Finally, after walking for a while, I saw a bus that said it was going to CERN. Awesome, I'm on the right path. So I kept walking and found it and found where I needed to be. But it was 3 or 4 hours before my tour! So I walked to France again and found a little place to eat. When I got back, I went though the little Microcosm mini museum they had. There was some neat stuff in there and some that I learned about last semester in Modern. That was cool. It worked out very well that when I was done with that museum, my tour was about to start!

I have decided that I really don't like tours very much at all. Even something like this that I'm interested in. They are not interactive enough for me. I don't want to go a see stuff not working, or something that I can't play with. Going places and hearing someone talk about it is not my cup of tea. There was some cool stuff, of course, but eh, whatever. Anyway, we saw a few different particle accelerators which was cool. One of them is where the first 9 anti hydrogen particles were made. Cool huh? I don't really know how they did it, but I took a picture of the plans! haha! Then we saw a few sections of the LHC (Large Hydron Collider). It's weird to think of protons spinning around in little packets in there, but they do! The LHC is a particle accelerator that is a big circle around Geneva, 27km (that's 16.7 miles for you American folk) in circumference. Quite large. The point of it is to recreate the environment seconds after the big bang to see if they can recreate any atoms. So it has to be really cold. 1.9 Kelvin I believe he said. 273K is room temperature and 0K is absolute zero. Cold. They cool it down with liquid helium and recently, part of it broke and let loose a lot of helium, nothing bad really happened, except that they have 2 months work to fix it before they can do any more experiments. So it was still a neat tour, but I would have liked to had more interaction, but that's just me I guess...

After the tour I took a bus to Geneva Center and walked around there and saw the big fountain. That thing shoots high. And it's a very pretty city in general. I also realized on coming back that I think fewer people smoke there. Not something I thought of there but when I came back to London and started to walk around, the person in front of me was smoking and then it clicked that that never happened. Maybe I was there for too short of time. After dinner, I took the bus back to where I knew, because I didn't feel like getting lost on the bus, and walked back the rest of the way. Again, I had to go through that dark place, but I still had my flashlight!

Now, remember how the flight in went great? I can't really say the same for going out...I got up in the morning, showered and packed and checked out because I wasn't sure when I needed to check out. My flight was at 5pm and check in was at 3. So I had some time to kill. I started off by finding the airport because again, I wanted to know where it was before I got lost. Unfortunately, there isn't much to do around the airport...so I pretty much stayed in there and read until I could check in. Then at the gate, our flight said it was going to be late and leave at 17:10. Not a bad delay. Yet. They announced that they would be boarding but stopped because they said that they didn't have clearance for take off anymore or something like that. So we waited till we could board. Then, they told us that there were no flights into or out of any London airport because of a major problem with communications. Finally we got to board and fly out. We ended up being delayed 3 hours I think. Fortunately, my book was long (The Hobbit). I took the same bus back into Paddington. The bus company and airline work together so it was waiting for us, how nice. Originally, I thought I would have time to get on the internet when I got back because I didn't have a room booked for that night. We were scheduled to arrive at 17:45, but now it was much later. So I went to my hostel and asked if they had room. Since they were filled when I first booked, I thought maybe they would have had a cancellation. They didn't. So I went down the block and they were full too. Down the block again and they had a bed for the night so I stayed there. Thank goodness I found one and pretty cheap £13.

After I checked in, someone at the pub started talking to me, just general information and what not. Then she asked if I wanted a drink so I said uhh sure. So she bought me a pint and we went outside and talked to her friends. I ended up talking to them for a while. They were all slightly older than me, late 20s early 30s but we had good conversations. I mentioned I didn't really like London and one guy kept trying to think of what I should do because he did not want me to leave London or England thinking that I didn't like it. So he suggested I go down to Devon or Somerset (by the coast?) and spend a few days there because London is not England. So I might do that for a few days to see the "real" England.

Today, I went to the Wallace Collection's library and finally did some research. I do not like reading facts out of a book...Boring! Whatever, I need some information but I'm trying to set up a few more contact meetings cuz I've sent out a bunch of emails to various places (Leeds, Edinburgh, Ireland) so hopefully I'll get an email back saying "come here" and I will.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with our group leader so hopefully he will be able to give me some advice. Only one way to find out though!

That's all for now, hopefully it's enough for you.

Reading is FUNdamental

2008-09-22T21:45:00.003-11:00

The last few days have been non too adventurous. But not boring either. On Saturday I got together with Carly again and we went to watch a rugby match at the park. I don't understand rugby very well...Then for dinner I had my first real English fish and chips. Tasted like fried cod! We also got an appetizer of nachos and it was terrible! But fun to have anyway. It was Doritos topped with partly melted cheese, guac, sour cream, and salsa. Pretty bad, but funny. Then we went to my pub and had a pint before bed.

Sunday, I walked to the Museum of London, which is on the other side of London from me. So I got a nice walk in the process. It was a neat museum, lots of stuff they dug up from London and the surrounding area. They had some cool medieval stuff too which was interesting to see. But it was just your basic museum. But it was fun. On the walk back, I walked past St. Paul's Cathedral. That was big and churchy. That night, I had the best meal I think I've had in Europe. It was a 3 course deal. First course was a salad which is always great. Then I got a Lebanese Mixed Grill which had kabobs of chicken, lamb and some sort of lamb loaf, a small salad, hummus and pita bread. It was awesome!

Monday I went to the book store to get some different books. I was done with Monte Cristo, didn't like the Sea Wolf by Jack London, I dunno, guess I don't like naval stories, and didn't want to read Mark Twain's short stories. I wanted something that would take me a bit longer like Monte Cristo did. So I picked up Animal Farm, The Doors of Perception, The Hobbit, and a William Golding one I don't remember the title of. That should keep me busy for a while!

Today, I am getting ready to head over to Geneva for a few days to take a tour of CERN, my original project. I had to sign up for a tour 3-4 months in advance so now that I am not doing the project, I'll take the tour for the sheer pleasure of seeing the largest physics lab in the world! Neat huh? I'll stay in Geneva, well actually my hotel is in France but minor details, for 3 days and head back to London on the 25th to continue my research. I'm not sure how internet access will be over there so you may have to wait till I'm back in London to read more!

My bus leaves in a half hour so I better get going!

A Good Deed Done

2008-09-19T09:25:00.003-11:00

Today I met with one of my contacts after chasing him for a week. The meeting was very helpful and he said he would email me a list of contacts/places to see/reading material. Also, at the Wallace Collection there is a library that I can go to by making an appointment. That will help me since I haven't been able to find any sources and I'll know that those are all pretty good ones! I also got to hold a couple swords which was cool. It is amazing that people were able to make such pieces at that time.

After the meeting I walked around aimlessly for a while. As I walked past a 78 (just turned) year old lady, she called me and asked if I could help her. She needed help carrying a bag of groceries to her apartment. Since I had no destination and nothing else to do, I helped her. She was a funny little lady. Right off the bat she started talking to me and told me she was a little injured because she fell off the train and when she was young she dated a guy from Minneapolis and the girls these days don't dress lady like, with their short skirts and with rings in every hole. She has 2 grand daughters that are real ladies. One was 29 and the other 23. They both attended a really nice private boarding school and are ladies. Finally when we got to her place, she thanked me, told me I had done a very good deed and said that there are some gentlemen left in the world. I was honored!

Not much else has happened after that. A lot of walking around and thinking of what to do. I ended up going back to the hostel and took a long nap. Then, more walking around looking for something light to eat because I wasn't really hungry after eating a PB sandwich, but I wanted more that just that. I ended up with a simple sandwich and the hopped online.

I still have an hour left but I can use it tomorrow too, so I think I'll do that. Goodnight all!

Less Exploration, More Information

2008-09-17T01:30:00.005-11:00

The new hostels is definitely better than the last. I've sat in the pub a lot and watched football with a pint. Good way to spend the evening. And the staff are cool too. So it's been a good place for me so far. Unfortunately, when I booked it, Friday and Saturday nights were full but I asked today if any spots opened up and there was. So for 2 nights I'll have to move from a 6 bed room to a 16 bed room. That's a lot of people...But then I'll move back into the 6 beds. Not a big problem, and if people snore, I have ear plugs! And if I snore, well, that's their problem isn't it?

Nothing very exciting has happened. I did get back to Hyde Park and saw Peter Pan's statue. He just won't grow up! That's about it for adventures. Well, this might not be an adventure, but more so a quest. Because I forgot my alarm clock, I went to try and find a cheap watch or small alarm clock. You cannot believe how hard it is to find a cheap watch! The cheapest one I saw (when actually looking) was about 60 pounds. Now, back in Deptford, I went to a market and saw a watch for 5 pounds, but I thought to myself, I can find a better one for just as cheap somewhere else, so I didn't get it. I was WRONG! Clearly. If I were at home, I could have found a watch right away, no problem. In fact, I challenge you, my faithful readers, to find a cheap watch in the cities (not on the internet!). Preferably one with an alarm. Report back to me on how much it cost. Bet it's less than 60 pounds (about 110 dollars).

Well, after a few days searching in any type of shop I could think of, I finally went into one that had small alarm clocks for 10 pounds. After so much frustration, I bought it so I now have a clock for my room. If I need it on the road, I thought I could stick it in my bag. Or if I am really desperate, I can buy one of those 5 pound watches and stick it in my pocket. I don't really want anything on my wrists, not my style you see.

I have been trying to keep myself well fed because it is an easy way to save money by not eating right? Well, I am forcing myself to spend at least 15 pounds a day for food. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and bought some apples, clementines, tuna, and bread so I have a few meals there. That might be my lunch or snacks for the day. I can even make myself a peanut butter sandwich in a bag lunch because I have a few sandwich bags with me. Yay! Lunch in the park!

The last few days I've woken up with a bit of a stuffy nose and lightly sore throat. I do not want to get sick over here, that would suck. So I put some echinacea into my nalgene so I'll be drinking it all day to boost the ole immune system.

And as of today, I haven't gotten to do much for my research. I'm still waiting to hear back from my contact at the Wallace Collection. He said he would email me today a time when we could meet. Nothing yet, but it's only 1pm. I have tried to go to libraries and research out of books but I have been to many libraries and have not found any books on arms and armoury. I searched the database of Westminster libraries and there was one in the westminster reference library, but it didn't seem like that good of a source. It was about the evolution of all weapons, "from flint axes to machine guns". I might go look at it anyway, but that's kind of far away. Maybe I'll just by my own book.

Lastly, I have been able to get on the internet for free an hour a day because I got a library card with the Westminster libraries that is for internet use only. If I wanted to upgrade to a card where I could check books out (I don't) I would just have to give them an address. Pretty helpful though. Even more so that my hostel is about 6 blocks away. I've only got 10 mins left on this session so I'm gonna check a few more things and be kicked off.

Until next time friends, same bat time, same bat channel!

Mitch Andrejka: Live at Hyde Park

2008-09-13T22:36:00.003-11:00

The earplugs helped a lot. I was able to sleep through the night and having a good nights sleep under my belt, I felt a lot better. I went to the Wallace Collection today to meet with the contact but when I got there, he wasn't working that day. So I'll go back today. Instead, I looked around the collection for a while and it's a pretty cool place. Lots of armoury stuff and paints and what not. After that, I wondered around Regent Park and thought about going to the zoo but didn't want to go alone. I also thought about asking to play soccer with some guys in the park but chickened out...Whatever.

After Regent Park I went to Hyde Park. There are a lot of neat statues in that park. Even one of Peter Pan! I missed it though so I'll go back to see it. The statue of Achilles was cool though. Then it was starting to get late and I was starting to get hungry so I found an Italian place and had a meal there. I'm not used to eating at a nice place alone. Usually I will have some company to enjoy it with, so a little lonely came back, but then I got the food and it went away again! I had a real Caesar salad and spaghetti! Yeah, it was good. After that I walked to find where my bus would pick me up. Somehow, I stumbled upon Piccadilly Circus, I don't really understand what the attraction to that place is. But I guess that's just me. Anyway, I caught my bus and headed back.

I had only booked my hostel for 3 nights so now I am moving to a different one that is closer to the places I need to be. I did not like sitting on the bus for an hour getting back and forth. My new hostel I booked for 9 days and is just north of Hyde Park. This area feels better to me I think. But then again, I got used to Deptford too. It's still morning here so I don't have any more adventures from today, but I'll get on again later to tell about them!

Destination: London

2008-09-12T06:49:00.002-11:00

Thursday was our departure date and I don't have a clock yet so that means I don't have an alarm yet, but I needed to be up at 730. So what did I do but put an alarm in me! Gross...But not really, I chugged 2 bottles of water before bed so I would have to wake up early. Works every time. After a little breakfast, Carly and I were off to the bus station. We arrived at the station with plenty of time to spare, which was good because I would rather be early to something I have never done before than be late and miss our bus out...

So we goton the bus and had a simple ride until we got to the France/UK border where we had to get out and go through customs. The French customs went fairly quickly but when we got to the UK to show our passports, one guy took a very long time with Carly by asking her a lot of questions, many of them probably not important to anything but he made it seem like they were. So she took the longest and was the last one through. From that point our bus drove into a train to take us through the chunnel. Pretty cool way to get through if I do say so myself.

The rest of the ride went smoothy and eventually we were at Victoria bus station. We ate dinner at a pizza place near by, then tried to help each other figure out where we were going. Eventually we told each other good luck and have a good trip and went our seperate ways. I rode the bus to Deptford and found my hostel soon after.

That night was kind of not what I wanted. I had been tired from going to bed late and waking up early in Paris so I wanted to get a good night's sleep. I went to sleep pretty early but was woken up around 3 by one of the people snoring. Not nice. I hoped that he would stop soon which he did, but then someone else started to snor even louder. Not nicer. Then wouldn't you know it, the other guy starts up again. So after a bit of dealing with that I got up and watched some TV until I was tired enough to think I could deal with it. I returned to bed at about 5 and forced myself asleep. Today I bought myself some ear plugs...

I walked from Deptford to the Tower of London today (4 miles maybe?) and had a look in there. While I was there, they had a demonstraition of different siege machines. After the demo I went to talk to one of the guys. After a bit I told him about my project and what I plan on doing. It turns out he is an armourist and knows of a guy who would pretty much be all I need for my project. So I got both contacts and will try to find that guy tomorrow.

Being the first day away from Paris and the rest of the group, I am feeling kind of lonely because London is such a big place and I don't know anyone. In addition to this morning's incident it was a tricky first day, but the sun came out in the afternoon things felt a little better. We'll see how tomorrow goes!

Bonjour Paris!

2008-09-10T03:04:00.004-11:00

So the first day in Paris was spent walking around getting accustomed to Europe and the metro and whatnot. I didn't have much fun. But the next day I enjoyed much more. It started out by taking a walk to the Eiffel Tower with a girl in the program named Heidi. But we didn't know how to get there and we weren't about to use a map! So we wandered around for a while until eventually we found it! It was pretty neat and really big!! After that we went our separate ways because she had something to do. So I walked by the river for a while and it was really nice. No one really bothered me or anything. I just got to walk. There were however 2 "incidents". The first time happened and I didn't really know what was going on.

Here's the story: I was walking along the river and in front of me a woman bends down and picks up a gold ring she found on the ground. She walks up to me and asks, in English, "is this gold?" I said "I don't know". She kept asking me that and then wanted to give it to me and I refused. What do I want with a stupid gold band? She really wouldn't take no for an answer. So after saying it about 20 times I ended up walking away.

Later on in the day and further down the river a man in front of me bends down and picks up the same looking gold ring and attempts to approach me but I did not give him a second glance. He was like "Sir! Hey!" and he even tried to whistle but I wasn't gonna waste my time. It wasn't until after I told the story back at the hostel that someone said they probably were pick pocketers which makes a lot sense. Fortunately, I kick booty-butt so I foiled their schemes!

So continuing on with my walk, I saw a lot of cool statues, the Arc du Triumph (from afar) the obelisk (awesome) Notre Dame (huge) and a holocaust memorial. So it was a very nice walk, long and alone. Then later that night a large group went back to the Eiffel Tower to see it up close when it was lit up. We also brought a bottle of wine to share. I opened it with a corkscrew but have never done it that way before. If you ever do, make sure you have it on a sturdy surface. I was just holding it so it spilled all over one side of my pants, on my shirt, and a little on my jacket. That made me a little peeved. So I went to the bathroom to wash it off as well as I could but it was still a big stain and now with a big wet splotch so it looked like I peed myself... Awesomely, when I got back to my room I used my tide bleach pen and by morning the stain was gone. A good day.

On Sunday, I was going to go to a museum with a bunch of people but then some left early or something and it was whittled down to me and Jasmin. She was supposed to get me at 130 so I was waiting in my room reading.(Count of Monte Cristo; very different from the movie but I like it) I waited a long time, when I looked at the clock it was 215 so I was like oh, nice. I found out later she had taken a 3 hour nap. So I went for another walk this time around Le Jardin De Luxembourg. That was a nice walk too. I walked around looking at the art and listened to a community jazz band for a while. Ended up a pretty nice day.

On Monday a few of us went to visit the catacombs but when we got there, it was closed because all museums are closed on Mondays in Europe so bummer. Then we got lost on the way back, but not badly. That night 4 of us went out to eat with the advisers and Ian said he would buy me a beer so he did. I got some sort of Belgian ale that he said he tried and didn't like, but I liked it.

Tuesday, Carly and I went to the bus station because we are both going to London. So we hopped on the metro and got all the stuff worked out to hopefully have a smooth departure. On the way back, we stopped to find Jim Morrison's grave. It was hard to find because the graveyard wasn't put together quite logically so lot 79 was next to 28 but eventually we found it so that was cool to see. That evening a few of us went out with our advisers again and I had a 3 course meal that was 2/3 really good. The first course I had escargot, which is seafood so why wouldn't I like it? Then I had roasted leg of lamb with au gratin potatos, yum! However, for dessert, I tried to go European style and got saiette au trois fromages, three cheeses with a little salad. The salad was nice, but the cheese was...stinky. STINKY! icky. I started out with a brie which was fine, then moved to a type of goat cheese I think, not too bad either. But then I got to the last one, don't know what it was but it was TERRIBLE!!! I could barely get the piece I ate down. From then on I couldn't stomach the others and ended up giving up. It was bad, but still fun to try anyway!

On Wednesday, we successfully got to see the catacombs and that was nifty. 6 million Parisians are down there. That's a lot of bones... I got some creepy pictures of skulls and whatnot, so that was fun and kind of eerie. Then we came back to the foyer and I have been having a very relaxing afternoon reading on the terrace. Yet another lovely day!

I leave for London tomorrow. I will be taking the bus with Carly who is also going to London. We weren't sure how the bus got over the Channel but when we asked the bus people, they gave us a choice of a ferry of taking the chunnel. We didn't think that would be an option, but apparently it is. So hopefully around 2 o'clock tomorrow we'll be under the English Channel! I'll let you know how it goes.

Airport Fun

2008-09-05T04:36:00.005-11:00

So on my day of departure I wake up at 6am. Not because I was nervous, but because I was woken by a dog barking...Whatever though. So I had some time to kill so I made sure I was all packed (for about the 10th time) and did some other last minute things. Our itinerary was to fly into Chicago O'hare then on to Paris. Unfortunately, there was some bad weather in Chicago so we were delayed an hour. That meant we would have to get off our plane and run to the other gate to get to Paris on time. Lucky for us, they waited a little bit longer to make sure we got on ok.

Next came the 9 hour plane ride. That sucked because if you know me, you'll know I'm not meant for small places. Plus, the guy in front of me had his seat reclined the whole flight which gave me even less room. I wasn't too happy.

We finally got into Paris and to fight off jet lag, we haven't got to sleep yet. So I'm also a little tired. It probably didn't help that we have been walking around all day either...in the rain... So it has started off as a great trip!

And please mind the typos. The European keyboard isn't QWERTY so my fingers are confused... this is q sentence typed hoz ,y fingers think it should be typed; So itùs close; but not auite right1

Almost set to leave

2008-08-27T04:26:00.002-11:00

Just a few days till I leave for Europe (Sept 4th) so I thought I'd start this up so anyone can see what I'm up to without having to remember everyone I need to email. So I'll do my best to keep this updated but I'm not really a blogger so we'll see how it goes.

For those who do not know what I'm doing: I am in a program called Semester Abroad: Europe. It's different from any travel abroad program because I will not be attended any schools over there. I will be researching an independent project of my choosing in a location, also of my choice. My current idea is to study the medieval arms and armories at different museums. Exactly what I'm going to study, I still don't know but I will go over there a do some generalized research to see what I'm interested in. I plan on starting at a museum in Leeds and see where I should go from there. I will be staying in hostels all along the way. The best part of this program is when we get there, we will stay in Paris for a week with none other than the Eiffel Tower right outside our window. Our next group meeting will be in Levanto, Italy for a few days then, for the rest of our time there (return flight on Dec 16th) we get to travel around Europe and have a blast doing it.

So I'm in the process of packing and almost have everything I need (I think). Don't try to call me while I'm over there, I'm going to put my phone on suspension so instead of paying $50 a month, it's only $10. So that's nice.