The World as seen by Bouds

2007-03-09T01:04:00.000-05:00

Day 68 - Paris to Zermatt

2005-11-23T23:59:00.000-05:00

Got up at 7, determined to make the 8:40 train from Paris to Geneva and then from there to see the Matterhorn. It was a spur of the moment decision to go, but i really have nothing but time and have wanted to go to Zermatt ever since i saw Matt (Moore) and Geoff's (Matthews) pics from their trip a couple years ago. At the time i thought it looked like one fo the nicest places ever and had to go see for myself while have the chance. Would be a long, long ride there, but i was hoping worth it.

I was an idot though and hadn't packed so it took awhile to get moving, woke up everybody in my hostel dorm room banging around in the dark, and for the 3rd day in a row didn't get a chance to shower. Class act. I finally got on the road and rushed out to the subway station and then under the city to the Lyons station.

I got there with time to spare, only to see utter madness inside the station. . Just happend that my big travel day decided to coincide witha one day train strike by the lazy French.

Awesome!

Luckily though not all trains were stopped, but only about 1 in 5 regular trains were running, meaning I couldn't get out of Paris until 10:30. So that whole getting up early, rushing out the door thing was for nothing. I'm sure the people in my room would be happy to hear that. And with the way my body felt after last nights festivities, a couple more hours of sleep could have done me a world of good.

So with two hours to kill i went off in search of breakie and eventually found a place to have a coffee and omelette at a somwhat reasonable price.

Two hours later i was tucked in my seat on the train and off for the land of tunnel cheese!

The ride was great. Really nice train and some of the most amazing views, especially as we got closer and closer to Switzerland.

Day 67 - Dublin to Paris

2005-11-22T23:59:00.000-05:00

Got up at 6:30, finished packing headed off for this spot near the Spire where the airport shuttle apparently leaves from. Picked up a local Irish delicacy for breakfast, then made it to the spot just in time for the bus. Ride was just under an hour, then checked in for the flight where they charged me 28 Euro extra because i was 4 kg over the 15 kg 'Ryan Air Limit'. Bastards. Then had to sit around for 3 hours for the flight because it was almost an hour late leaving.

The flight was fine. Went up, came down an hour and a bit later, and lost an hour because of time zones. So by the time we landed back at the Beauvais Airport it was almost 2 local time.

Waiting for my luggage i met this kig, Elliot from Ottawa who's only 18 and is taking a year off before going to university. We rode the bus from Beauvais to Paris together, than took the subway together back to the Aloha hostel.

By the time we got to the hostel it was almost 4. Soon as we walked in i ran into Mike (the guy we met originally in Vienna adn then again in Paris the night before we left for Ireland). He'd been there since we left and was leaving the next day for Belgium.

I dropped my stuff off in my room, cleaned up abit, then the 3 of us hit the grocery store to get some cheap beer for the night. On teh way back we hit 'Old Faithful', the same Chineese place that me and Rob had eaten at so many times before. Mike and Elliot were very surprised with the big hello and hand shake that i got from the two owners when we walked in....haha.

We brought the food back to the hostel, ate, then headed to the upstairs common room/movie room. We hung out there for the rest of the night talking, playing cards and telling stories. The three of us ended up being joined by two 20 year old girls who were quite the amusing pair (Edmonton and Melbourne) as well as a very annoying kid from PEI adn later in teh night by a very, very drunk Aussie girl who didn't seem willing to give us the time of day earlier, but was now all of a sudden loving us in her drunken haze. We all got pretty wired up together and all crawled upstairs to bed at some point when the beer was gone. Elliot was especially done in by trying to keep up with Mike and me. The poor kid was in a world of hurt and had he not got so drunk could have had either of the two 20 year old we were with all night....haha. Stupid kid.

Day 66 - Limerick to Dublin (again)

2005-11-21T23:59:00.000-05:00

Got up at 10 and rushed to dress, make sure i had all my stuff, siad goodbye to Rob, and then caught a cab to the train station.

ON MY OWN!!!

THANK GOD!

(just kidding of course)

I was actually pretty sad leaving Rob behind. I was really hoping he´d change his mind last minute and change his flight and come with me.

So i got to the statioon and hopped on the 11:30 train to Dublin. That first train ride was really weird being alone for the first time in almost 8 weeks. I got to Dublin around 2:30, then jumped on a city bus to Temple Bar and then walked to Temple Lane where i was staying at Barnacle´s hostel. Pretty sweet hostel. Very nice and clean, big enough rooms and beds, and a huge kitchen area for cooking your own meals. I threw my stuff on my bed, chatted abit with the two girls in my room (from South Africa and Italia) and made plans to meet the South African girl, Lindsey, for a pint at 8ish. Then i headed off to wander on my own.

I wandered around the Temple Bar area and south of there for a couple hours, stopping to do some shopping and buy some presents and souvenirs and then bought some pasta and sauce at a market on the way back to the hostel.

When i got back i decided to go for a quick stroll north of the river and found a place that would cut my hair for €6. I just told the guy ´short´and next thing you know he pulled the clippers out and did a stroke through my hair. Apparently ´short´means pretty much bald in Ireland. So me and my crewcut wandered abit more then back to the hostel, showered, cooked, and ate.

I met Lindsey at 8 and we went for a walk looking for a pub (not hard in this area). We ended up wandering in a big loop for 30 minutes and ended up right back where we started, right next to our hostel at a pub called The Temple Bar (in Temple Bar....confusing). Lindsey turned out to be yet another med student, studying in Johanesburg and is in Ireland during the African Summer Break (December through March) to work and live in a new country for the sheer experience. She´d landed a job in a coffee shop and for a cateror part time.

We had a couple pints of Guiness each and chatted about our countries and compared how different they are. Very, very different. When she asked me after our first pint if i wanted another, i responded ´Does a bear shit in the woods? ´, to which she responded, ´I don´t know. We only have regular animals back home like lions, elephants, and rhinos.´.

Case in point.

An Irish band started playing during our second pint, so we watched them for awhile, then called it a night early (11ish) and both went to bed as she had to be at the coffeeshop at 6, and i had to leave the hostel by 7ish.

Day 65 - Limerick

2005-11-20T23:59:00.000-05:00

Got up around 10 and then we sat around waiting for Dave to come home from Maureen´s. He´d reserved a car for us so we could drive up the coast to see the cliffs and go to Galway. We gave him a call around 11 and he said he´d be back by 12:30.

12:30 went by.

1:30 went by.

2:30; Dave shows up.

Was a bit annoying because i was excited to get out into the country and see a bunch, but with him coming back so late and with it getting dark so early, we wouldn´t get a chance to see much. Can´t complain though, he has been really awesome to us and let me stay for free basically for 4 nights, so no big deal. Another place i´ll just have to come back to.

So we got going by about 3 adn set off for the Cliffs of Moher. The drive was pretty awesome through the green of Ireland. I love how they leave old stone structures standing in the middle of fields. Some of them look awesome. Especially the ones where there´s only a wall or two left with the old window holes still there. The roads were soooo narrow. I don´t think i´ve ever seen anything narrower and whinedier (is that real word?).

We got to the cliffs of Moher, parked and then wlaked the path up along a field to the edge of a cliff. We could see down the coast at a bunch of other cliffs. It was gorgeous. By the time we got there it was 4, so the sun was pretty low in the sky, making for some awesome pictures. the cliffs were huge; they must be at least 150 feet. I´m guessing they could see me waving all the way from Newfoundland. From there we drove south down the coast which was pretty nice too, and then back to Limerick.

At 8:30 we went out to a steak house where i had my first steak in over 2 month. It was awesome. We got back to Dave´s around 10:30 and he headed to bed because he had to work early Monday and me and Rob stayed up for a bit and had a couple beer. It was our last night together so we hung out for a bit, remembered some of the thing that´ve happened to us together over the past few weeks, then went to bed ourselves.

It has definately been good.

We´ve had some amazing times together, seen and done some crazy things. Its so weird that we´ve both been looking forward to this tirp for so long and just like that its done. Its gonna be weird for the next couple weeks to not have Rob there for everything, especially on trains and hostels (who´m i supposed to snuggle with a night now!?). thing just won´t be the same. I know it´ll be fine travelling on my own, but half the fun has been having a good friend to share it with and he has definately been that....tear, tear.

Day 64 - Dublin to Limerick

2005-11-19T23:59:00.000-05:00

Took us awhile to get moving this morning after the debauchery of the night before. Woke up to the smell of half eaten chicken chow-mein mixed in with the wonderful smell of Rob´s shoes and Dave (he just stunk period).

When we finally did get moving we caught a cab down to the Guiness brewery. The whole operation is actually absolutely huge and Guiness property and warehouses and stuff stretch along a huge portion of the river and through alot of the downtown area.

There was a pretty big line to get in (seeing as it was Saturday and the Guiness brewery is ´the only place worth visiting in Dublin´) and about half an hour later we got in. It wasn´t really a ´brewery tour, more like a museum. Pretty much teh same as the Heineken museum, but for Guiness. Had all the history of how Arthur Guiness switched from brewing an ale to a porter and how he roasted his hops to get the black colour of Guiness. Then there was a bunch of stuff about how Guiness used to be shipped, about how they brewed it and brew it now, and a whole floor dedicated to the famous Guiness posters and slogans. The whole museum was in the old brew house and started on the ground floor and we kept going up from floor to floor until eventually we were up on the top floor where they have a big circular bar on the roof with a 360 degree view of Dublin called the Gravity Bar. When we got up there we got a pint of Guiness (i asked if they had anything Canadian on tap and only got a stare....sense of humour = negative). They pour it in a pattern so that when they top it up there´s an outline of a shamrock in the head (foam). Pretty cool. I have to say that i´m definately more of a Guiness fan leaving Dublin than i was coming in.

Of course on the way out of the museum you have to walk through the store where i bought more stuff than i have room for in my bag. They must make sooooo much money there. After the museum we walked around for a bit and Dave took us for a walk through the Trinity College campus (where he did his med school). Pretty nice campus.

We got back to the train station in time to catch the 3:30 train to Limerick beacuse Dave had to get back for a hospital ball at 7. All we´d had to eat all day was a pint of Guiness so we grabbed a few €5 sandwiches and bottles of Coke at the station.

We got back to Limerick and cabbed back to Dave´s place by just after six. Dave hurried to get ready and Maureen came by with Dave´s tuxedo and brought me and Rob her DVD player so that we could rent some movies. We hung out with Max for awhile while he waited for Dave to get ready.

Dave has got to be the slowest person i´ve ever met (maybe even slower than Oreo). Dave, on several occasions over the course of the weekend, would say 30 minutes and be ready or show up an hour and a half later.

After they finally left, me and Rob walked to the mall and hit the Tesco (grocery store) for some dinner food adn then rented a couple movies (Ring 2 adn Soldiers and Saints). We got back to Dave´s cooked some pasta for dinner, then just watched some movies and went to bed.

Day 63 - Limerick to Dublin

2005-11-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

We got up around 11 with both Millman boys looking pretty rough. Well...they´re both pretty ugly to start with...but they managed to look even worse come the morning.

We got up, cleaned up, showered, then headed for the train station to catch a train to Dublin. We got on the 12:30 train and then switched trains at Limerick Junction and got to Dublin around 2:30. We jumped in a cab and went to our hotel, dropped off our bags, and then went to ´Rocket Eddy´s´for a burger and fries.

From there we rolled north for about 40 minutes to Temple Bar. ´Temple Bar´isn´t actually a bar, its an area of town, on the south side of the river where there are a ton of old old pubs and stores with the streets pretty much all cobblestone.

So we sat down and had our first pint of Guiness and watched some crickett (Australia/West Indies) and after our pint switched to a different pub, had another pint of the ´black gold´, then to yet another pub where we this time stayed for a few pints and watched a small group playing Irish tunes for awhile. Form there we hit a couple more pubs, but none of the 3 of us much remember much about those.

We´re not 100% sure how we got home or when, but i know i got Chineese food from the place around the corner and we also know that Dave passed out hard, fully clothed, and then snored his ass off.

Day 62 - Paris to Limerick

2005-11-17T23:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 8 and rushed to get dressed, packed, and get to the bus station to catch our shuttle to the Beauvais airport where our Ryan Air flight was leaving for Shannon, Ireland. Our flight was only €19 each ($30 Canadian about) including tax, but the pain in the ass thing about Ryan Air is that although they´re very cheap, they always fly out of very remote airports that usually cost you as much to get to as the actual flight cost.

We took the Metro out to where we were told the airport shuttles left from and once we got there were absolutely lost. We met up with a girl from Calgary looking for the same mysterious ´parking lot across from the mall´where the bus was supposed to leave from for Beauvais. We finally found a parking lot, full of people with bags adn suitcases, looking just as confused as us. There were about 150 people and only one bus and we thought we were screwed for getting to the airport, but soon enough a few more buses showed up and about an hour after getting off the subway, we finally made it onto a bus for the hour bud ride to the station.

After getting to the airport and a quick bite to eat at the smallest airport we´ve seen yet in Europe (think Timmins here people...) we jumped on the plane and were airborn towards the green island by just after 2 o´clock (30 minutes ahead of the scheduled departure time). We had a beer on the plane to help calm the nervous flyer between the two of us down and we landed in Shannon (just north of Limerick) at 2:30 (but really a 1.5 hour flight) local time adn then sat around for almost an hour waiting for the bus to take us to Limerick. the bus finally showed up just before 4 adn we got to Limerick just before 5. Rob´s brother Dave was waiting for us at the station.

Rob´s brother has been in Ireland for a few years studying medicine. He did med school at Trinity College in Dublin and is now doing his residency in Limerick.

So we took a cab to his place that he shares with two other med interns, we showered, dropped off our stuff, adn then went to a place called Luigi Malone´s (we magaged to polish off all of Dave´s beer somehow too before leaving).

Luigi Malone´s was definately the fanciest place we´ve been in on this trip and without Dave we had zero business being there at all. It was a sweet place. Me and Rob kinda felt like everyone in the place stopped talking and eating to stare at us as we came in. No. Everybody DID stop talking and eating to stare at us as we came in. I´m sure we were there first backpackers of 2005. We met up with Dave´s girlfriend, Maureen, and a few of her friends, a couple other random people, and one of Dave´s housemates, Max, from Edmonton (also doing meds in Limerick). We had a bunch of beer, wings, and then a big, and very good meal. The whole thing was awesome. And the bill definately reflected that. Huge. But thank god for us, Dave treated us. Very, very nice of him. Awesome guy.

Form there we went to Nancy ´Something´s bar where we had a few rounds, but not many because last call was called at midnight. Apparently all the pubs in Limerick close at midnight becuase otherwise there are too many fights that break out. The Irish apparently don´t manage their booze well. You can still, though, go to clubs after the pubs close, so we went to a place pretty much right across the road with a €7 cover charge then we hung out there for a couple hours. Rob went home with Max at about 1:30 and i stayed with Dave till about 2:30, then home to bed.

Day 61 - Paris

2005-11-16T23:59:00.000-05:00

Last day in Paris.

We´ve been here since last Monday, so 10 days now. Awesome city. Tons to see and do and great atmosphere. I think i´ve also enjoyed it because i can actually talk to the locals here. Being able to communicate helps alot for sure and makes everything alot easier. Even just being here for a week and a half my French has gotten alot better than when we first arrived. Been speaking French quit abit, especially when we were with Gabrielle and Laticia who i only talk to en Francais.

Anyways.

We got up at 9 and headed on the Metro to the French Science Center (Cite des Sciences). We´d pretty much done everything in Paris we wanted to and we´d saw signs for this huge Star Wars exposition at the Cite des Science, so we thought´d nerd it up and head there for a few hours to check it out.

We got to the center around 10:30 and paid for the Star Wars Expo which also gave us access to the rest of the exhibits in the science center. The Star Wars stuff was pretty cool. The exhibit had a whole bunch of the costumes, models, and sets from the 6 movies. There was alot of ´behind the scenes´type stuff where they explained how they did different parts of the movies and explained some of the science (possible or not possible) behind different parts of the movie. It was good.

We spent about an hour and a half going through the Star Wars stuff and then another hour or so going through the rest of the center which really wasn´t that good. From there we jumped back on the Metro and headed to Sacre Coeur, a big church (yup...yet another church) up on a hill looking down over the city and probably has a whole history and significance that i don´t know.

So we got there around 2, go hassled by the Africans looking to sell you anything they can think of, went through the church adn the crypt underneath, then climbed up to the viewing platform in one of the towers. The view from the top was pretty good, but definately not as good as from the Arc de Triomphe. From there we had a quick cappuccino while my pics got burnt to cd at the store next door.

We took the subway back to the hostel and hung out and showered and stuff. We met up with a bunch of older Aussie boys and this guy from London, ON who we´d met back in Vienna at Wombat´s. So we got a bunch of beer from the corner store and spent the rest of the night hanging out and watching Road Trip (again) and Austin Powers, laughing our asses off.

Day 60 - Paris

2005-11-15T23:59:00.000-05:00

Slept through our alarm abit and didn´t get up and moving till almost 10:30. When we finally did get moving, we hit a bakery for a ham&cheese sandwich on a baguette as well as a chocolate mini-baguette, then jumped on the Metro and headed for the RER line that goes to Versailles. Luckily we found out that the RER is covered by our Eurail passes so we got the hour ride to Versailles for free.

We got to Versaille around 12:30 and headed straight for the castle. It was only about a five minute walk from the station and when we rounded the corner and faced the castle we were blown away by how huge it was. It was way bigger than the castles we visited in Stuttgart and Vienna.

We walked up to the front entrace of the castle, then roamed around to the back to the gardens. They were incredible. Going straight back from the castle where was a long long major path with huge fountains and a big long rectangular pond further down. Off to either side of the main path there were tons of small paths weaving through hedges and a small forest.

We spent about 2 hours just wandering around the gardens, sat down in a little hidden alcove type thing with a water fountain for awhile and then through King Louis XIV´s private section of the garden. It was pretty insane how huge and well manichured the whole thing was.

From there we went into the castle and took a tour through the royal apartments. They were REALLY nice. Everything was incredible from the frescoes on every single ceiling to the famous paintings and the highly detailed furniture, walls, framets, etc. Definately felt like you would expect a royal palace would. I couldn´t imagine living in there...no t.v. anywhere.

After the tour we went back towards the station, bought a few souvenirs, then took the train back to Paris and went straight back to the hostel to shower and relax for awhile.

At 6:30ish we went back to the same old Chineese place for one last meal then went to Gabrielle and Laticia´s place. We stayed there for about 2 and a half hours playing cards and me and each each burnt the pics from our digital camera. Back to the hostel afterwards, movie, then bed.

Day 59 - Paris

2005-11-14T23:59:00.000-05:00

We got up midmorning and tried to figure out what to do for the day. Everything seems to be closed in Paris on Mondays so our options were limited. We wanted to go to Versailles, but again, closed, so we decided we´d do that tomorrow and spedn the day walking around Paris, exploring some new areas.

We finally got our asses out of the hostel by noonish, hit a couple bakeries and a coffeeshop, then headed toward the Seine. We headed up past the Notre-Dame Cathedral adn then north to the Picasso Museum. We´d heard from someone in Normandy that it was pretty good, so we paid and spent a little over an hour checking out the museum.

The whole thing was filled with nothing but Pablo´s work, most of which were his sketches and doodles of his famous complete works. It was pretty interesting to see how his sketches evolved from one to next, and then finally into a final product. But wow....was he ever one messed up dude. Definately a gear or two not turning somewhere, but obviously people love it, or there wouldn´t be a museum dedicated to just his work.

Aftewards we did some shopping on le Champs-Elysees and walked around the Arc de Triomphe, then back south across the Seine, under the Eiffel Tower (we´ve been under it so many times that the novelty has pretty much worn off...its just the way to go now), then back to our hostel, grabbing some snacks and Chineese food (from the same place as always) along the way.

We were both exhausted after walking for 7 hours straight, so we just spent the rest of the night in the hostel relaxing and watching movies again.

Day 58 - Paris

2005-11-13T23:59:00.000-05:00

We got up very late. We were all so tired after our full day Saturday that all 4 of us slept till noon. We finally got up, had breakfast, and sat around for awhile. I took a walk down the block to make sure there was room for us that night at the Aloha Hostel (turns out there was) adn then i went back, we grabbed our bags, thanked Gabrielle and Laticia for their hospitality, and then headed for to the hostel.

The rest of the day was one of our most uneventful yet, but great. We both spent the day catching up in our journals, i updated my blog, we each read our books for awhile, and napped abit too. Very nice, relaxing day.

We hit the grocery store and made pasta in the downstairs kitchen for dinner and then watched a couple movies (Something about Mary and Road Trip) in the hostel with a bunch of other people staying here and then to bed by 1ish.

Day 57 - Paris

2005-11-12T23:59:00.000-05:00

Gabrielle and Laticia got us up at 8:30ish and we had croissants, coffee, and toast for breakie adn then we took off for the Paris Opera House up north of the Seine River. We decided to walk up there and enjoy Paris so we headed north and under the Eiffel Tower; it was cool because you couldn´t even see the top of it because clouds were so low (it was drizzling out). Then we crossed the Seine adn walked through a food market with all kinds of fresh seafood, breads, cheese, and poultry (they had full partridge type birds for sale, wings, feet, heads and all; weird).

By the time we actually made it up to the opera house it was almost 12:30 and Laticia jumped on the Metro home from there because she had to do some homework. So the 3 of us guys skipped out on the opera house and went to a strip joint instead.

Kidding...we went to the opera house...have the pics to prove it. It was a pretty cool place all done up in marble with gold chandeliers everywhere. There was a very impressive stairwell with all kinds of statues around and awesome big balconies looking down over the stairwell and then a huge hallway in the upstairs part that looked fit for royalty (i´m a royalty expert now after several royal palaces by the way...). We also got to go into one of the boxes and see the opera hall itself which was alot smaller than i would´ve thought, but very elegant and fancy none-the-less.

After looking around for about an hour, Gabrielle left us to go do some work himself and me and Rob stopped at a placed called the American Dream for lunch which was expensive and ended up being terrible.

From there we took the Metro south and got off at the station nearest to Les Invalides, home to Napolean´s tomb. We went into Les Invalides and did a tour of the cathedral with Napolean´s tomb (over 5m or 15 feet high by 4m or 12 feet wide) and then did a tour of the French World War II museum also located in Les Invalides.

It was pretty interesting to compare the French, Belgian, Canadian, and German views of WW2 after having been in museums in all 4 places. It was particularly interesting to see how the French concentrated more on the French rebels than the fact that their government basically rolled over to Hitler and fled Paris although they had one of the largest armies in the world at the time. It was pretty crazy to see the pictures of Hitler in Paris, particularly the one in front of the Eiffel Tower.

We got back to Gabrielle and Laticia´s by 5:30 and we clead up and then left their place at 7 for a creperie around the corner from their place. I had crepes with sausage and eggs then crepes with strawberries for dessert and then headed for the Metro. Gabrielle and Laticia treated us to the dinner...very nice (Thank you again!).

The metro to the Stade de France took about 35 minutes and we hurried to get in the stadium for the start of the game; me and Rob bought ´Aller France!´ scarves along the way with the French rooster on it. We got in just in time to see the teams come out on the field.

The stadium was HUGE. It was amazing. Its the stadium that Paris built for the ´98 World Cup and it sits almost 90 thousand people. We were in the upper deck but were still surprisingly close to the field. It was pretty awesome being there, cheering ´Allez les Blues!´ (Go Blue!) with all the other French fans.

I do have to give it to the Germans though. The two or three sections of fans that they had consistently made more noies than the French and seemed much crazier. I wanted to go over and sit with them...haha. We even recognized a bunch of the songs from Oktoberfest and at Christian´s in Stuttgart!

The game itself wasn´t all that exciting of a game. Both teams were very cautious and you tell that they aren´t used to playing with each other just yet after being with their club teams all season. Plus, they weren´t wearing skates on ice, with sticks and a puck..... The game finished in a 0-0 tie which sucked. Woulda been good to have seen at least one goal.

The most exciting thing that did happen was a huge brawl in the first level stands right underneath us, behind the French net. It looked like a big group of German fans left their section (all young kids ; teenagers and early 20s) and all of a sudden a whole section was just going at it, fists and feet flying for a solid 5 minutes; it was nuts. The security couldn´t calm them down for a long long time and then eventually kicked out the whole lot of them.

After the game we went back to Gabrielle and Laticia´s place and crashed out. Great, great time at the game and a full, full day of stuff.

Day 56 - Caen / Courseulles

2005-11-11T23:59:00.000-05:00

*** Remembrance Day ***

We got up at 7 and rushed to get our stuff packed, clean up the rooms abit after last night, stick our bags into a spare room, and get to the bus station for 8am to catch the bus to Courseulles-sur-Mer where Juno beach is. We got to the station with lots of time to spare so that we didn´t miss the bus like the train yesterday.

We didn´t miss it.

Instead it just didn´t come.

We didn´t realize that November 11th is a national holiday in France marking the end of the 1st World War, rather than as a day of remembrance for the two World Wars like in Canada. So nothing was open at all adn the buses were all running on Sunday schedules which meant that the first bus to Courseulles-sur-Mer wasn´t leaving until 11:30am and the only ones coming back were at 4:30 or 7, but our train back to Paris was at 7, so we´d have to take the earlier one. so we sat around for 3 hours, had a coffee, and checked with the tourism office to make sure the schedule for today was what we thought it was (we´d been there the day before but they failed to inform us of the holiday....thanks...very helpful....idiots). The lady told me that the bud didn´t stop at the regular place at 11:30, so we went where she told me to go, but when i asked at the coffeeshops around where she said it would be they all told me that no buses stop there.

Great! For sure we´d just wasted 2 days to go to Juno Beach and then not actually get to go out there.

Luckily, Fate decided to side with us this time and the bus did actually show up where the lady said it would be. One the bus we met 3 other people our age from BC and one other from Montreal, all of a sudden making us a group of 9 Canadians.

We got to our bus stop (Champs-des-Oiseaux) at about 12:15 and got to Juno Beach about 15 minutes later. The Juno Beach Center was closed from 1-2, so we spent the next hour and a half walking around Juno Beach Park each on our own trying to imagine what had happened right there on that beach 61 years ago. It was pretty moving. The beach still had a few bunkers and pillboxes left over from D-Day and there were a bunch of plaques and monuments at different places telling stories of what happened there on June 6th, 1944. It was so hard to begin to imagine the horror of what that day must have been like, but made me definately proud to be Canadian and thankful that myself and my generation will likely never have to live through a time like that.

At 2 o´clock we all went up to the Center and did a one hour tour of the museum. The museum was really well done adn was made for the Canadian veterans under their supervision and took us through the whole history of Canada in WW2. They had these special pull-outs with the stories of each of the Victoria Cross recipients and i found and read the story behind why Aubrey Cousens from Porquis Junction (basically Iroquois Falls) earned his Victoria Cross.

At 3 o´clock we went outside for the Remembrance Day ceremony put on by the Juno Beach Center near the beach. There were probably about 150 people there for the 45 minute ceremony. There were no Canadian veterans there, but they had half a dozen French veterans carry the colours and different people from the Courseulles community placed wreathes around the statue outside the center. They had a grade school class from a local public school sing both national anthems and a young girl recited Flanders Fields. The center always has 3 Canadian university students working at the Center and they each said a short speech in both French and English about what being Canadian means to them. The most kind´ve ´special´part was during the two minutes of silence. Here we were, on Juno Beach, observing the two minutes of silence with the waves crashing onto the beach less than 100 meters away. Very moving.

After the ceremony we stayed around for another 30 minutes or so and then hurried to catch our bus back to Caen where we picked up our bags at the hotel, caught a quick bite to eat, and then caught our train back to Paris at 7:30.

We said goodbye to Aaron and the girls when we got back to Paris and met up with Gabrielle and Laticia who were waiting for us back at the station. Gabrielle is a friend of Rob´s girlfriend, Marissa, from back when she did an exchange to France in high school and then last summer Gabrielle and Laticia spent the summer at Marissa´s parents place while Laticia worked at Marissa´s father´s company (or something like that anyways). So anyways, Rob had been in touch with them and they invited us to spend Friday and Saturday night at their place. They were even awesome enough to get us tickets to the international football (soccer) match between France and Germany at the Stade de France in Paris Saturday night.

So we met up with them and then took the bus back to their place. They live in a small one room apartment. Definately not a Canadian apartment. The place is about 12 feet by 15 with a small washroom. They have a raised bed in one corner with a desk underneath, a small kitchen on one side of the room, and a futon next to the desk with a small coffee table and a small tv and stand. Us being there definately was invading their space, so very nice of them to have us at their place.

They´re both French and speak descent English, but get along much better in French, so i got lots and lots of practice with my Francais. When we got in and settled Gabrielle was showing me on a map where we were in Paris and when i started to figure out where we were i asked him if there was a Chineese place around the corner. Turns out there is. Turns out we were less than a block from the Aloha hostel and 100 feet from the Chineese place where we ate two nights in a row before going to Caen. Since we took the bus there though instead of the Metro, we didn´t recognize where we were. Crazy that in all of Paris they just happen to live in the same neighborhood that we´ve been the whole time in Paris.

We sat up talking for awhile then went to bed around 1am. Me and Rob shared the futon and slept together for the 2nd night in a row. He´s getting used to my snuggling and doesn´t fight back (as much) anymore...which is nice.

Day 55 - Paris to Caen (Normandy)

2005-11-10T23:59:00.000-05:00

We got up early, early and met Aaron downstairs in the hostel lobby at 7:30 and the two Quebec girls arrived 10 minutes later from the 3 Ducks. We walked to the nearest Metro stop (Volontaires) and then headed to the Saint-Lazare metro station to catch our train at 8:40.

By the time we got there and the 3 of them got their tickets we were just on time to watch the train pull away and the conductor wave at me (i gave him a good old Canuck salute right back). No big deal though because our schedule said there was another one at 9.

Our schedule was wrong.

We got up early, missed our train, and now we were stuck at the station till 11:30. So we sat around, read, and chatted, then caught the 11:30 to Caen.

Caen is a town in the province of Normandy about the size of Kingston (120 thousand) and was once the home to William the Conqueror and was totally destroyed during WW2 adn was one of the first towns liberated by the Allies after D-Day. Its about a 30 minute ride from Courseulles and Juno Beach where the Canadians landed on D-Day and now home to the Juno Beach Center, dedicated to Canadian war veterans.

We got to Caen around 1:30, got directions to the Central Hotel, and then hoofed the 25 minute walk to the hotel with all our gear. We´d booked 2 rooms; one with a double for the girls and one with a double and a single for the boys. We dumped our shit off in our rooms and Rob stayed back to rest and the 4 of us headed up to the big castle in the middle of town that was built almost 1000 years ago and once home to William the Conqueror. We wandered around the castle adn up on the old walls. Some of the stone steps were so old that they were indented from all the people having stepped on them. It was pretty cool. We hung out there for a couple hours, then wandered through town and ended up at something called Les Abbeyes des Hommes. Not sure what it was, but it had a great looking garden out front with a bunch of flags and the building itself was very nice.

We wandered back to the hotel afterwards and grabbed some food and beer at the grocery store around the corner. Then we just spent the rest of the night eating, drinking beer, and playing cards (ran the Gauntlet ALL night long) and hung out.

Day 54 - Paris

2005-11-09T23:59:00.000-05:00

Somehow i slept through my alarm (i know, i know, very shocking for anyone who knows me well), but we eventually got moving and headed off to the Louvre (in the rain unfortunately). The alk took at least an hour, but again, even in the rain, Paris is gorgeous and a great city to walk around.

We finally made it to the Louvre around 11ish and headed into the big glass pyramid and down the spiral staircase. We dropped of our coats and bags then headed straight for the Mona Lisa. To get there we had to walk down the huge Italian painters hallway lined with more famous paintings than either of us could even come close to understanding and then eventually found the heavily guarded room with Mona Lisa hanging on the wall behind thick glass. The room was, of course, packed, but it was way easier to see it and get close to it than i´d imagined. I´d also heard about how small it was, but to me it was pretty much exactly what i´d expected.

Other than seeing the Mona Lisa, there wasn´t really anything that i was excited to see and i can´t say that i even recognized anything else for the rest of the day. We spent the next 3 hours basically wandering aimlessly through Italian and French paintings, through the Egyptian collection and then through the huge sculpture collection. I probably enjoyed the sculptures more than anything. We got split up somehow in the sculptures and couldn´t find each other at all, but eventually luckily ran into each other at the museum exit adn from there took off west along the Champs-Elysees through les Jardins des Tuleries, towards the Arc de Triomphe.

The walk was WAY longer than it looked on the map. We stopped along the way and each had a ham and cheese crepe (maybe the grossest thing i´ve ever had) and then continued on checking out the awesome shops along the way (where we could never afford a thing other than maybe a pair of socks...and mismatched at that).

We got the Arc about an hour before sunset and went up and through the small museum dedicated to Napolean´s army and then up to the viewing platform. The view was pretty incredible, especially with the sun going down and the great view of the Eiffel Tower. We took some pics and got a great pic of us with the Eiffel Tower in the background (TRAVEL TIP: if you want amazing pictures of yourself, ask an Asian tourist...they´re good).

By the time we walked back to the hostel from the Arc it was almost 7 and we both cleaned up, grabbed some Chineese from the same place (2nd night in a row) and watched part of the movie Traffic on the big screen plasma TV in our hostel and booked a place in Caen for Thursday night. Then i headed with Aaron for a beer at the 3 Ducks and to let the Sherbrooke girls know where and when to meet us in the morning so we could all go to Normandy together, then to bed early.

Day 53 - Paris

2005-11-08T23:59:00.000-05:00

We were originally planning on taking a bike tour around Paris with the same company that we went with in Berlin (Fat Tire Bike Tours), but we decided instead that our time would be better spend going into places rather than biking by them because Paris, arguably of course, has better indoor things to see and less actual ´sights´than Berlin does. Anyways, we didn´t do the bike tour.

Since we were moving hostels we decided to get that out of the way early and walked over to Aloha, then back to the 3 Ducks and met up with the girls from Sherbrooke and headed off for the Paris catacombs. Tooks us about an hour to get there, but the walk was great because Paris is such a pretty city and the weather was so great all day. We walked through an old old cemetary on the way and say the grave of some dead French writer that Andrea really likes adn then found the entrance to the catacombs, which was totally unassuming considering there are the bodies of millions of dead Parisians down in them.

The catacombs in Paris are in an old underground rock quarry that were converted to an underground tomb in the late 1700s because of disease spreading throughout Paris because of the overflowing cemetaries. So basically they exhumed millions of bodies and then under the supervision of priests brought them into these underground tunnels and stacked them all up.

So we paid and then descended th 20m underground and walked through the 1.6 kms of tunnels. It was a bit creepy, dark, and very moist down there, and, oh yeah, there were human skulls and bones stacked everywhere. It was pretty mind blowing to see so many bones everywhere, neatly stacked, in these long underground tunnels. The bones you could see were mostly femurs or large arm bones and skulls and they were stacked 3 to 5 feet high and 5 to 10 feet deep in most places. It was all pretty weird but cool. Must be alot of ghosts down there. It took us about an hour to go through the stretch of tunnels and then came up in a completely different neighborhood seeing as we´d gone a mile underground.

So we got our bearings, then hit a grocery store for a small lunch and found a park to eat in not far from the catacomb entrance. Again, i couldn´t resist and had to feed the pigeons which pissed Andrea off cause she´s terrified of them, and even worse so, so ended up getting shit on because of me....haha.

From there we headed in the direction of the Cathedral to Notre-Dame just after 4 and went into the church in search of Quosi Modo, but to no avail. The church itself was pretty good, maybe a bit of a disappointment as far as the popularity and legend of Notre-Dame, but then again, every church has been a bit of a disappointment after St. Peter´s Basillica, although i hear the one in London is bigger, so i´ll have to check it out.

We left the church and wanted to go up to the top, but they let the last group of the day up 20 seconds before we got there so couldn´t. So form there we walked down the Seine River, watched some trick rollerbladers for awhile, and then stumbled onto the Great Canadian Pub on the bands of the Seine, and were about to sit down and have a pint till we noticed that a pint was going to cost us €6 ($9 Canadian) so we just took a free picture instead then headed back to our hostel.

We cleaned up and relaxed for awhile back at the Aloha and ran into a Canadian guy, Aaron, from London, ON, and he came with us to get some Chineese food from around the corner and then we headed to the 3 Ducks for some beers because our hostel doesn´t have a bar or much of a social scene. We chilled there for a couple hours, then back to the hostel around 1am and went to bed.

Day 52 - Brussels to Paris

2005-11-07T23:59:00.000-05:00

We got up and checkd out of our hostel by 10 and lugged all our stuff down to the main station and then walked down to the main square to buy postcards and souvenirs. Then we jumped back to the station and got on the train to Paris at 11:10.

The train ride was pretty uneventful, but we were both pretty excited to get to Paris (our last major stop together) and were both abit anxious to see what the situation on the ground was goign to be like with the riots going on all over France.

Mom i think was pretty nervous about us going to Paris and tried persuading me to skip France and go to Spain or something instead, but we figured that it couldn´t be bad right downtown Paris where we´d be, and of course, it wasn´t.

We got to Paris around 2:30 (we were on a high speed train) and the second we got out of the station all we saw were cops everywhere. It could be that they always have lots of cops around Paris, but i had the feeling that things were stepped up quite abit because of the situation in the country. So really, central Paris is probably one of the safest places in Europe right now.

So we figured out how to get to the Love&Peace hostel and we walked the 20 minutes only to find out it was booked solid, so we picked another one out of my guidebook that i think somebody from Queen´s told me about called the 3 Ducks and gave them a call. They had room, so they gave me instructions and we took the Metro all the way across town then walked the rest of the way, taking us about another hour in all.

The 3 Ducks is in a great location, right by the Eiffel Tower, but definately was not as nice as other places that we´ve travelled to and stayed at. The rooms were tiny and not that clean looking and were just off a small outdoor courtyard in the middle of the hostel which contained the only two washrooms and showers in the hostel (all outside, dirty, and tiny). so we threw our stuff in our rooms, i showered (Rob hasn´t showered since Amsterdam) and then headed out. We figured we´d check out another hostel close-by to see if it looked better for tomorrow night, the Aloha, and then go check out the tower and eat something.

The Aloha was only a 10 minute walk away and looked much cleaner and nicer so we paid for Tuesday night and then headed for the Tower. By this time it was already dark so the Eiffel Tower was all lit up, and as soon as it hit 6 o´clock, random lights started blinking really quickly all over the tower and this went on for a solid 10 minutes. Was kind´ve cool, but also pretty tacky (same as getting engaged up there....Sean.....jk). So we walked around and underneith, took a few pictures, then started wandering back to the hostel. Along the way we stopped at an Italian restaurant (ran by an Indian guy with two Indian helpers) and had pizza and split a bottle of wine.

Afterwards we went back to the hostel, had a beer at the bar, and met two girls and a guy we were sharing our room with. The two girls, Andrea (19) and Michel (20) are from Sherbrooke, but are first language English, and the guy was a Swiss police officer on holidays for a week and is trilingual, speaking German, Italian, and French, but no English at all. So the five of us spent the next few hours talking mostly in French with a bit of English for Rob. It was pretty interesting talking to the Swiss guy and hearing about some of his cop stories. We both wanted to go find some riots pretty bad just to see them, but obviously decided to just have another beer instead adn then eventually all went to bed.

Day 51 - Brussels

2005-11-06T23:59:00.000-05:00

We finally got to have a solid sleep-in day and slept till about 11. When we did get outta bed, we dragged our assess showering, had a coffee, then headed off. We walked from Luke's place all the way to the EU Parliament and Congress (or whatever the hell they call it). From there we wandered up and under the big arch in Brussells to where the war museum and Autoworld are, right across from each other, on either side of the arch.

We went to Autoworld first which is a car museum that's been used for car shows since the early 1900s. Kind've looked like an airplane hangar and had cars ranging from original models right through until modern cars. We looked around for about an hour, and it was okay, but could've been better. The war museum on the other hand was pretty fantastic. It was humongous and had exhibits dating from ancient times right through to World Wars I and II. They had everything from ancient swords and suits of armour to modern weaponry, all kinds of cannons, Allie and Nazi gear, and even a whole courtyard full of American, German, and Soviet tanks from the wars. It was awesome. The best part i thought though was this HUMONGOUS hangar with all kinds of airplans ranging from early, early planes to fighter jets. They had a bunch of WW2 planes from both sides and even a couple with big maple leafs on the side including the Canadian Avro. They had one room dedicated to British, American and Canadian forces thanking us for liberating them. It was pretty nice.

From the museum we headed with Dan to O'Reilley's Irish Pub near the downtown core to watched some Sunday football (soccer not NFL). We got there just in time to catch the 3 o'clock game, but were only there that early to get seats for the big game at 5 between Manchester United and Chelsea. The first game was M'Borough vs ____?____ and was actually a really really good game.

The second game was awesome though. The bar was PACKED with Man. U fans adn they beat Chelsea 1-0 giving them their first loss in the English Premiere League in a year. Everybody was going nuts the whole game. At one point i went downstairs to go to the washroom and a huge guy in a Man U shirt grabbed me by both shoulders and kinda yelled in my face "Who do you cheer for!". I dirtied my pants and then calmly replied "The Toronto Maple Leafs of course.", then walked away. It was pretty funny.

After the game we went back to Luke's and grabbed our stuff, then checked back into the Van Gogh hostel for the night, then headed downtown to meet up with Luke, Dan, Imka, and some random dude from the magazine. We had a few drinks at a couple places, then me and Rob headed back to the hostel around midnight. When we got there I ran into Lisa (met in Berlin heading to Amsterdam) and hung out with her for awhile, then tried to go to bed.

I say 'tried' because first of all my keycard wouldn't work, so i had to get, not one, but two new cards before i could get in. We were on the 3rd floor, so that meant walking up and down 3 times before getting in, only to find i had no pillow. So i went back down again, got a shitty little pillow cause he couldn't find any regular ones, then back upstairs, only to find i was locked out again. They guy at reception ended up coming up with me and let me in. And then i turned out that i had the creakiest and loudest top bunk ever, with no ladder to get up with, so i had to step on the random guys bed under me, waking him up.

Shitty room and hostel.

Day 50 - Brussels/Leuven

2005-11-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

We got up and packed our bags by 10 and jumped on the metro to meet Luke at his stop across town. We said the hell with our hostel and thought we'd try our luck with staying at Luke's place although we'd been warned that it was "tiny" and "gross".

So we jumped on the metro, headed to Luke's stop and met up with him. I can't remember which stop he was at, but it wasn't too bad of a part of town, although he claims its sketchy. We walked about 15 minutes and then go to his place.

He was right. "Tiny" and "gross".

What a shithole.

It was the smallest "apartment" (if you can call it that) that i've ever seen. He lives there with a Spanish guy and there place consists of two tiny rooms with cubby hole beds built into the walls about 8 feet up, and an entrance/kitchen that's about 3 feet wide and 8 feet long with a shower (not toilet) at the end. The toilet is in the hallway and is shared with a bunch of other apartments. His flatmate was outta town for the weekend though, so i could sleep in his bed and Rob split with Luke.

Luke's buddy Dan met us at Luke's place before we left and he spent the day with us. He's a small little English guy, who i didn't really like at first, but he grew on me and ended up being an alrite, and pretty funny, guy. On the way outta town we hit a waffle place so that we could say that we had Belgian waffles (although overpriced and not that good). So anyways, we through our shit in his place and then jumped on the metro to the main station, then caught a train to Leuven which only took about 30 minutes.

Leuven is the beer capitol of Belgium and home to Stella Artois (check the bottle, you'll see the name). The only real reason to go to Leuven is to see the gorgeous architecture..............wait for it.............and to try as many brands of beer as possible. So we got there adn took a walk down by the Stella brewery, but didn't take a tour because we heart it was a waste of time and then wandered up to the main square with boasts over 40 pubs and more beers than you can imagine.

So we sat outside at the first pub, had a couple pint, then chowed down my umpteenth Doner kebab of this trip, then wandered around for abit more, grabbed some beer at a grocery store, and then sat down in this huge square. The square was like any other we've been in with a huge building at one end, but the weird thing was that right in the middle of this square, there was a huge 50 foot 'pin' with a huge green fly on the top upside down looking like he'd been stabbed right through the middle. Weird. I couldn't help but wonder who came up with an idea like that. And what they were smoking or drinking.

"Hmmm...you know what would look great in this square, Tim????"

"No. I don't. What would look great in this square?"

"A great big pin with a huge green fly that's been stabbed by the pin. What do you think?"

"Great idea! Let's do it!"

Honestly. And what did the town people say when they woke up one morning to this huge fly in the middle of their historic square? Very odd.

Anyways.

From there we hit yet another pub, pounded back a few more pints, then headed to the station around 8 or so and caught a train back to Brussels after waiting around at the station for about an hour for the train.

When we got back to town we just headed up to Luke's place, chilled out and watched some shows on his computer, then went to bed pretty early.

Day 49 - Amsterdam to Brussels

2005-11-04T23:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 10ish and i caught the end of breakfast in the basement, then packed up. We hung out with the gang for abit adn played a few last games of pool and then Rob finally convinced me that it was time to go. We'll maybe see Lisa in Brussels Sunday night and I've run into James 4 times now, so i'm sure i'll see him again. Good chance i'll see Will on the 22nd in Paris. Apparently there's a free bed for me.

The train ride was fine and we rolled into Brussels at 3. Then we walked around. Felt alot like Berlin all over again actually. Again, I let Rob navigate, and again, we got lost. Finally abotu an hour later we got straightened around and found the Van Gogh hostel where we were staying near the Botanique metro stop. Pretty nice place downstairs in the lobby/bar area, but really shitty rooms and a stupid rule that says that between 10 and 2 you have to be out of your room (which isn't that odd for hostels) ALONG with all our bags and belongings (they had lockers downstairs for us to use, but still a huge pain in the ass to pack everything up each day).

So we threw our shit in our room and then headed to the main square to meet Rob's old housemate, Luke, who works at the European Union Parliament in Brussels for a Scottish member. We met Luke around 7:30 then went with him to a bar with a huge menu of differnet beers. The place had well over 2000 beers on the menu and had pretty much all of them in stock. So we sat down and started at number 1 and tried to see how far we could get. Well, not really, we just tried what were supposed to be some of the better Belgian beers, including one that was apparently voted best beer in the world. Apparently. I thought it was pretty shit.

People would also argue though that i like Molson Canadian, so i don't get a say.

I say screw them. The beer sucked.

Next we went to a bar around the corner where we met up with a few of his friends who work for a new European business magazine that's about to be launched in January. An English guy, Dan, a Dutch girl, Imka, and a Belgian guy, Simon. So we had a couple drinks there, then across the road to another bar where they give you a 4L tower of beer with a tap on the bottom. After pounding that back we hit one more bar, then home for the night.

Good time hanging out with some real Europeans rather than travellers for onces. Although i do have to say that we have alot more in common with other travellers than we probably did with most of Luke's friends, but still a good time.

Day 46 -- 49 - Amsterdam

2005-11-01T23:59:00.001-05:00

November 1st through November 4th.

Great time.

Very relaxing.

Played lots of pool.

Did a tour of the Heineken museum.

Went to the Van Gogh museum.

Send me an email at nealboudreau@hotmail.com for more details.

Day 46 - Berlin to Amsterdam

2005-11-01T23:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 7 and hurried to pack and get down to the train station to catch our lift to Amsterdam at 8:30. At the station we met this Aussie girl, Lisa, who was also heading to Amsterdam, adn good thing because we didn't realize that halfway there the train split up, and we weren't on the righ end of the train, so had it not been for her, i'm not sure where we would've ended up.

We got to Amsterdam at 3ish adn between Rob, Lisa, and this 18 year old Aussie kid, Will, we met on the train, we found our way to the hostel. We're staying at the World Famous Flying Pig Downtown. Possibly the most famous hostel in the world. The place is pretty awesome and different. A hippy's haven. Soon as you walk in you're at the reception/bar and you have to go through the bar to get to your room, so that's a huge problem as for getting anything productive done in any kind of timely fashion. Out front by the main windows there's a huge kinda floor area with pillows and low low tables for laying around in (Sign: No Shoes, No Sleeping, No Sex). The middle of the bar is full of a bunch of bar height tables and the bar itself and a small DJ stage in the corner. In the back was the pool table surrounded by chairs where we spent most of our time. There's also a bunch of couches, plasma TV, and a 'Happy Room' in the back.

The place is located right in the heart of the city adn right around the corner from the famous 'Red Light District'.

Great great hostel.

Day 45 - Berlin

2005-10-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

We had a very lazy start to our day. Neither of us got out of bed till 10:30ish and basically did nothing till 1ish. Well, we had a coffee, messed around on the net for quite awhile and we both burned the pics off our cameras to cd. Huge relief to get that done knowing the pics are now somewhat safe.

Finally we left the hostel and headed out for Checkpoint Charlie again to check out the museum located just on the west side. It used to be a safe haven for people escaping from East Berlin.

On teh way we stopped at an AMEX spot for Rob to cash his travellers cheques and i randomly ended up in a conversation while waiting for him with two Canadian girls, Crystal and Amanda, and an Aussie guy, Matt, and soon enough were meeting them for dinner later on at 8.

Aftewards me and Rob stopped, had a curry sausage with fries drowned in ketchup for lunch. I don't think i've ever felt grosser after eating. Pretty much ruined my day. Then we finally made it down to Checkpoint Charlie and went through the museum. It wasn't a bad museum, but definately could've been better, but still was very interesting. It went through the whole histeory of the Wall from going up in '61 to down in '89. There were alot of exhibitions and stuff about different ways that people would try successfully and unsuccessfully to escape. I definately have a hard time getting my mind around the fact that the communists actually could do something like that and the fact that it stayed up until 1989 without anything being done by the rest of the world is shocking and sad. Really messed up.

After the museum, me and Rob headed back to the hostel. We'd planned initially on doing alot more today, but just didn't happen. A very slow day. And the other thing too is that Berlin is soooo spread out and huge, so going anywhere takes a long time. Its a big of a shame because there is so much to see and do in Berlin adn we really only touched on the surface. Just have to come back another time i guess!

When we got back to the hostel i headed to the post office to send a package home and then showered and me and Rob headed up to meet the three from earlier for dinner.

We found the place after awhile of looking around and sat down with the three of them and these two new guys, Nick and Greg, from California. They looked like the biggest hippies ever. Greg had a huge tuque on covering his dreadlocked hair and Nick had a humongous black beard. I'm sure the two fo them get stares wherever they go. Turns out that Crystal just graduated from undergrad and then a one year master's program at Queen's (we didn't really know anyone in common though) and Amanda went to Acadia and knows my buddy Kevin Ogilvie and was at his wedding reception two years ago. Crazy small world.

So we ate and then headed to the Circus Hostel (where we'd been the night before) where some of them were staying and we had a pint and met up with some of the boys from the night before. From there we headed to this other bar that the girls had heard about. It was abit of a walk, but we finally got there. It was the weirdest place i've ever been i think. The place we went to was this old abandonned concrete building that was half demolished at the back so you could see into the different floors from the outside. The whole thing was also covered in spray pain and there weren't many people around making it seem pretty sketch, especially after dark. At the back of the building, where the rest of the building should have been anyways, there was a bit of a small shanty village and a projector was projecting all kinds of weird images on the wall of the building opposite. It was very weird and creepy. We climbed this staircase all the way to the top floor to a room with a bunch of couches, very dimly lit, and a DJ was spinning house music in the corner. It was a cool and weird because the other half of the floor we were on was just simply gone. We were on the outside of the building basically, 5 storeys up, looking down on the shanty houses and the wall opposite with all the weird images flashing on it. I felt like i was in a Rob Zombie movie thinking that everyone in the place (who were staring at us) were all going to all of a sudden show fangs and turn out to be vampires or something. There was an art gallery on the floor beneath us that was open and free. I think the story behind the place has something to do with a bunch of artists hiding out there during the war and then when the war was over they were told they could keep using the place as a studio on the condition that they have to keep it open to the public at all time. It was very liberall too with people smoking weed everywhere. I doubt if it was even a licensed bar. The Aussie guy scored some green later on and the Cali guy took his dreads out when he smoked and he looked just like Bob Marley. They were the craziest dreads i've ever seen.

Finally sometime between 1 and 2 we all took off. Me and Rob had the best location for a hostel ever bcause we had no clue where we were, but all we had to do was look up and find the TV tower (kinda looks like the CN tower) adn walk towards it because our hostel is basically right at the base. Tooks us about 45 minutes to walk home, then we both passed out.

Off to the Netherlands tomorrow.

To be continued...

Day 44 - Berlin

2005-10-30T23:59:00.000-05:00

We got up around 9:30, had some breakie, then at 10:30 headed to the base of the huge TV tower to the Fat Tire office and signed in for the 11am Fat Tire Bike tour. We'd met a few people who highly recommended it to us so we went for it.

We met our guide, Enda, from Northern BC and the rest of the tour group (about 25 people) and we got our bikes and headed off. Our bikes were big beach cruiser style bikes. Mine was big and black with white flowers and a big basket on the front.

The tour was really good. We stopped at a ton of historical places like the place where they had the famous Nazi book burning, the old imperial palace, the Schlossplatz, Checkpoint Charlie, the place where Hitler's bunker was, the new Jewish monument, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag. So much history in Berlin that its insane. We stopped for lunch in the Tiergarten, this huge park which looked gorgeous with all the leaves changing and falling, near the Brandenburg Gate.

The tour went from 11 till almost 5. Definately good times and a great way to get acquainted with the city and where things are. And riding a bike around was fun as shit.

After the tour we headed back to the hostel and cleaned up and relaxed for abit. I had coffee down in the hostel cafe/bar and met and hung out with this girl, Taylor, from NYC. Quite the 'interesting' girl. Very young, 'free-spirited, and naive. Afterwards, we went to a Hong Kong place around the corner for dinner.

We'd met another Aussie from Melbourne, Andrew, who was travelling on his own and we'd planned on going out to try to find something to do later that night because our hostel bar was always very dead. So we met at 9ish and headed to the Circus Hostel which is one of the 'World Famous' ones and is supposed to be one of the better ones in town so we went to the bar there and hung out. We met an off-the-wall English guy, a couple of Aussie's and another English guy who talked out of the side of his mouth and had the craziest accent; i hardly understood a word he said.

We hung out there drinking beers and shooting the shit for awhile and then me, Rob and Andrew went home, grabbing a dirty Doner along the way.

Day 43 - Prague to Berlin

2005-10-29T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 7:30 and packed quickly, said goodbye to everyone, and met Kim and Meg downstairs in the common room. They're heading to Berlin too, so we thought we'd ride together. They already had tickets and since our Eurail passes don't cover the Czech Republic we had to get tickets so we went ahead and planned to meet them on the train.

Me and Rob just made it onto the train on time and figured the girls had been too slow and missed it but we ended up finding them a couple cards down and helped them move their stuff down to our compartment. The train ride was okay, again with some great fall colours and scenery. Rob and Kim slept most of the way, so i took out my mini-speakers and me and Meg rocked out to some good old country music and chatted. They're both studying in London so I'll maybe hang out with them abit when i'm in London at the end of my trip.

When we got to Berlin we said bye to the girls since they were heading to one hostel and we'd booked another one. Then me and Rob tried to figure out how to get to our hostel, the City Stay Hostel.

We failed.

We couldn't even find an information booth anywhere. We literally wandered for over an hour with no clue where we were going adn even when we found a city map we still couldn't figure out where the hell we were supposed to be. We ended up making a huge loop and then finally found an information point right back where we'd first started. An hour of our lives we'll never ever get back. Then when we did get instructions, Rob got u s onto a train going in the wrong direction. The joys of travelling. I was so happy when we finally got to our hostel and go to take our packs off.

The City Stay is a very very nice place and very central. We're right across the street from the huge, Swedish designed TV tower and not far from Checkpoint Charlie, the famour border crossing between East and West Berlin. Our hostel is actually in East Berlin, so 18 years ago we would've been in the heart of communist Berlin before the Wall came down in 1989. The square where Hitler had one of his famous Nazi rallies is about 3 blocks away. Very crazy to be in the middle of all this history.

We screwed around for awhile and walked around the neighborhood abit on our owns. We ran into James, the guy from Tazmania again and hung out with him for awhile then we hit a steak house around the corner for dinner, then to bed early.

Pretty slow day....nice for once.

Day 42 - Prague

2005-10-28T22:59:00.000-05:00

So 3 hours of sleep really sucks. Was up by ine becuase it was so loud and bright and so i headed down to breakie feeling like shit. Met up with Olivia and ate with her and hung out in the common room. Me and Rob didn't have anything planned other than wandering around for the day. Nice relaxing day and then hockey at 6:30!

After the game in Vienna we decided that we had to go see a game if we could i Prague so we'd checked ahead and saw that Sparta was playing at home in the T-Mobile Arena Friday night and decided we had to go. I mentionned to people that we were going and within an hour we had 6 others coming with us, all of whome except for Kate had never seen hockey before and they were pumped to be going with two Canadians to their first one. Its up to us Canadians to spread word of the greatest game in the world and we've been doing a good job so far. I'd already picked up 8 tickets for our group the day before so we were all pretty pumped.

Olivia had made drunken plans the night before to tour around with Kath so she was waiting for her, but she must have forgotten lasat night that she was leaving for Krakow the next morning and by the time we went looking for her she'd already booked out. So since 'Liv was now all alone and i had nothing to do anyways, i walked around town with her doing pretty much the exact same tour as the day before, seeing the change of the guards again, and then around back to the hostel by 2ish. Rob was with us for a bit, but the took off shopping on his own. We (me and Liv) had a good time together and she was pumped because her Mom, Dad, boyfriend, and Grandmother were flying over that afternoon and meeting her at 5ish and then headig back to Florence with her.

We chilled in the common room with Kate and Rob after hitting a grocery store for a snack and I passed out on 'Livs shoulder (lucky girl). I woke up around 4 and Liv took off and we all got ready for the game.

I'd told everyone we'd meet in the common room at 5 to head over to the game together adn by the time our group all met up we'd grown to over 20 people. Me and Rob felt like sheppards leading sheep. It was pretty awesome that we could influence so many people and they were all pumped to see hockey (17 of the 20 were going to their first game). So we headed to the station and jumped on the subway down to where the area was supposed to be. When we got there though there was no arena to be found, but I saw this kid (about 12 years old) with a jersey on so i asked him if he was going to the game. He didn't have perfect English, but he did pretty well (probably from learning at school) and told us to follow him and his parents. We had to jump on a tram for one stop to get to the arena and we talked to him about hockey along the way and he told us how his favorite team is the New Jersey Devils and how last season was much better than this season in Prague because guys like Havlat and Nedved came back and played for Sparta during the strike. His parents spoke no English, but you could see how proud he was and especially how proud his mother was because he could speak English with us. Maybe his first time ever to anyone outside of school. It was a pretty cool experience and he seemed to enjoy it and made sure we followed him right to the gate.

The arena was bigger and nicer than the Vienna one, but the crowd definately was nowhere as crazy. And that wasn't for lack of beer because a pint (half liter) was only 25 Cr! That's under a Euro a pint and well under $2 Canadian! I couldn't believe it. That's like a fifth of the cost at an NHL game. So we sure as hell weren't going to let the opportunity go to waste (because we obviously haven't had much beer on this trip so far) and took full advantage of the economics of the situation.

I sat between Sophie from down under and Meg and Kim from the OC and explained the key rules and what was going on in the game as it went on. I'm pretty sure they all had a blast and we cheered hard, but Sparta lost 3-2. Good, close game though with some very nice goals. We had awesome seats right at center ice and the tickets only cost 115 Cr, or less than $6 Canadian. Rediculously cheap and it was the same cost for any seat in the house. Great, great time.

After the game we headed back to the hostel and chilled out in the common room for awhile and had a few more beers. At the end of the night, me, Rob and Meg hung out in the office with the owner (don't remember his name) who let us hang out behind the desk and serve ourselves our own beers. He was a really cool guy and we just shot the shit about differen stuff and made fun of Meg. He decided that the walls in the office were too bare since the place is less than a year old and he let me and Meg be the first two people to sign the wall which he eventually wants to fill. I wrote something down about his hostel, his girlfriend, and Czech beer all being awesome which he loved.

Definately was a great hostel with great beer...and his girlfriend was probably the sexiest European girl I've seen yet...haha.
outta time...to be continued....

Day 41 - Prague

2005-10-27T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 9ish and met Kate, the girl from Mac (grew up in Oakville) in the common room then we headed out for a day of sightseeing. We stopped at a place near the hostel and had a coffee and egg sandwich on a bagel (my first egg in Europe i think). We hit up the main square first, then wandered, crossed the bridge north of the famous Charles Bridge, then headed up the hill to the castle.

Like so many other places i've mentionned, Prague is absolutely gorgeous. All very old, Soviet type architecture and churches and mosques everywhere. Its also way cleaner than i would've guessed and has a great atmosphere and feel to it. Definately a great place to come to and i could easily stay and hang out here for a week or more.

So anyways, we walked up the hill and stairs to the castle, took some pics looking back down over Prague and then headed up to the square in front of the palace. We got there around noon, so it turned out that we'd gotten there just in time for the changing of the guard, which is similar to the changing of the guard in London. So we watched the ceremony which took about 20 minutes adn we saw the new guards march in, then the band played some music, then the two guards who were standing on guard out fron were replaced by 2 new guards who would be there for the next 24 hours, standing in the same spot, not moving at all.

From there we wandered through the grounds of the presidential palace in the castle and paid 50 Crown to go down Golden Lane which ended up just being a small road with tiny shops with 5 foot doors. There was a really cool, small, medieval weapons museum though that had a ton of crazy looking weapons that i've definately never seen or heard of before. From there we wandered back towards the river, had a Thai food lunch (good and cheap), then walked back to our side of the river across the Charles Bridge. Its a pretty cool bridge with statues all the way across (pedestrians only) and is definately the sight of pretty much every single Prague postcard because of the vies of the tops of the many churches adn mosques. Soooooo many tourists though and small souvenir stands and buskers everywhere. All part of the atmosphere though i guess.

We took a peak in a few of the many many many shops on the other side of the bridge and then back to the hostel. We chilled for awhile at the hostel and me and Rob moved our stuff. Since we didn't have reservations and since the place was almost completely booked, we had to switch roms each night; not ideal, but no big deal since the hostel was so good.

At 8ish we headed over to the main square with the Cali girls Meg, Lauren, and Kim, Bridget from Minnesota, and Kate (Mac) because they'd paid for a ghost tour of Prague. So me, Rob, and Kate decided to go along but didn't end up paying the 250 CR and thank God, because it sucked. So we laughed at the rest of them for wasting their money on it, grabbed some street meat, then back to the hostel for some more beers.

I ended up wandering into the 1st floor common room (we were all on the 2nd floor) and met a group of 6 people playing drinking games before going out to some bar and, of course, soon enough joined them. There was a Finish guy and an Aussie guy (both strange) and 3 girls (Olivia from the States somwhere but studying in Florence; Kath, from Aussieland; and another girl, not sure of her name and i think she was with Kath). Rob hung out with us at the hostel, but wasn't in the mood to go out, so when we headed out he stayed in.

I'm not sure which direction we headed out in, but the bar we ended up at was pretty good. Kind've a pub upstairs and a club with dancing downstairs. It was great times and I'm not sure what time we got home at, but i know that i was up till 6am. Late, but definately a good night.

Day 40 - Budapest - Prague

2005-10-26T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 8, packed up and made it down to the station just on time for out 9:30 train. Since our train pass doesn't work through Slovakia we decided to take the train from Budapest to Vienna and then from Vienna to Prague, although we still have to pay for part of the ride because our passes don't work in the Czech Republic either. We got to Vienna at 12:30, to the Westbaunhof station, but then only had an hour to make it to the Sudbaunhof station across town, then buy a ticket and make it onto our train.

We got to Sudbaunhof by tram and made it luckily with time to spare. The train ride to Prague was very uneventful and we just read and listened to music the whole way. It was mostely just flat farmland from Vienna all the way to Prague. Its pretty crazy to be heading into the Czech Republic like this knowing that 10 years ago it wouldn't been next to impossible and probably very unsafe. Its absolutely crazy to think that if my grandfather had done the same route as me through Italy, Austria, Hungary and up to Germany, etc, when he was my age that i'm doing today that he would have been fighting Nazis. Maybe 60 years from now my grandkids will travel freely through the places like Iraq and Iran and the rest of the middle east. Who knows.

***

K, i take that last part back about just the farmland out the window. As I was writing that on the train, it changed instantly from farmland to a gorgeous forest. Probably the best scenery we've seen yet except for maybe when we were in the Alps. The forest was a ton of different colours with all the leaves changing colours and there were a bunch of small streams adn rivers with old houses mixed in. And on top of that, the sun was going down adn we were on the west side of the train, so we got a great view of the sunset and the sky turned crazy pink and purple. Anyways, it was a pretty awesome train ride.

WE got into Prague at 6ish and found the hostel we were told to go to. Turns out it was full though so we went to another place around the corner called the Old Prague Hostel which turned out to be one of the best places we've stayed at so far. The hostel is owned by this young guy and him and his girlfriend run it. His other employee had just left and another was on holidays so him or his girlfriend were there the whole time and we ended up hanging out with him quite abit. Another thing that made the hostel so great was all the people we met. Especially after not meeting anybody in Budapest. The second we walked into the hostel we met a bunch of people; 2 American guys studying in Rome, 3 American girls studying in London (Megan, Kimberley and Lauren), a girl who just graduated from chem eng at Mac (Kate), and an Aussie girl (Sophie).

We dropped our bags off in our room, grabbed some very cheap Budvar (the 'original' Budweiser and much better) and hug out with everyone in the common room, then we all headed out for a bar. Prague is awesome at night with clubs and people everywhere. We went to one Irish pub, had a pint and watched soccer, and then went to this club where the American guys knew about a party going on for foreign students so we headed there. It was in a really busy club with a huge line, but somehow we got to skip the line cause we were with those guys. The club was pretty crazy and straight out of the movies with girls dancing on platforms hung from the ceiling and up on tables and stuff adn only played hardcore dance music. SO we hung out there for a few hours, then grabbed some sausages from a vendor and headed back to the hostel. Some of us stayed up for another hour or so hanging out in the common room then headed to bed.

Day 39 - Budapest

2005-10-25T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 9ish and headed straight out, picked up some pastries for breakie, and then headed over to the Soviet Terror Museum. The museum is in the old communist police station where they used to torture and execute prisoners. The museum was pretty amazing and really well done with every room having its own music (creepy Soviet instrumental music) and pretty much every room had flat screen televisions with old black and white video ranging from Jews being killed and their bodies disposed of to Hitler giving speeches and Nazis marching to the destruction of Budapest during WW2 by the Nazis and then again after the war in the 50s by the Soviets when they took over and occupied Budapest and Hungary. The museum went through the last 100 years in Hungary and showed all the shit they've been through. It was alot of really terrible, terrible crap and i can't help but looking at the seniors around here now without trying to imagine what their lives have been like. Makes you realize just how incredibly lucky we are in Canada and just how sheltered our lives have been compared to alot of the rest of the world. The stuff we heard that the Soviets did to the Hungarians makes the Americans look like gods with what they've been doing around the world. A matter of perspective i guess. We got to go down into the dungeons and see the original cells where they held and tortured prisoners (often innocent ones) and killed them. It was crazy and disturbing.

After that we grabbed some lunch, then went back to the hostel and napped for a couple hours. Around 3 o'clock we headed off to the Kirali Baths, something mentionned in my guidebook as one of the top 30 things to do in Europe. Budapest is known for its thermal bath houses that are supposed to heal and rejuvenate you. So we figured we couldn't come to Budapest without trying them out.

So we got there (it was on the Buda side) and paid to get in and changed. Surprisingly bathing suits were mandatory because at the Kirali Baths they have women and men only days, so we figured it would be all old, naked, fat, Hungarian men (like Rob except for the Hungarian part). So instead, it was old, fat, Hungarian men with speedos on. The place was pretty cool though. It was kind've like an underground cave which was lit by small holes in the ceiling that let small rays of sunlight in. The main room had a large, octagonal bath in the middle (about 10 meters across) and had a few 2-3 person baths around the outside adn then also a couple of saunas. The large bath was luke warm and the smaller ones varied from much hotter to ice water. So we relaxed and sat in teh big bath for awhile. This one old Hungarian man kept trying to talk to me (although he spoke no English at all) and was very touchy whcih weirded me out and made Rob laugh alot, but we figured it was just Hungarian culture, so we got away from him, jumped in the ice water, then into the sauna. When we were in the sauna, my buddy from the bath showed up and sat beside where i was standing and rubbed my calf a couple times at which point we took off again to the bath.

So we were enjoying ourselvs, relaxing in the bath, when we noticed these two guys being very touchy with each other across the bath from us. Then we noticed to our right a guy whispering pretty closely in another guy's ear. This was weirding us out a bunch, but again, just Hungarian custom because by rule, European men are much more affectionate with each other than North American guys, always kissing each other on the cheek and stuff. So we headed back into the sauna where two men were sitting up on the top row of benches with one guy rubbing the inner leg of the other. Very weird and we were both glad we aren't European at that point.

So we finally took off after about an hour and a half and walked back to the hostel checking out the Parliament buildings from up close on the way back and joking around with each other that had we been anywhere else, we would have just been at a homosexual bath.

We hung out at the hostel for awhile, then hit an Italian place around the corner for dinner. Rob really wanted to go to the casino, so we went for an hour or so where i quickly lost my 10 Euro adn then took off (i hate casinos and don't know why i walk into them....never again on this trip).

On the way back to the hostel, we ran into our old buddy who'd been trying to convince us every night to go to his table dancing club, and since we were leaving in the morning and had a few Forints to burn, we went with him. We weren't really sure what we were getting ourselves into, but we figured it would be an experience. We got in the front door where we met the ape working the door, paid the cover which included our beer and went in.

Wow.

Not like any place I've ever been for sure. It wasn't anything like establishments back in Canada. The place was very tiny and the only stage was around a pole in the middle of the room, and we were the only ones there. So weird. The girls all stood up from there couches when we got in adn we had no clue what to do. We both, i think, wanted to just turn around and leave, but we'd already paid, so we figured we could at least just have our beer and take off. So we headed to the bar; a girl got on stage and started dancing and we got our beers. So we talked to the girl behind the bar for abit and she asked what we'd done in Budapest adn we told her about going to the bath to which she said 'Not the Kirali one though right?'.

Shit.

'The Kirali Bath is just for homosexuals...you're not homosexual are you?' asks the girl.

Apparently all of the touchy-feely stuff we saw wasn't 'Hungarian custom' as we'd hoped. She explained to us how that place is known to be a homosexual hangout and she laughed at us alot. The look on our faces must've been priceless at that point. We'd just spent an hour and a half at a homosexual bath and didn't have the faintest clue. And now, here we were, thinking we were going to a big joint to watch a couple of ladies dance and have a beer before bed, but instead end up at a brothel and were the only guys there. The girls figured out in a hurry though that we weren't there to buy sex or anything else, including beers for them (they asked a couple of times). We finished our beers, said bye to the girls and got the hell outta there.

We got back to the hostel and i took a cold shower and cried (a la Ace Ventura). Then i went down and chatted for big with the girl, Stef, at the desk and i told her about our day. Before i told her what bath we'd gone to she said, 'Not the Kirali one though right?'.

Thanks guidebook for recommending a homosexual Hungarian bath as one of the top 30 things to do in Europe.

What a weird, weird day. Started out with being in an old Soviet torture and death house, followed by bathing with a bunch of homosexual Hungarian men, and then finishing up with hanging out in a brothel.

Gotta love Budapest!

Off to the Czech Republic tomorrow morning.

I'm sure nothing weird will happen there...

Day 38 - Budapest

2005-10-24T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up late, then justu kinda lazed around and took out time eating breakfast. We got out money back for the last two nights that we were supposed to spend at the Marco Polo and put on our bags and headed down to another hostel we found yesterday closer to the river and down more in the middle of everything. The Marco Polo just was too far out and wasn't a great place for meeting people.

So we got into our new place, hit an internet place for abit (caught up on my hockey stats...go Lindross, McCabe, and the Leafs!) then headed across the river again to Buda. Budapest I guess is broken into two cities on either side of the river, Buda and Pest; we're staying in Pest. Buda seems like the older part of town and is built up on a bit of a hill and the old part of town was built with huge walls as a fortress i guess to keep attackers and invaders out in the middle ages. So we got within the walls and wandered around going to the palace and the castle looking part with the big church behind it. Pretty cool part of town. We took a bunch of pics from up on the fortress walls looking back at Pest over the river with the two main bridges connecting them (a pretty big suspension bridge and what they call the chain bridge, which is the most impressive looking of the two bridges with two big lions guarding each end of the bridge). I think of good old Kevin MacLean everytime i walk across the bridges.

After hanging out in Buda for the whole afternoon, we came back to our hostel, the Mellow Mood Hostel, and slept till 8:30ish, then went looking for dinner. We could tell we definately weren't in Italy anymore (i miss Italy) because it took forever to find anywhere to eat. It felt like there just weren't any places around at all.

Finally, close to 10ish, we found somewhere to eat. We ate our dinner watching football (soccer) highlights, when all of a sudden the Avalanche/Canucks game from the night before came on! We had been about to leave, but decided we had to watch some, even though we already knew who won, but it was still our first post-strike, NHL game, so we grabbed a beer and watched the first period and a half of the game. At one point Avril Lavigne came on the music in the restaurant and we felt like we were right back in Canada for a few minutes while sitting downtown Budapest...haha.

Afterwards we just came back to the hostel and hung out for a bit, then went to bed.

Can't think of a single funny or otherwise story about today at all. Well, i guess except for the random people trying to get you to go to their strip clus. They're very persistent that you should go with them to their clubs with 'Big tits, big beers, small price'. We're not those kinda guys though. And broke. But if you're reading this and you're a rich dirtbag, this is your kinda place. Not to mention the hookers walking around non stop asking you if you want to buy them a drink...

Day 37 - Vienna to Budapest

2005-10-23T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 9ish and rushed down to the station to catch the 10:03am train to Budapest. I slept most of the way except for being poked by the Hungarian border patrol about halfway there. We got to Budapest around 1pm and found a map and walked down to our hostel that Rob had reserved for us; the Marco Polo hostel.

Its an alrite place, clean and everything, but not really an ideal place for meeting people because the bunks are completely separated from each other by half walls and there's no common room, so meeting other people is tough. We're going to try to get our money back tomorrow morning and switch to another place closer to the river.

So anyways, we dropped our shit off, then took off walking for the rest of the day. We were trying to find an internet place at some point, but EVERYTHING was closed. We thought it was just because it was Sunday, but apparently today, Oct 23rd was the day that Hungary became completely sovereign from the Soviet Union back in 1953, so its a national holiday and everything was closed (again, my history may be off; take a course if you wanna learn history). We pretty much just wandered around everywhere on this side of the river, then came back to the hostel and dozed for awhile, then headed back out in the evening and crossed the one bridge, wandered abit, then came back across the other bridge adn back to home to bed early. The only eventful thing that happened today was that Rob stepped straight onto, and almost slipped and fell (very close) into a HUGE pile of dog shit. Other than that, just another day of sightseeing.

Day 36 - Vienna

2005-10-22T22:59:00.000-05:00

We slept in abit and then took off for the palace of the emperors of Austria up until about WW1. We were supposed to meet up with Erin at the subway station just outside the palace, but didn't end up seeing her so we went ahead without her. James, an Aussie from Tazmania came with us too.

James was in our room, but crazily enough i'd sat next to him on a train from Florence to Milan back over 3 weeks ago before meeting up with Rob. Its crazy just how small is for that. Its happened to me a bunch of times now. I had two English brothers in my room in Rome (my first time in Rome) who i met again in the Cinque Terre on the trail; Phil, the Aussie we met in Innsbruck we ran into again in Interlaken; the brothers from Bowmanville who we shared a room with in Innsbruck literally bumped into us in the Sistine Chapel; and that jackass who told us to get off the train early in Innsbruck ran into us again in Naples (he's lucky we didn't beat him up). Pretty nuts.

So anyways, the three of us did the palace tour and wandered around the gardens outside. The palace tour was alrite, but not as good as the one in Stuttgart probably because this one was much more modern. It was home to Maria Theresa, mother of Marie Antoinette, and lots of the tour focussed on her and her husband and family. It was the same place, in this huge beautiful ballroom we got to go in, where the famous meeting between Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev took place during the Vienna Summit where Khrushchev said to Kennedy "Its up to the US to decide whether there will be war or peace." "The decision to sign a peace treaty is firm and irrevocable, and the Soviet Union will sign it in December if the US refuses an interim agreement.", to which Kennedy responded, "Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be a war. It will be a cold winter." So the place where the Cold War started. Feel free to correct me though if my history is off.... The gardens were pretty sweet too and i found it nuts how they made everything so huge, yet so perfectly symmetrical. It was pretty awesome.

We got back to the hostel around 4 and lazed around abit, and then hit happy hour (2 hours actually) from 6-8, and then wen went with James to this really cheap schnitzel place he'd heard about. For 5 Euro we got a huge schnitzel, fries, and a salad. Great deal. Soon as we got our schnitzels, i was digging into it when all of a sudden my plate did a perfect backflip and crashed and broke at my feet. The table we were at was really small and i guess my plate was only half on the table so when i went to cut, it flipped it off. The lady running the came right over and was really nice and kept telling me not to worry about it adn gave me a free one pretty much right away.

After dinner we went back and hung out with a bunch of people from the hostel and played a bunch of foosball. Me and Rob beat a few teams, but got our asses handed to us by two Austrian local guys (they beat us 4 games to 1) and we also got embarassed by two butchie Austrian girls(using the word 'girls' loosely).

Off to Budapest tomorrow!

Day 35 - Venizia to Vienna

2005-10-21T22:59:00.000-05:00

So things got worse in our little train compartment of fun. First off, a sixth and final person joined our overnight gang making us 'completely' uncomfortable, rather than 'mostly' uncomfortable. The seats didn't recline for shit, there was no leg room at all, the seats were narrow, it was smelly, and steaming hot. Me and Rob had the two window seats (ie: the two seats as far away from any possible escape from the claustrophobia), but it didn't matter because you couldn't se anythin gout the windows anyways. We had about 3 L's of Heineken each in our bags, so i did the only reasonable thing to do and started drinking. Soon enough finishing all my beers and one of Rob's.

We'd gotten on at 8, left at 8:44, and then finally, around 2am, there was some luck for us, because 3 people all of a sudden got off (not sure where they went, but didn't give a shit). The 3 people getting off was probably one of the top 5 things to ever have happend to me. We then figured out that you can shift the facing seats together to make a kind of bed. Wow! So we set it up, and after the beer, I passed out in no time. It still wasn't a great sleep though. I woke up a bunch of times, one time with my arm around Rob, the next time with my arm around the poor little Asian girl on my other side. Even though the seats made beds of sort, they were still VERY narrow (and i'm not very narrow) and way too short. So they didn't work for me at all beacuse I was too long, but i couldn't sleep on an angle or pull my legs up because the seats were so narrow.

NEVER AGAIN!

So we finally rolled into Vienna at 9ish; 13 hours after getting onto the train. We'd booked ourselves 2 nights ahead of time so we headed straight for the hostel to drop our stuff off. We're staying at the Wombat's hostel here in Vienna which is a member of Europe's Famous Hostels (it was ranked 4th in the world in 2003). It's a really sweet place with great rooms; our is a 4 bed dorm with an on-sweet washroom with shower (very rare). It's a great place, clean, friendly, and has a not-bad bar in it too with happy hour from 6 till 8 with 1 Euro pints.

So we checked in, but couldn't get to our room till 2, so we put our bags in the luggage room and thought we'd wander for the rest of the day. Right before we headed out, i asked the guy at the front desk about the local Vienna hockey team, to which he responded "Hockey???", when out of nowhere, this Aussie girl who was walking by cut in and said that she'd looked up the local team and they were playing tonite, but didn't know anything other than that. So i told her that we were heading out for the day and would find things out and hopefully run into her later.

So me and Rob took off, bought a 24 hour Underground pass, then rode downtown into the old part of town. We spent the next few hours wandering around. We checked out the main church in town which was huge, but all kind've stained black (maybe from coal or other forms or pollution) so it looked pretty creepy. All the German churches looked like that too. I don't trust them. They always talk like they're pissed off, they're drinking all the time, and they worship in black churches....with Christian and Anke being exceptions of course.

We wandered around and saw a bunch of other impressive looking buildings, although we had no clue what we were looking at half the time. Its been kind've funny like that in alot of places where we'll see an awesome looking building and then take pics of it or in front of it, but have zero clue what it is.

Eventually we made our way back to the hostel and i jumped on the net and found out that the pro team here in Vienna was playing tonite, so i wrote down the time and got instructions from two ladies in the Underground station on how to get there. Afterwards we hit the grocery store for meats for dinner then Rob took a nap and i did laundry and hung out with 3 Aussies and an American guy. Right after finishing laundry, i ran into the Aussie girl from earlier, Erin, and she said she still wanted to come to the game and was really excited to go because she's never even seen a game on television. So me and Rob ate, cleaned up, then met Erin at 6 out front.

The ride to the arena was about 25 minutes from the main station near our hostel and there were a ton of people around wearing the black, yellow, and orange or the Vienna Capitals. We got tickets for 12 Euro each, which got us seats in the second level and we had a great view. The arena wasn't as big as an NHL arena, but still would sit about 7-8000 probably and by the time the puck dropped the place was packed solid. So i guess we were lucky to have gotten tickets.

Now, as most people know, i love hockey as much or more as any Canadian and still say that Canadians are the best hockey fans; but Austrians are definately MUCH crazier. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I've been to alot of hockey games including a second round playoff game between the Leafs and Sens that went to second overtime, but that seemed tame now comparing that with this game in Vienna. The fans were nuts and didn't sit hardly at all during the game...and the beer was cheap (i wonder if the two correlated at all?). The main section that led everything was right behind the home teams net where there were two huge drums pounding out different beats during the game depending on what was going on and then depending on what beat was being pounded out, ALL the fans would sing different songs. And it didn't stop all the way through the game. It was pretty awesome. We had a great time and Erin is now a hockey fan. The home team won 2-1, so it was a close, exciting game, and it got pretty rough, but everytime two guys would square up, the refs (who were wearing blue, white and red stars instead of stripes) would jump in right away which sucked. There would've been at least 5 fights back home. It was pretty cool too because both goals were scored by ex-Leaf Mike Craig.

After the game, we headed back to the hostel and hung out with a bunch of people in the hostel bar for the rest of the night.

Day 34 - Venezia

2005-10-20T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up around 10 adn cleaned up from the night before, then checked out of our room. Dave was heading back to Florence to see his mom and sis for a few more nights and Anna was taking a late train, overnight to Nice. Me and Rob were booked on a 8:30pm train overnight to Vienna. The hotel let us leave our bags so we didn´t have to lug them around all day.

The day was really shitty weatherwise because it was cold and drizzled softly basically all day long. We still had a good time though, spending the day just basically wandering around town. Venice was pretty much exactly what i was expecting with narrow, narrow, streets with canals and bridges everywhere. It was really weird not seeing one car the whole time we were there. I guess really there were no ´streets´ at all, just walkways all over the place. We walked to the main square, which was pretty impressive, and just wandered, checkign out lots of stores and shops along the way. It was amazing how many of the shops sold the same old shit, but obviously must do good business otherwise they wouldn´t be there. Florence was big on leather shops, but Venice was huge on glass (anything made with this special glass that i can´t remember the name of) and masks. Tons of shops had masks, like glass or porcelaine masks, all over the place. The shops actually seemed kinda creepy cause of the makes everywhere.

Near teh main square, there were HUGE packs of pigeons, and i bought a packet of birdfeed from a vendor and holy shit, the birds literally attack you. As soon as they see you getting the pack they start following you and trying to land on you. I opened the package and it was game over. They were all over me. Landing on my head, shoulders, back, arms, everywhere. Everyone else was laughing and taking pictures of me (even strangers), at which point i took a small handfull of feed and stuffed it into Rob´s jacket hood. It was HILARIOUS. The birds attacked him, landing all over his back and head trying to get the food and Rob screamed like a little girl. He was making this really weird noise that was like half a scream and half a laugh. His eyes were full of terror mixed with severe embarassment because at this point there was a large group of people watching me and now him, have these pigeons land all over us. I gave some seeds to a little boy and girl with their parents and they handled the birds much much better than Rob did (you´ve got yourself a real macho man Marissa).

So we walked for a few hours, took lots and lots of pictures, and then took a waterbus back to the station area close to our apartment. We grabbed some lunch at a buffet restaurant and then went with Dave to the station so he could catch his train back to Florence.

We said our goodbyes to Dave and tried to convince him to extend his trip and come with us, but he has to get back to Canada, so he took off. Me, Anne, and Rob did some shopping for the next couple hours, bought some groceries for the train, and then hung out in the station till our train arrived.

We said our goodbyes to Anne, and then me and Rob jumped on the train. We were going to get beds for the overnight train, but to reserve them cost 25 Euro each, so we decided we´d chance 2 seats instead. We ended up finding an empty compartment which had no reservatino signs, but sure enough, 1 minute before the train was about to leave, we lost our empty compartment of heaven, having to share now with 3 people from Taiwan for the next 10 hours.

Day 33 - Firenze to Venice

2005-10-19T10:59:00.000-05:00

We got up and checked out by 10am and then garbbed Dave and walked around abit and grabbed a Doner at noonish. They have awesome Doner´s here in Italy (shaved meat off a huge turning slab of meat, veggie´s, with a special sauce wrapped in a pita). Afterwards we just wandered abit more, then caught the 1:30 train to Venice.

Dave decided that he wasn´t ready to say goodbye to us yet and decided he´d ditch his mom and sister for the night and come with us to Venice. We caught a train and got to Venezia at 4:30ish, and again, got picked up right away by somebody looking to fill their hotel. So we went with him and the place ended up actually being an apartment with a washroom, kitchen and table, and one bedroom. The bedroom had a king size bed and a single, so us boys took it, and there was also a single bed in the kitchen/dining room/entrance for Anne. He gave us the whole place for 80 Euro; pretty sweet deal. The apartment wasn´t even in the hotel, but down a couple blocks and down an alley. The location was actually really sweet cause it was right off one of the major roads. The alley was kinda cool too.

We dropped our bags off and went to the grocery store to get a bunch of food for supper. Since Dave is a chef by trade, we let him grab whatever he wanted and then we´d all just spit it 4-ways. He came back and Dave started cutting veggies, Rob went to use the internet, and me and Anne had a beer. We decided that we couldn´t eat and drink all night without tunes and Dave had noticed an electronic store on the corner, so i went down and bought a small pair of speakers so we could rock out to the ipod all night. They were worth every penney.

The rest of the night we spent hanging out in our little apartment, eating, drinking, and singing. Dave made us a chicken cacciatore type meal with wine sauce, veggies, and anchovies, and we had shrimp and salad as appetizers. The whole thing was really good. We drank a whole bunch of vino, a bottle of champagne, and a bunch of beers. Was a really fun night. At one point us 3 guys went out for a walk, and it was kinda creepy cause the streets were completely deserted and there was a small mist or fog over the canals. We messed Dave up really good during our last night together, then me and Rob went to bed. Anne made it through dinner, then passed out, so it was a boys night.

Day 32 - Firenze

2005-10-18T22:59:00.000-05:00

Me and Rob slept in till about 10 and then went out for a walk around Florence. We just kind´ve spent the day wandering around all the churches and squares. There was one really cool square that had a bunch of replica statues including David. We also took a stroll down along the river and across the famous Ponte Vecchio that was full from end to end with jewellery shops.

We came back to the hotel to shower around 2 and then went to get a light lunch. On the way we decided we´d leave a note at the front desk of the hotel where Dave (Grant) was rolling into later on in the day, but it turned out he´d just just checked in, so we went up to his room and said hi to hi mom and sister and then he came with us.

We grabbed a slice of pizza, then tracked down the post office so i could send some presents home. What a disaster. Customer service in Europe sucks. And i don´t just think its teh language barrier. They really just are rude, slow, and really just don´t give a shit. It literally took me an hour to send 1 package, adn there were no lines holding me up either. Just stupid people. I had 2 Americans trying to do the same behind me and tehy were just following me around hoping i´d figure it out for them; and eventually did. The one lady from California offered me dinner, but i had the feeling she meant more than just dinner, so i kindly laughed it off.

After that, i walked back to the hostel (Rob and Dave left me cause it was taking so long), then the 4 of us and Dave´s sister, Shelley, met in their hotel lobby. We´d gotten the last possible reservation at the Academia to see Michaelangelo´s David at 5:30. So we found our way down there and just made it on time. It was awesome to have the booking and just get to walk right up to the front of the long long long line. We went through security, then got to go right in. The museum itself was pretty small and not really that great except for the one room that was full of statues and then, of course, the main room with David in it.

It was more impressive than i thought it was going to be. It was in a huge foyer all by itself and it was much larger than i thought it was going to be too. The detail Michaelangelo put into it like veins on his arms and stuff was very impressive. You´re not supposed to take any pics and i got caught with my camera out by the camera Nazi, but i still managed to take one, and Dave got a couple really good ones from the floor where we sat. After about an hour in the museum, with 45 minutes of that looking at David, we went back to our places and rested for awhile, then met up for dinner.

We ended up walking around for about an hour before finding a place and we ended up at a restaurant right beside the one from the night before. After dinner we grabbed a bunch of 1 L Heineken´s for 1.70 Euro each and drank on the Duomo steps for a few hours, then hit a small pub at 2ish before crashing for the night.

Day 31 - Rome to Firenze

2005-10-17T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up and packed and were outta the hostel bz 10ish, then spent 2 hours at the internet place adn then grabbed a quick breakfast adn made it to the station by 1ish and ran into Fabienne, Dave, and his mom and sister. We didn´t chat for long cause we had to reserve our train which ended up being a pain because we were tight for time for the 1:30 train and ended up missing it, but then grabbed the 2:30 with no problem, but still got stuck paying a 12 Euro reservation fee (never taking a EuroStar train again...).

We got to Firenze by 4:30ish, and just like in Riomaggiore, we were met by a guy running a hostel near the station and so we went with him to see the place adn then booked in for 2 nights. Afterwards, we went for a walk around a bit and grabbed a beer in the piazza where the main Duomo here in Firenze is. Florence is an absolutely beautiful place and you can feel the atmosphere like no other place we´ve been yet. It just feels so artsci and cultured (unlike myself).

We split up for a couple hours and then met at 8 and found a place for dinner. It was okay, but definately not the same old place back in Rome (we called the place in Rome Ali Baba´s cause that´s what the manager always called himself to the girls). I know one thing for sure about Italy, and that´s that i will miss the Italian food so much. We´ve both been spending way too much money on dinner´s, but we can´t help ourselves.

After dinner we grabbed some beers from the store adn went to the main Duomo piazza again and sat on a bench, had a drink and just admired how gorgeous and big the church is, and people watched. Home to bed by 1ish.

Tomorrow weér off to see David (both the one from Canada, again, and Michaelangelo´s).

Day 30 - Rome / Napoli and Pompeii

2005-10-16T22:59:00.000-05:00

To bed after 5am, and then up at 8:36; slept through the alarm for 30 minutes.

We were supposed to meet Dave at the usual meeting place in front of Termini (by the monkeys near track 1) at 8:30. Everyone else was sleeping too, so i jumped up, woke Rob and Anne and we ran down to Termini, just as Dave had given up and was about to go home to bed and then the 4 of us ran and jumped on the train to Pompeii just seconds before it left.

The 3 of us (excluding Rob cause he stayed in to make some phone calls...or maybe just one long one) felt like we were going to die. Especially Anne. I would've put money on her getting to Pompeii and then turning around and going back to Rome to bed. She didn't though. The train we took was actually to Naples, adn then we jumped on another local train from there to Pompeii.

What a shit hole the area was. I'd always imagined Naples to be a luxurious type place, kind've like a resort town, but actually it was extremely dirty and very poor. There were gypsies everywhere looking for money and the people in general seemed very sketchy. The train from Naples to Pompeii was the worst with crazies, drunks and it stank horribly the whole way there.

When we finally got there, we found where we had to meet our guide, adn then grabbed some pizza and freshly squeezed orange juice. Our tour started at 12:30 and lasted for about 2 and a half hours. Our tour guide was okay, but hard to listen to at times because of her thick Italian accent. Pompeii, the city frozen in time when it was buried by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius, was incredible. The Roman Forums were good to visit, but there's not alot left of them, whereas Pompeii, because of being buried by the volcano and then excavated by archeologists, is so well preserved adn most of the original town is still there looking alot more like what it once looked like than Rome. The streets were still lined with the original rocks and 'stepping stones' and most of the shops and house frames are all there too. The roofs were basically all that was totally missing in most places, but some of the buildings like the old bath and sauna house still had roofs with decorated ceilings. The whole place was pretty amazing and was worth the train time.

We finally got back to Rome around 8pm and then showered up. I went over to Termini at 9, called my Mommy, adn then headed to the hotel to meet Dave and his mom and sister who'd just got to town. I left them at 9:30 to go pick up Fabienne, adn then met up with Dave, his mom, sis, and Anne for dinner. Rob was supposed to meet me at the same time and place (under the monkeys) as Fabienne, but he didn't show, i guess because he was on the phone with his sweetie...or he'd been stabbed and there was nothing i could do about it anyways.

So we waited for him for a few minutes till about 9:45, just to make sure he really wasn't coming, adn then went to meet the rest of them at a new place for dinner. Dinner was good with the conversation led by Dave's sister who loved to talk and had all kinds of interesting stories anda few embaressing ones about Dave of course. Dave's mom was very very nice to me, Anne and Fabienne and paid for our meal.

After dinner, we walked Fabienne to her bus, and then the rest of us went home to bed.

We're heading outta Rome to Firenze (Florence) tomorrow whenever we get our shit together. I'm pretty sad to be leaving Rome. It's been so great over the past 5 days, probaly has to do especially with the people that we've been with, especially having Dave come to Rome unexpectantly. Fabienne was also great to run into just by chance at the Vatican of all places. She's 28 adn works in London downtown somewhere basically running the office for some type of consulting company. She was just in Rome for a week or so by herself, so she seemed happy to meet people and was great to have around. Anne has been good too. She's from Vancouver but hs been living in Japan (she's Japaneese) for the last 3 years teaching English and acting as a translator. She's here by herself for a month and was going in the same direction exactly as us from Interlaken (Cinque Terre, Rome, Florence, Venice), so we've been staying at the same places along the way and hanging out. She's also older than us, 29, and has been kind've like having an older sister around (although i don't have one to compare against).

Emilie reminded me of exactly what i expected from a French chic. She smokes, has a great accent, and is bitchy in a sexy kinda way. She's in Rome for 3 months looking to get a job and learn Italian.

I guess we'll be around with Anne for 4 more days, Dave is supposed to be here in Firenze tomorrow night, so we'll meet up for the night, and I'll maybe see Fabienne when i head to London at the end of my trip.

Either way, its been great in Rome. G T squared.

Day 29 - Rome

2005-10-15T22:59:00.000-05:00

Got up at 10ish and picked up Fabienne across town, caught some breakfast with her, and then walked to meet up with the rest of the gang (Dave, Rob, Anne, and Emilie). We ended up hanging out outside of Termini for about an hour waiting for everyone to be ready. It ended up being kinda fun just watching the craziness that is Termini in Roma.

Once we finally got everyone together we set off for the Catacombs a few kilometers south of the city. We jumped the Metro and then waited for teh 660 bus, which didn't seem to want to come. I was in a great mood all day and serenaded the ladies all day with stories of potato trucks, hockey games, getting stinko and forgetting about Inco, a girl who loves 'the way it feels, driving snowmobiles', and of course, a guy with a girls name. I'm postive that both Fabienne and Emilie will be wearing the heels off their boots stomping to the songs in their heads in both London and Paris by Christmas.

We got tired of waiting for teh bus, so we decided we'd try to walk it to find the Catacombs. We were well out of the heart of the city, so there were no tourists around and it turned out to be pretty tough. We let the girls take charge all day, so us boys just wandered behind the whole day and besides, its alot easier getting directions around here when you're a pretty girl rather than one of us boys.

We ended up on this narrow road/highway with no sidewalks and traffic flying by in each direction, it was quite the time. We finally got there and figured we'd wasted too much time walking and wouldn't even be able to go in, but ended up getting a guided tour of the Catacombs of San Callisto which was used to bury over 500 thousand Christians during the times when Christian's were being persecuted in Rome around 200 AD. The whole thing was underground adn we only to see a few small sections because, as you can imagine, with half a million bodies buried in underground tombs, the place was unimaginably huge and a HUGE maze.

After the tour, we all jumped a bus back into Rome and then all went back to get cleaned up for dinner. We went back to the same place for the 3rd night in a row. With Italian restaurants they say if you go once, you're treated great, but as a guest; you go twice, you're treated like a friend; you go back three times though, and they treat you like family. Definately was the case for us anyways. Again though, I think they just really liked the pretty girls.

They were full when we got there, so the manager made the crew put out another table for us right away while we drank free champagne on the sidewalk. The meal and service was great again, as well as the company. We got another free bottle of champagne and wine and the manager at one point after the meal, turned out all the lights adn the staff came out with a piece of cake with a candle and sung Fabienne happy birthday; I think i remember her saying her birthday isn't till January.

After dinner, the original plan was to go home to bed, but Emilie wanted to go down to this bar to see about getting a job for 3 months, so everyone but Rob went with her. On the way to the club, we came around this corner into a huge square with people EVERYWHERE. I've never seen anything like it. The whole square was lined with bars, and people were everywhere drinking and hanging out. Its hard to estimate, but i'd guess there were AT LEAST 5000 people just partying in the middle of the street. It was awesome. After that we got to this club where Emilie had met a bartender who was going to hook her up with a contact for a job and i figured we were only there for a drink. Then Dave orders a round of tequila shooters. Game on! Then the whole night went to shit. We were there till 4:30am and then me, Dave and Anne took off and the other two girls left on their own (well, Fabienne went home alone, i heard other rumours about Emilie though). By the time we got home it was after 5.

Up at 8am to head to Pompeii.

Day 28 - Rome / Vatican City

2005-10-14T22:59:00.000-05:00

Me and Rob got up really early (7ish), got slightly dressed up, then took the Metro west to Vatican City. Our tour guide from the day before had been so good that when she told us she was running a 3.5 hour Vatican tour the next day that we definately had to go. We figured out where we had to meet her and then had a cappuccino. While we were waiting for the 9:30 tour to start, we met this very pretty English girl from London who was taking the tour as well, Fabienne, and when the tour started the guide grouped the whole group into 3's, so she put the two of us guys and her together. What a lucky girl! And lucky guys...

We had to 'queue', as Fabienne would say, for about 30 minutes in order to go through security, but that was the only line all day, so not so bad. The tour was great and I definately think its the only way to fully get an appreciation for the history in the place, otherwise it would just be a series of statues, paintings, and frescoes that you wouldn't understand really at all. None of the art is labelled at all, so you wouldn't know really any of the hidden things in the paintings or know the Michaelangelo's from the Raffael's unless you were a mega art buff.

Every room in the place was jammed with priceless works of art and just seeing it all was mind boggling. Of course, the most famous being the Sistine Chapel where conclave took place not too long ago. It was really nice and the roof and the main wall were amazing, but i have to say that it was smaller than i imagined and definately was a bit of a disappointment compared to what i was kind've expecting.

The tour finally ended in St. Peter's Basillica which again was mind-boggling. After the tour, the 3 of us bought and sent postcards and then Fabienne left for her hotel to get ready and me and Rob climbed up into the dom of St. Peter's and took some pictures of Rome from the top. It was pretty crazy being able to look down over the whole inside of the church from the top walkway and then down over Rome and the main square from the top top of the dome.

In case anybody doesn't know, Rob is afraid of heights. He was hilarious walking/crawling up the steps to the top of the dome. If it wasn't for the fact tha the stairwells were one way and so narrow, I would have put lots of money on him turning around...he would've put the cash on himself too.

Afterwards, we walked around the main courtyard for abit and then took off. I picked up Fabienne at her hotel near the Vatican and brought her back to our hostel where we'd planned on meeting up with Dave, Anne, Rob, and this French girl, Emilie from our hostel room. She also, unfortunately for us guys, is very pretty. She definately also has the attitude that i'd expected girls from France to have and also does not speak or understand English fluently, so i did alot of translating here and there, although she still got on very well on her own.

We went for dinner again at the same place as last night and the manager and waiters were very happy to see us again, and even more so because of the pretty girls that we'd brought with us tonite on top of Anne. They treated us like gold again with more free champagne and wine. We ate much earlier and quicker than last night because of the big pub crawl.

We paid for dinner, then jumped on the Metro to the Spanish Steps where we met up with the start of this big pub crawl we'd been told about. Ever night, this company hosts this pub crawl starting at the top of the Spanish Steps where for 15 Euro we each get a free t-shirt, then get to drink as much beer and wine in 1 hour as we could and then we went to 3 bars where we got a free shot at each place. As far as i remember, it was a good time. Went to bed at X o'clock adn have a faint memory of 4 black, transexual hookers fondling me and Dave through our pants and one of them taking their boobs out and playing with them before we could avoid and get out of the situation....gross and weird.

Day 27 - Rome

2005-10-13T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 8:30 and hit the shitty little feeding that they call breakfast at the Stargate Hotel where we're staying and then set out for the Colosseum. Soon as we got there we got nabbed by one of the tour groups who convinced us that for 8 Euro more (plus 10 Euro entrance fee), we could skip the line, have an English guided tour, and then at one o'clock have another guided tour at the Palentine.

The Coloseum tour wasn't great because our guide kinda sucked (didn't speak great english), it was also really loud and hard to here her. The Colosseum was pretty awesome though. It was crazy to try to visualize it seating 70 thousand people because it was in such ruins inside.

After the Colosseum we hung out for abit and then met the tour guide (a different one) and did a tour of the Palentine. This tour was really good beacuse our tour guide spoke perfect English (she was from the UK) and she did a great job of explaining the story behind everything with all the history. She was great. The Palentine was pretty awesome too, but really I guess it was just a bunch of stones and some half walls and stuff. Not much left at all.

After that we walked through the Roman Forum (right beside the Palentine at the bottom of the hill). Again, same as the Palentine, not a ton left, but still really cool and some great photo-ops.

After that we wandered around some of the other big landmarks in Rome and ended up at the Spanish Steps. We actually did the exact same walking tour as me and Faye when we were here back on the first day of the trip.

We got an email earlier from Dave Grant saying that he had such a good time with us in the Cinque Terre that he woke up the next morning and decided to jump a train to Rome to try to find us. So we wrote him back and told him where we were staying and he met me, Rob, and Anne at our hostel. We found a place to eat near our hostel and ended up there from about 8:30-12:30. It was a typical Italian restaurant in Rome and we ate outside on the patio/sidewalk. The servers were all young and fun adn they loved us and we got free glasses of champagne and a bottle of wine. We ended up drinking more than enough bottles of wine and had a great talk with two Irish girls who were eating there too and were just right pissed and hilarious. And if that's what all the girls in Ireland look like, then i understand why the Irish guys have a reputation as being drunks...haha.

We decided after the last bottle not to go out anywhere else cause we didn't want to be hungover in the Vatican the next morning. Dave was stupid, but really nice adn felt bad for us poor students adn paid for all our dinners. Great guy.

Day 26 - 5T to Rome

2005-10-12T22:59:00.000-05:00

Slow day today. Slept in till almost 10 and then caught a train from Riomaggiore to La Spezia to Rome. Train ride was almost 5 hours and not very exciting. Got into Rome at almost 5, so Termini was pretty busy and we had our eyes on the lookout for potential pickpocketers, and there were plenty of them, but we were fine.

We were hoping to stay at Alessondro's Downtown, but they were completely booked up, so they recommended us a place around the corner and we got into a dorm room fine (6 man).

We hit a internet/laundromat for 2 hours and i did laundry for the second time this trip. After that, me and Rob found a spot for dinner and then we wandered to the Colosseum to see it at night. It was well worth the 20 minute walk there adn we took a bunch of pictures from different angles and stuff. It was Rob's first time seeing it. I still love it.

We walked back, hit the phones in termini, and then crashed early. Big day of touring tomorrow. Hopefully taking a tour inside the Colosseum tomorrow.

Day 25 - Cinque Terre x 2

2005-10-11T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 7:30 so that we could hit the trail early before it got too hot. When i hit it with Faye we didn't start walking till noonish and I think it was the heat that killed us the most that day. It was definately worth getting up early cause it was a beautiful day and in the 30s by mid-afternoon. We walked it from south to north this time (opposite of me and Faye) adn it was MUCH easier. It seemed like me and Faye were always walking uphill, whereas the other way was much more downhill, although there were still a few tough climbs. The trail was also alot emptier because we were there later in the season adn on a Tuesday, whereas me and Faye did it on a weekend. Was well worth coming back again because its just so gorgeous. I'd say its a must stop when visiting Italy for anyone.

We got to the last town, Monterosso at just after 1 (4 hours of hiking in all), and had a beer and a sandwich on a patio looking out over the sea, and then went down to the beach and went swimming. Me and Rob floated around for awhile and then Rob went in and i was out there all by myself for awhile when this guy floats by and asks me where i'm from. Turns out he's Canadian too and told me i wouldn't know where he's from (ends up being somewhere near Jasper), and I say the same, that he wouldn't know where i'm from either, Iroquois Falls.

Well.

Turns out he was born at the Anson General Hospital and lived in Iroquois Falls till around 95 and knows a ton of people i know and was actually just there a few weeks ago for a family reunion. He even remembers Mrs. Boudreau from the public school...haha. His name's David Grant.

So we chatted for awhle and then we showered the salt water off and told him to come to Riomaggiore tonite for some drinks, but he said he was just gonna chill for the night and go to bed early. We took the train back to Riomaggiore, cleaned up, and i went down near the station to write in my journal a bit. All of a sudden i see Dave and he says 'Shit, i was thinking about it, and how could i stay home and miss out on a night out with a fellow IF boy'. So me, Rob, Anne, Dave, and two other Canadian girls from the west coast (both staying in our hostel) and an Aussie girl (also from our hostel), got a table and watched the sunset and drank a bunch of red wine for 1.50 Euro a glass (big glasses too). After the sun was gone, we headed for dinner. The 4 girls ate at one place and the 3 of us guys went back to La Lampara and we had a huge seafood feast. We got a huge appetizer, mixed seafood plate that had all kinds of crazy crap on it. I don't have a clue what half of the stuff i was eating was, but it was great.

Right before dinner when we were standing with the girls trying to figure out where to go, this really good looking lady standing with her husband and another couple (both men must have been rich cause they were both about 60 with 40 something year old wives; both hot and blond) stopped me and said 'Aren't you Todd's friend!?'. To which i blankly lied 'Oh come on...i can't believe you don't remember me! I'm insulted!'. And then she grabbed me and gave me a huge hug. I made sure i gave her a good squeeze just to see if THEY were real or not. After the hug, i stepped back and confessed 'I'm sorry, i don't know Todd.'. The look on her face was priceless and everyone died laughing. Lucky i didn't get smacked...haha. Then i apologized to her a few more times. Anyways, we ended up sitting right next to them at dinner and she kept bugging me about it saying that i owed her some wine. I told her i was just a poor student, but would happily giave her another hug.

After dinner we hit the bar with everyone. Was a great time, met a bunch of people, even two people who just finished Phys Ed at Queen's. Dave took off around 11:30 to catch the last train back to Monterosso where he was staying and then me and Rob had a couple more drinks and headed back for the hostel. We had to help the other 3 girls from our hostel back cause they were so drunk. They had a bunch of weird Aussie's hitting on them all night. The one Aussie girl was so drunk i basically had to lift her up the stairs to bed.

Off to Roma tomorrow!!!! I can't wait to go back there.

Day 24 - Interlaken to Cinque Terre

2005-10-10T22:59:00.000-05:00

Got up at 7:30 and hit breakie then walked to the train station to catch the 9:23 train to Spiez and then a train from there to Milano, then Milano to Monterosso, then Monterosso to Riomaggiore (both towns in the Cinque Terre).

We travelled with this girl Anne from Vancouver who's travelling alone and was heading to the Cinque Terre as well, so we all rode the train together, adn are going to hike together tomorrow.

All of the connections were fine, except in Milano where we had to run as hard as we could to catch our train and just just made it. Running with all of our stuff isn't fun to say the least. So we rolled into Monterosso (the furthest north of the five towns) adn then caught another train to the southern most town of the Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore. We weren't booked anywhere adn were abit nervous about finding a place, but the second we stepped off the train, this old Italian lady grabbed us and gave us a sheet in English saying basically 'Clean rooms, hot shower, free kitchen use - 15 Euro each', so we went with her the 50 feet from the station to her place, and after seeing it decided to stay there. We threw our bags in our rooms, me and Rob got a private double, and went up to the same place me and Faye had gone to watch the sunset. We had a couple bottles of vino between the 3 of us, and then we went through the tunnel to the other side of town and went to La Lampara for dinner. Meal was awesome and hilarious because its a family run place and Grandpa was there, helping a bit, but more just causing shit. He kept coming over to our table, winking and singing to Ane. Everyone at the restaurant was cracking up laughing.

After dinner we went for a walk down by the beach, and then shut're down early for the big walk tomorrow.

Day 23 - Interlaken

2005-10-09T22:59:00.000-05:00

We both slept in till about 9:30 this morning (its crazy that i now consider 9:30 'sleeping in') and picked up our rations of 1 bun, 1 slice of bread, and a small chunk of cheese, that they call breakfast (i feel like i'm in jail), and then just hung around the hostel till 1:30.

There's a ton to do at the hostel, and alot of people left Sunday morning, so the place was pretty empty and me, Rob, Phil (the Aussie), and 2 American guys from Boston had the whole movie room/games room to ourselves. So we signed out a few movies, laid around, and played some foosball and pool. Was the first time in awhile that we just hung out like that.

At 1:30 our guide for canyoning picked us up (5 of us from the hostel) and brought us to their home camp where they hooked us up with full wet suits (overalls and a jacket) and water proof boots, and another jacket for overtop, adn then a lifejacket on top of that and a helmet. Putting all that crap on was pretty crazy adn then the two Swiss guides took the 12 of us (5 Americans from the airforce base just to the north in Germany somewhere and a girl from Vancouver and another one from Hamilton) up into the mountains and then we got out of the van adn walked up even higher up a trail along the edge of the canyon. So we got all the way up to where this canyon started and then climbed down into it.

So for the next 3 hours, we basically climbed down through the canyon. The canyon was about 2 feet wide on average adn was fed by 2-3 degrees Celcius glacier water, and had 20-40 foot walls basically all the way down, so there was definately a feeling like you were in a pit the whole time. So one at a time, we'd go down the canyon through different obstacles like jumping over waterfalls, jumping off cliffs into small pools of water, and repelling (with full rock climbing gear) down rock faces to the bottom of waterfalls. It was the scariest thing i think i've ever done, but also one of the funnest. The adrenaline was pumping so hard through the body that you could hardly notice that you were doing all this in glacier water, in October, in the middle of the Swiss Alps. The scariest part was this 8m (about 25 foot) jump off this one cliff into a small pool of water. It wasn't the jump that was the worst part, it was the 4-5 foot wide landing area between the two rocks that was the problem. So you had to jump hard so you made it far enough over one rock, but you also had to make sure you jumped in a straight line so you wouldn't hit the rocks on the sides (I'm sure if it was in North America they wouldn't let you do it). So they explained this jump to us before we got to it, but we couldn't see it. Then the first 6 people who climbed up to the ledge were so afraid that they couldn't do it right away (Rob included). Five other people jumped and then i climbed up to the cliff, pissed myself, then decided that if i didn't go right that second that i wouldn't be able to do it. So i stepped up, closed my eyes, and jumped. Partway down, i opened my eyes and saw just how tight a jump it was (I could've touched the rocks on either side if i'd spread my arms), but luckily hit the water. The guys at the bottom said that when i jumped, they thought i was going to smoke the one rock for sure, but all ended well, luckily. Rob wen tsoon after and was fine too.

The whole rest of it was awesome too. I sucked hard at repelling (they harness you up and you walk down a cliff). The worst part of that was when you stand at the edge of the cliff, face the guide (who's holding the other end of the rope) and then lean back over nothing but a shallow rocky pool below you. Then you walk backwards down the rock face as he gives you more and more rope. I didn't walk so much, it was more him basically just lowering me down. The other really cool part was right at the end where we laid on our stomachs and stuck our arms out like Superman and went headfirst over two small waterfalls.

Once we got to the bottom, they picked us up and brought us back to camp where we got to take hot showers, and then they fed us a couple beers in the yard looking out over the mountains, adn then took us back to the hostel. It was an inredible experience adn we're both really happy that we did it....and didn't break anything.

The rest of the night we just hung out at the hostel, caught some dinner, and hung out with Phil and the 2 Americans from earlier, and watched some NFL in the bar downstairs. Ended up talking for about an hour with this crazy looking pilot from Belarus. He was pretty interesting and kept saying how much he loves hockey. He smoked cigarettes non-stop and was double fisting a beer and straight vodka.

Heading back to the Cinque Terre tomorrow.

Day 22 - Zurich to Interlaken

2005-10-08T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up early (again) and hit the train station with the boys from Wake and caught the 10am train from Zurich to Interlaken. The train we were on was pretty sweet and was a double decker. All the trains in Europe have actually been really nice and modern compared to Canadian ones. Same as the buses and subways too actually.

Anyways, we got to Interlaken around 1ish. Once again, absolutely gorgeous place. Zurich was nice, but i was a little disappointed cause it wasn't surrounded by mountains like Innsbruck was. Interlacken, though, is exactly what i thought Switzerland would look like. Interlaken is a small town in the middle of the Alps and its the central hug for extreme sports in Switzerland.

We're staying at Balmer's hostel. It's a pretty sweet place with 400 beds, two bars, and all kinds of shit to do. Soon as we got here, we dropped off our stuff and the 4 of us hit the grocery store and then wandered around town. Interlaken only has a population of about 15 thousand, so walking around town is no problem. We decided we'd head for the big white mountains and so we found a path and headed up into the mountains. Some pretty incredible views and tons of cows with huge bells around their necks. Everywhere we went, all we could hear was the sound of bells. We walked through the mountains for about 4 hours, and then headed back to the hostel just in time for happy hour at the bar.

The hostel has 2 for 1 beers from 6 till 7 in the bar upstairs and then from 9 till 10 in the bar downstairs. We happened to run into this Aussie, Phil, that we met in Innsbruck, so we had some pints with him, adn then grabbed some Thai food with him, and then back and partied downstairs for the rest of the night.

Canyoning tomorrow!

Day 21 - Zurich

2005-10-07T22:59:00.000-05:00

Slept in till almost 9:30 and then got up, showered, and after breakie me and Rob headed out and juse wandered around for 3 hours. Around 1, we went to the Schweizericsches Landesmuseum and toured around. The museum is in a big castle and had artifacts from basically the beginning of human existence in Switzerland right up until modern day.

We walked back to the hostel after and both laid down for 5 minutes, which turned into 2 hours. When we got up, we had 2 new roommates from Wake Forest in the states (school in North Carolina). We went with them to a nearby grocery store and picked up some 1 FRC tallboys of beer and pasta and salad for back at the hostel.

I got an email from Paul Gagne (x-NHLer from IF) who's coaching a pro team in Switzerland and I'm going to try to swing by his place after Rob leaves and catch a game.

We ate at the hostel, and sat around drinking beers from the grocery store with the Aussie from the night before, the two boys from Wake Forest, the two Winnipeg chics, and 4 other new guys. We kept getting shit from the guy in charge of the hostel for being too roudy and eventually went out drinking in the square outside.

Around 1am we went out looking for a bar, but i stopped for a pit stop in a back alley and then couldn't find the crew when i got out, so i found my way back to the hostel and crashed for the night.

Off to Interlaken tomorrow.

Day 20 - Innsbruck to Zurich

2005-10-06T22:59:00.000-05:00

WE go tup and met the Western boys for breakfast at 8:30. The night before I'd told them how my friend Russ and Colleen had recommended for me to bring a jar of peanut butter, so i have a kilogram with me. I promised the boys a bit of the Kraft Canadian Paradise in the morning and brought it down with me. They were willing to give up their sister's and girlfriends they were so thankful. We made plans to email each other and hopefully meet up in Rome for next weekend.

Me and Rob packed up and got to the train station one minute before the next train heading towards Switzerland left, so we ran to the trakc, but the train was a few minutes later, so we had lots of time.

There was flooding recently in western Austria and parts of Switzerland and it turns out that it destroyed part of the tracks between Zurich and Innsbruck, so we could only take the train as far as somewhere around Bludeny, Austria, where they had a bunch of buses waiting for us to Bregenz where we then jumped onto another train that took us to Zurich.

The bus ride was pretty cool because it took us threw these super long tunnels. Some of them must have been at least 10km because i saw the speed limit was 50km/hr and I timed one tunnel at 17 minutes. It was nuts.

We got to Zurich at 4ish. Another gorgeous city. Supposedly its one of the richest cities in the world, so it might be peanut butter and jam for the next two days. We're staying at the City Backpacker's Inn located right in the middle of the old part of the city near the river. We're in a 6 person dorm, so far with just me and Rob, one guy we still haven't seen, adn an 80 year old man who looks like he's been here for weeks and speaks zero english or french.

At 6ish, we went out for a walk on teh town and to find somewhere to eventually eat. We're staying in the old part of town, so we wandered aroudn the narrow, cobble stone streets, adn then headed across one fo the many bridges to the newer, financial and shopping district. It was incredibly nice (again). WE felt pretty outta place even just walking around. The stores were incredible adn the banks all had guards outside adn the entraces looked like the foyer's of super high class hotels. We saw a thousand dollar zippo in one window. The Swiss Franc (they don't use the Euro) is about the same value as the Canadian dollar, but most things, especially food and booze, is WAY more expensive. WE had a hard time finding ANYTHING under 20 Francs for dinner. We ended up getting Gnocchi adn a beer at one place for 23 Francs, but the girl felt so bad for us that she knocked 5 Francs off that. Pretty sweet.

We walked back to the hostel after hitting a grocery store then spent the rest of the night in the hostel common room with 3 Canadian girls (2 from Winnipeg and 1 from Vancouver), one Kiwi girl, and an Aussie guy. We sat around, had a few beer, and shot the shit. They loved our train story. Me and Rob were a two man comedy crew all night...haha.

Just hanging out tomorrow, walking around the city.

Day 19 - Innsbruck

2005-10-05T11:59:00.000-05:00

We got up for the usual European hostel breakfast of buns, meats, and cheese where we'd planned to meet upwith the Western boys and from there we met up with this guy, Zed, from London, England who knows the area (knows it just well enough to get us into trouble anyways) and he agreed to take us hiking. We took the city bus from the front of the hostel that took us to Igls, a place just south of town (i think). From Igls we took the Patscher Kofelbahn cable car that took us from 870m above sea level up to 2246m. The hike up the moutain was beautiful, but not too rugged as there was a service road heading up to a weather station on top. The hike up took maybe an hour and a half. We sat up top for a bit and had a drink and snack while looking straight down over Innsbruck. From there we headed onto a very rugged trail around the mountain that brought us to a little shack on the back of the mountain where this Austrian guy lives and sold us coffee and struddles. From there we kept hiking around, allt he while stopping often to tkae tons of pictures. The trail continued around the mountain eventually bringing us back to the cable car, taking us back to the hostel. The two trails we took were called the Jochleitensteig, which tooks us to the guys shack at Boschenben, and the Zirbenweg, which brought us back to the cable car.

The boys we went with were two brothers, Shawn and Brent, and Shawn's buddy Adam. The Western boys were cool and we're going to try to meet up in Rome in 5 or 6 days.

While up on the mountain, I told them i was from IF, which blew Shawn's mind because they know a bunch of people from town. Turns out that Shawn's girlfriend Daniella is best friends with Sheri Denault and she's actually been to IF and played on my sis' baseball team. Crazy small world.

We also shared a room with 2 brothers from Bowmanville. Turns out that when i played in the Chimo hockey tourney in Cochrane when i was in Bantam hockey, I played against him. He was the goalie for the other team. I specifically remember playing against them because they were a bunch of dirty bastards.

Anyways, we were pretty tired after hiking, so we just hung around the hostel all night and played some darts, then to bed by midnight. Off to Zurich tomorrow.

Day 18 - Munich to Innsbruck

2005-10-04T22:59:00.000-05:00

We both got up at 9ish feeling like hell from Octoberfest. There's a descent chance we won't drink again. We packed up, locked our bags together upstairs and headed out to find out about trains to Austria. We booked ourselves onto a 13:30 train from Munich to Innsbruck then walked around Munich abit, bought some Oktoberfest t-shirts, had some breakie, mailed some postcards and our burnt picture cd's back home, then made it just on time for our train.

It was our first time on a train with the compartments like you see in the movies. Was pretty cool, and we met up with a guy from Halifax who'd just spent 4 days in Innsbruck and told us how much he loved it. The train ride was good and got really nice when we got into the mountains.

Our train was actually an express to Milano with a quick stop in Innsbruck, so we wanted to make sure we were on the ball and didn't miss our stop. The other Canadian guy, Andrew, all of a sudden said "You're here!" and the train stopped, so we were rushing to grab our gear and I pushed the button to open the door and jumped off.

Then i looked around.

There was no way this was a train stop. I was on a very narrow service walkway with a 12 foot wall on the side.

Definately no way i was supposed to be here. I looked up and Rob was looking at me saying he didn't think this was the stop either.

Then the train started moving and the door started closing. There was no way I could climb up onto the moving train with all my gear, so i started yelling at Rob to jump off. So Rob hesitates, lets the train pick up speed, then jumps off.

Train leaves.

We're alone.

12 foot walls on both sides of the tracks. No doorways out. So we start walking. Couple trains go by. We hug the walls. Everyone on the trains is staring at us. We're definately not supposed to be where we were. SHIT!

We keep walking and pass a factory of some kind. A guy is staring at us. Calls over a few more buddies. They're pointing at us and yelling. Can't understand a word they're saying. Probably something like "You idiots! What're u doing there!?"

All of a sudden, coming from the direction that our train went, here comes a single engine train car with two guys hanging their heads out. They stopped and started questioning us in German. Definately not supposed to be here. Next thing you know, Rob's climbing up, into the train. Next thing, I'm up there and we're with the conductors. We figured for sure we were getting charged or something. But instead, they drove us the 3 or 4 km to the station and dropped us off at the main station; in front of everyone. There were a couple hundred people just staring as this engine car rolls into the passenger train area and out climbs these two 25 year olds, still smelling and hungover from Oktoberfest, with big Canadian flags draped all over our bags. What an experience. We musta looked like the biggest idoits. I got some pics from the inside of the train as proof.

So anyways, from there we found our hostel easy enough and met up with 10 other Canadian kids. I've hardly met 2 Canadians so far, and all of a sudden there's 10 of them. Plus 3 Aussie's, 2 Kiwi's, and a Mexican guy. Our hostel is okay, but the lady running it is crazy. She reminds me of the crazy one at the end of Eurotrip who tells them that if they don't want their stuff stolen to "Break them now, or shove them up your ass"...otherwise they'll be stolen.

We went out for food and a drink with a bunch of the people then home to hang out for awhile, then to bed by 1.

Innsbruck is gorgeous. So clean, beautiful buildings, and surrounded by mountains. Definately the "nicest" place i've ever been. Heading into the mountains hiking tomorrow.

Day 17 - Munich (Oktoberfest)

2005-10-03T11:58:00.000-05:00

Woke up at 7am. Walked to Oktoberfest. Drank beer and ate pretzels. Stumbled back to the hostel. Went to bed.

***********

Pretty much it. We were in the Schottenhamel Spatenbrau tent. WE lined up around 8am adn they opened the doors at 9. The rush into the tent was crazy with everyone trying to get the best tables. We snagged a sweet table right in the middle of everything and right in front of the stage. It was pretty quiet for the first 3 hours with everyone busy trying to get drunk...not very hard. At noon the band started playing and things were nuts from then on out. As soon as the band starting, people were up on their seats. The band was similar to the one in Stuttgart with a bunch of brass instruments. They played a bunch of traditional Bavarian music and then as the day went on busted into a bunch of American music and even played some Canadian (Summer of '69)....haha. Of course there was also all the chanting like in Stuttgart, with some new chants too that all the locals sitting around us taught us happily. Again, it was very German dominated, unike what we'd read about there being about 50% tourists. The reason probably was because Oktoberfest (which is only in Munich and not all over Germany as most people think....myself included before i came here) is always over on teh first Sunday of October, butu this year was extended for one more day because apparently the 3rd is a national holiday celebrating the unification of Germany. So we were lucky to just happen to be here when the 3rd fell on the Monday after Oktoberfest.
The tent we were inwas pretty much the same as Stuttgart (just alot bigger). Our tent had seating and standing room for over 10 thousand people and therew were over 300 thousand apparently between all of the tens and the fair grounds. Insane.
We sat with all kinds of different people during the course of the day and ate chicken and humongous pretzels. We ach had 6L's of the beer which was very strong at 8% alcohol. We made it within 1 hour of the end fo the night but were definately KO'd and had to leave. Out of the people that started the day at the tables aroudn us, we were the last ones to leave.
Great time and I'm glad we did it, but after Saturday in Stuttgart and then Monday in Munich, I've had enough beers for a long time and am glad that its behind us.
To the Alps tomorrow to Innsbruck, Austria to see mountains for the first time in my life. Hopefully do some hiking!

Day 16 - Stuttgart to Munich

2005-10-02T11:59:00.000-05:00

Woke up at 10ish to Christian's beautiful face telling me its time to wake up (not pretty). Having a big German guy wake you up like that was something right out of a bad dream and i was pretty afraid until i realized i wasn't chained up and realized that nobody had any leather on and no whips were in sight.
I didn't feel too bad, but Rob was definately in rough shape and looked like he wanted to die. We cleaned up and packed and I spent a solid hour or so updating my blog and Christian burnt all my digital pics so that i can mail them all home.
Christian and Anke made us a traditional Bavarian breakfast, although Stuttgart is not in Bavaria. The breakfast was freshly baked pretzels from the bakery and 'white' sausage. I've never seen white sausages like that, but they were very good and the pretzels were great too.
All fo the food all weekend was fantastic. Christian and, especially, Anke were teh best hosts that I could imagine and we had a fantastic time staying with them. Anke was even nice to us this morning after us being so loud and waking her up last night. Either she is genuinely nice, as she seems to be, or she just puts on a really good act and then lost her shit on Christian after we left. I think she was just that nice though and was really happy to have us. Rob thinks that she was happier than a pig in shit to have us leave...haha. Maybe a little from column A and a little from column B. Either way, she was fantastic to us.
They dropped us off at the train station and we took a 15:58 train to Munich. Train ride was okay adn we stayed out of the smoking cars (live and learn). Seeing the countryside from the train is pretty cool and the forests here in the south of GErmany are pretty cool and almost look kind of enchanted or something, not sure what it is. They're not dissimilar to Ontario, but there's definately something different about them.
We got to Munich in the rain, but we thankfully found our hostel quickly and it was very close to the station.
We were both still exhausted so we hit the phones and internet for about an hour, and then grabbed some quick pizza and then back to the hostel to bed early.
Over pizza we decided we will leave Munich Tuesday and head for Innsbruck, Austria to do some hiking, and then probably to Zurich, Interlaken adn somewhere south to see the Matterhorn, but nothing beyond Innsbruck is of course set in stone.
Up at 7am tomorrow to hit Oktoberfest, Munich! Drunk and in bed by noon i'm sure!

Day 15 - Stuttgart

2005-10-01T22:59:00.000-05:00

Anke and Christian got us up at 9:30ish once they got back from their Sat morning job and we headed to the bakery to get buns for breakfast (something not done often in Canada for sure) and then back to the apartment for a big breakfast of buns with cream cheese, sliced ham, cheese ('just' German cheese though, as Rob put it) and blood sausage (which i really liked).
After we washed the dishes, we jumped in the car and drove for about 30 minutes to the Ludwigsburg castle. It was the home of the King and Queen's of Ludwigsburg since 1709. It was amazing (overused word, i know). We took a 90 minute, english guided tour. The place was humoungous with all kinds of rooms and we got to go pretty much everywhere including the King and Queen's rooms (which were on opposite sides of the castle). The King and Queen each had their own rooms and then there was also a huge throne room that had an amazingly painted ceiling. It was painted in a way to make it look like the walls extended upwards and partly in over the room and then opening to a sky full of different gods. It was pretty amazing. Never seen anything like it before. Most of the rooms had similar things on the ceilings and many of the walls had statues of babies, people , and gods coming out of the walls. AFter the castle we went back to their place and we made schnitzel. They showed us how to do it and me and Rob then pounded out the rest of the meat and then dipped them in the flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs.
We ate (it was awesome) and then headed out right away for the Stuttgart version of Oktoberfest call Vonfest (i think). 'Oktoberfest' is only in Munich, but Stuttgart's is pretty much the same (i'll find out soon for myself) except that Christian says that the Munich version has 50% Germans and 50% tourists, whereas the STuttgart one has 95% Germans and only 5% tourists. He says he likes the Stuttgart one alot better. Me and Rob had ZERO clue what to expect. All i knew is that there are about 10 huge tents at both of them and that you go get drunk.
So we took the train to the grounds and it turned out that the tents are in the middle of a huge huge huge fair or carnival. There were all the crazy rides and games and German carnies and then of course these HUGE tents. I think i remember Christian saying that the distance from the first tent to the last is about 500m adn each tent holds 5000 people. So 10-12 tents with about 5000 people in each makes for ALOT of drunk people.
Before we even got into our tent we saw two guys giong at it right in front of the ten doors before 8 huge security guys jumped on them (literally), cuffed them, adn threw them in police cars. Christian hardly seemed to notice, but me and Rob were both starting to wonder what the hell we'd gotten ourselves into.
We finally got into a tent by 7:30ish and I was blown away. There were people everywhere drinking from huge 1L mugs. There was a huge stage on one end with a live band (about a 15 person orchestra style band with a couple of singers, two drummers, two keyboards, guitars, and 8 guys playing different brass instruments) and just these HUGE, long tables packed with people up dancing on the bench seats. It wasn't even 8 and the place was absolutely insane. The beers were 7.20 Euros/mug of beer.
We found a place to stand between tables up near the stage (which was elevated about 10-15 feet above everything else and was on a slope so that you could see everyone in the band) and got into're! Within about an hour we got room for the three of us and got up on the seats and spend the next few hours dancing and singing and chanting. They have a bunch of different things that they chant between songs that EVERYBODY knows (Christian made sure we knew the most important ones before we got there...we practiced around the dinner table) and so we'd chant and drink adn dance, adn then we'd chant, dance and sing some more. When that was done, we'd chant, sing, and dance some more. It reminded me alot of a Queen's Players show, but with no breaks, so you're up on your seats the whole time and instead of 170 people, there are over 5000 drinking nothign but one liter beers. And EVERYONE was loaded. There were 16 year olds to 80 year olds just smashed out of their trees. There were a few fights around us that quickly got worked out by the security literally dragging people out. I had a drunk, German, 50 year old cougar on my right side who would've been really easy to go home with and in front of us this 40 year old lady kept pushing the guy next to her and he had no sense of balance left and would fall into the people on his other side or onto us, so me and Rob were basically holding him by his shirt collar trying to keep him up. I finally told her to stop pushing him (thnking she just wanted this drunk guy away from her) to which she looked at me and said "He's my bloody husband and i was the dam bloke to sit down because he's fucking hammered". We couldn't stop laughing at this and then i said to her that if he's her husband, who's the guy with his arm around her and she said "I don't have a clue!!!!". It was hilarious. She was hammered as well and i ended up dancing with her later on...haha.
We stayed till 11 when they closed the taps adn we jumped onto 1 of the 2 HUGE ferris wheels while right pissed and then got some German candy that we passed around to EVERYONE (or tried to anyways) during our train ride home.
From teh train station we had a very stumbly walk to Christian's place with him showing us a pretty cool way to turn off street lights on the way home (until we got yelled at).
Anke was very patient with us and got out of bed and very nicely asked us to shut the hell up in the living room. Christian went to bed soon after that and Rob passed out (can't really call it going to bed, just passing out) and I decided that i wanted to share how good of a time i had with everyone so i called about 5 differnet people, although i dont' remember much of it.
Anwyays, it was an amazing night and i'm still blown away by the party. 50-60 thousand people drinking from 9am till 11pm. Rediculous. To Munich tomorrow to do it all again MOnday starting at 7am!

Day 14 - London to Stuttgart

2005-09-30T22:59:00.000-05:00

Got up at 4:30am and caught our 5am cab and then jumped on the train from London to Brussels at 6:10am. We pulled into Brussels at 10ish and then caught at 10:30am train from Brussels to Cologne, Germany.
The chunnel train was pretty nice. It was kinda like taking a plane cause we had to be there early (but only 30 minutes) and then had to go through security and customs just like at the airport. Which is fine though because you definately wouldn't want anything to happen while under the English Channel.
From Cologne, we jumped on the 'local' train, instead of the 'express' to Stuttgart by accident. The express didn't leave until an hour after we got to Cologne, so we figured if we got on the train leaving right away, we'd get there sooner. Not the case. The local train stopped at EVERY little station along the way and ended up getting to Stuttgart 15 minutes later than the express. The worst thing about the train we got on was that the only seats we could find were in the 'ashtray'. It was horrible. A whole train car with no open windows, no air flow hardly, and every German smoking at least one cigarette every 15 minutes. I'm positive we were the only people on the train who couldn't speak German too. I couldn't believe that there were parents with children in the same car. It was the grossest 3 hours ever. And on top of that, we had to keep changing seats since we only have a ticket for the train, but not a specific seat unless we pay extra (about 2 Euros), we we'll know better from now on.
After getting to Stuttgart, we called Christian's mobile and he eventually found us at the station. It was pretty awesome seeing him for the fist time in a year and a half. He works for Bosch and was all dressed up and looked alot thinne, saying he'd lost 40lbs since i saw him last. He brought us home in his Volkswagon Golf to his apartment on the outskirts of Stuttgart and we met his girlfriend Anke, who is very pretty and very very nice and welcomed us very hospitably into her house.
We got settled, had a few 'Rothaus Pils' beers adn then we ate. Anke made us a traditional German dish from the region that had some kind of noodles called 'spatzle' with lentils and saiten (sausage). It was awesome and we ate ourselves full which we then followed up with a glass of Ramazotti (an Italian liqueur). We then had a couple more beer and then we went downtown Stuttgart which was way nicer than i expected, especially the main square with the two castles, huge water fountains, and 400 year old church, which was all right next to the shopping district which had tons of bars and clubs mixed in. We went to a Mexican style place that was very classy and we had a blonde German beer while we waited for 11 o'clock happy hour at which point we ordered these HUGE Long Island Iced Teas that were basically pure liquor and sugar with a LITTLE big of Coke for clour for 5 Euro (regular 10 Euro). Rob had the bright idea of pounding them back in one go through the straw (which we of course did) and then ordered two more before coming back to the apartment. They had a mattress and a small, self-inflattable mattress for us to sleep on. I took the mattress cause we're at my buddies place...haha.
Was great to finally get to bed around 2am after being up since 4:30am back in London.

Day 13 - London

2005-09-29T22:59:00.000-05:00

We both slept in abit because of the rough night last night. I still can't believe we helped a cabbie change a flat last night...haha. Nevermind that, i can't believe he let us do it in the state we were in. We did the whole thing....it wouldn't surprise me if the tire fell off soon as he got around the corner.
Anyways, we had breakie at the hostel around 11 and were on the streets by 11:30ish. We're staying at the Generator up by Kings Cross. It's a huge hostel with a full cafeteria, laundry, probably at least 100 beds (probably much more) and a full bar with events going on each night. The best part is that they have happy hour everynight from 6-9 (i pound pints of McEwans).
So, we hit the streets with the tour bus pass that we bought at the hostel. We were with the Original Bus Company (or something like that). The pass lets you jump on and off any of their red, open topped, double decker busses as much as you want for a 24 hour period. A bus goes by each of their 60 or so stops every 15 minutes, so jumping on and off was easy. We rode most of the loop getting off at Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, and near London Bridge to walk around. From London Bridge we jumped on a boat for a ride on the Thames River that took us from London Bridge to Tower Bridge. The buses and boat were a great waz to get oriented with everything (although it was pretty expensive - 16 pounds) and they all the buses and boat had a tour guide with a microphone who explained where you were and told different stories about each place, so it was worth the money.
We spent the end of the afternoon running around trying to get our Eurail passes validated adn book our train for the next day to Stuttgart to see my buddy Christian and then to Munich (Munchen) for the last two nights of Oktoberfest. Rob also had to get a Simcard for his cell phone, which ended up being a pretty big pain, taking lots of time and costing him alot of money too.
After finally getting everything figured out, we went to Sherlock Holmes' Pub near Trafalgar Square and had fish and chips (only 3 pounds with our tour pass). From there we walked all the way back to our hostel for the night.
We both LOVED London. What a great city. There's so many museums and tours i want to take when we come back near the end of our trip.
That night we were 'supposed' to take it easy and go to bed early because we had a cab coming at 5am to take us to the Waterloo train station to catch our 6am train. We hit a nearby grocery store adn go some bread, meat, and cheese for the train the next daz. After that we popped in the bar for a happy hour pint. There was a beer bong competition going on that neither of us wanted to go in, but of course, me with my rubber arm, Canadian beer drinking pride, and the honour of Clark Hall Pub to defend, i was on stage within minutes in front of a packed bar. There was a big group of Brits and Scots who were all tanked and yelling at me and calling me a wanker while i was on stage, hat backwards (nobody wears hats at all in Europe, so i get stares for the hat alone) and sporting my Metallica tour shirt. I shut them up pretty quickly though when i put down the pint through the giant funnel with the fastest time by almost half (you should be pround Mom!). My time held up and i won the 1 pint competition and then was 'forced' to go back up for the 2 pint competition and came in second! All that hard work, training all summer came in handy! So i won a bunch of more beer adn had not choice but to stay and drink it.
We hung out a bunch during the past two days with an American guy, Chris, from Colorado. He is an exact mix of my two buddies Kevin MacLean (he loves civil engineering; especially bridges and buildings and LOVES to talk about them) and Dave Nielsen (he's from Colorado and is very cheap). The similarities were scary.
I've decided that i don't reallz like English guys (based on not even two days in England). From what I've seen so far, they're either A) flaming homosexual type; or B) soccer hooligan type who have a huge chip on their shoulders all the time and look like they're about two words away from fighting whoever's close.
Anyways, finally got to bed at 1ish for about 3 hours of sleep.

Day 12 - Bergamo/London

2005-09-28T22:59:00.000-05:00

Carlos woke me up this morning at 6:30ish and we packed in the dark and headed for a bus stop. We waited forever for a bus, but finally caught one around 8:30 to the airport. We met two girls along the waz on the same flight as me heading back to England after two months of vacation. I'm not sure what it is, but i must somehow attract smart people because Carlos is a law student and the two girls we met, Sophie and Georgie, are med students. Carlos says that he wants to come to Canada sometime soon and go fishing, so i told him that i'd take him. He's going to teach me how to make home made italian sauces via email. There girls were nice and taught me to properlz play sudoku on the plane ride (I'm now an expert).
Finally got to the hostel at 3ish and met up with Rob. We got some food and had aour first pint together then headed to the bar at the hostel. We stazed at a place near's King's Cross called the Generator. We relaxed abit, then headed up for the bar in the hostel. Chelsea and Liverpool were playing, so we bet on the game through the pool being run in the bar, and then drank 1 pound pints from 6 till 9. We got pretty trashed and the game finished 0-0 which sucked because everytime the team you chose scored, we were supposed to get a shot of tequila, so we didn't get any at all (not that we really needed them anyways).
After that, me and Rob went for a walk and got caught in the rain. Which isn't odd for London i suppose. What was weird though is that we came upon a cab driver with a flat tire. Like the good Canadian kids we are, we boosted the car for him and changed his tire because he didn't have a clue how to do it. We got absolutely soaked, but the old cab driver appreciated it so much that it was worth it. Everyone in our hostel thought that we were crazy, but it was fun.

Day 11 - Firenze/Milano/Bergamo

2005-09-27T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up and left our hotel in Fiesole earlz and headed into Florence. The plan initiallz was to try and park downtown somewhere and then find Faye a room for the night before dropping the car off right in the middle of the city. Once we got up closer to downtown though, we realized that finding a place and getting the car back on time was not practical so we attemped to follow the street map that the guz at the hotel gave us, however there were way too many one ways for this, so when we got within a few blocks of the garage Faye pulled over and i walked the streets until i found a route through all the one ways. From there we walked together to the train station and i helped Faye with her bags. We left each other at the train station just before noon and i jumped on a 12:14 train for Milano. The train took about 4 hours because of delays on the tracks.
The Milano train station was very cool with a huge barn or greenhouse type roof (not sure if that makes sense or not), but either way it looked very cool. I wanted to take pics, but i unfortunately and stupidlz packed both my cameras very deep in mz bag. I'm still able to fit all my luggage on mz back which is great (don't need an extra bag yet). Very nice to be able to do that and always have my hands free (George, if you're reading, you'd be proud).
From Milano i jumped a bus for about an hour to Bergamo airport and then from there, another bus to the city. From there i had to take a second bus to my hostel located in Ostello (i think its a suburb of Bergamo).
I had no clue where iw as going and i asked this old ladz beside me if she had a clue which stop i had to take (in my best italian...i know maybe 10 words now). She ended up speaking not bad English and told me that her husband died fighting with Canadian forces in the war and how she'd be more than happz to show me to my hostel and she actually got off the bus ahead of her stop and walked with me the 3 blocks from the bus stop to my hostel, then i guess back to the bus stop, waited for the next bus, and then kept going. I guess not all Italians are rude dicks after all.
I checked in around 7pm and then took a differnet city bus into the old part of Bergamo. Yet ANOTHER medieval fortress town. I'm ALMOST getting tired of them and am looking forward to seeing other parts of Europe. I ate dinner on my own (pizza with fries on it....weird cause i thought the fries were coming on the side) , then back to the hostel and hung out with an Italian guy and an Irish guy, both in my dorm room. Me and the Italian guy, Carlo, fly from the same airport around the same time tomorrow so we're going to make sure each other is up.
There are 8 guys in mz room, the two guys i mentionned earlier, two older Italian guys (40's), two Croatian men (40's) and a 69 year old man from the Netherlands. He told me he spent 2002 travelling Canada (went through Cochrane, but did not remember IF), because he wanted to see the country of his liberators before he died. He remembers the Canadian freeing his town in 1945 when he was 9. He sazs his favorite cheese is Canadian orange cheddar with almonds in it (?) because he remembers a Canadian soldier giving him a big chunk of it when he was starving. Interesting, but i've never heard of cheese with almonds in it (although i told him that i love it too...haha).
Up earlz tomorrow and flying to London to start part 2 of my trip!!!!

Day 10 - Fiesole

2005-09-26T22:59:00.000-05:00

We got up at 7:30ish and packed up the car and headed back inland for the Firenze (Florence) area. Faye booked us a room in a villa just north east of Florence near a small town called Fiesole. Faye drove and i attemped to navigate, which worked prettz well until we got to Florence. We had to ask for directions from 3 different people before we found Fiesole, which is basicallz a suburb of Florence, but located up in the hills just north of Florence, so there are some amazing views of the old citz, apparentlz founded by Julius Caesar around 30 B.C.
We got to our place and into our room, which was actuallz prettz shitty considering the online description and the price for the night (over 100 Euro). Then we went for lunch at a restaurant on the mountain that had an amazing view of Florence a few hundred feet below. The service was shittz, but the food (i had potato dumplings with pesto) and the incredible view made it worthwhile. Our lunch was reallz late in the daz (3:30-4ish), and we went for a hike through the forest along the side of the mountain afterwards. The trail we walked was prettz cool and the forest looked alot like a Canadian forest, but with Cyprus trees instead of cedar trees, and of course the fact that it was along the side of a mountain overlooking Florence. The other difference i guess was that instead of the granite outcroppings up north in Canada, all the rock outcroppings were a limestone tzpe stone and we saw alot of old quarries that were used to excavate alot of the materials to build the original parts of Florence. There were also a bunch of ancient stone wall ruins and old caves where people lived hundreds or mazbe even thousands of years ago. It was pretty cool. It was nice too because at the time that we went, there were no tourists at all around, we actually saw onlz two other people during our entire walk (about 2 hours or so). Afterwards we came back here and just chilled all night. This was the first night we've had a t.v. in our room with english news, so we've been catching up. It's been weird having no clue what's going on in the world at all.
I drove to town to trz and grab us some snacks cause we didn't feel like dinner, but nothing was open. So we just plazed some cribbage, drank some vino, then hit the sac.
Into Florence tomorrow to drop off the car and then I'm off to Milano and Faye's in Firenze for 4 days and then to Sienna where she's meeting up with a group tour from Australia for 8 days.

Day 9 - Lerici

2005-09-25T11:01:00.000-05:00

After our long long long walk yesterday we decided we would sleep in and then spend one more day in Lerici just relaxing adn getting caught up on email stuff, sleep, etc. I was woken to the lady we're renting from very urgently letting me know (in mostly Italian with a few English words) that i had to move our car from the lot that i was parked in NOW or it was going to be towed. Apparently there was a big car rally going on so our card had to go. So she drove me down there (still half asleep), about 1 km from our place, right away and i moved the car and then she drove me back.
Me and Faye then walked the kilometer or so into Lerici and spent the next few hours sitting around, exploring abit, each on our own, drinking vino, adn me trying to update my blog. It turns out though that i've been writing quite abit, so it takes awhile to type it all out. It's especially distracting when the only place in town with internet (1 computer) is a great little bar, owned by a French guy who loves to talk, adn has great vino on tap for cheap. Around 3:30, me and Faye met up and paid to go into the huge castle on the point sticking off the bay that the twon is in. There was a small war pictures art exhibit going on. Faye decided that she's still burnt out from yesterday adn so she left me and went home for a siesta. So right now, i'm sitting on top of the castle walls, looking down over the bay and the town, drinking vino from a juice box (weird, but good) and writing in my journal. I thikn i'll head down to the internet place again and sip some more vino and finish updating my blog, then probably go for a swim.

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Later on that day

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After finishing mz vino on the castle, I went back to the internet bar for another hour to trz and catch up on mz blog and sipped two more glasses of vino from the tap (Clark should get one of those). Again, the ladz gave me a break. Internet is supposed to be 5 Euro/hour, but the first time she gave me 2 glasses of vino an hour for 5 Euro, then onlz 7 Euro for the same thing the second time.
It was 6ish by this point and I still hadn't gone swimming and the sun was just about to set, so I decided what better a time for my first swim in the Mediteranean than sunset during my last night there. The beaches were empty bz this point, so i went down adn ws on of two people on the whole beach in the water. I swam quite a way out to the big break water rocks and then walked back along the rocks.
Back to the B&B, then dinner with Faye around the corner, then home to bed early.
Great relaxing day.

Day 8 - Cinque Terre

2005-09-24T22:59:00.000-05:00

Got up around 7:30am and we got ready for our big day hiking the Cinque Terre. For anyone who doesn't know the region, or heard of it, the Cinque Terre (5 lands) is a series of five small villages along what they call the north end of the Italian Riviera. This whole region is very swanky with lots of big boats in the marinas, beaches, adn a gorgeous hilly landscape opening onto the Mediteranean Sea. Apparently George Clooney has a place just a few kilometers down the coast from here. The Cinque Terre stretches 11 km from the most northern town of Monterosso to the most southern town of Riomaggiore. There are trains connecting the 5 towns and roads run into 2 or 3 of them, although the best way to see the area is to hike from one end to another, but not an easy hike at all. We took a ferry from here in Lerici up the coast, stopping in 4 of the 5 towns. There's no stop in the middle town, Corniglia, because its built up so high on a cliff that its not practical at all. We rode all the way to the most northern town of Monterosso and stopped to get a slice of pizza and had a beer out on the street, that we'd brought in our bag, before starting. I didn't really know what to expect at all from the hike. I knew it was supposed to be tough and have great views, but i definately had no clue just how rugged and dangerous the trains were and just how much you actually have to climb, but the unbelievable views made it all very very worthwhile.
The first part of the hike from Monterosso to Vernazza is 'supposed' to take about 1.5 hours and is the hardest part of the hike by far. The first hour of the hike consists of going pretty much straight uphill along ancient steps and on very very narrow ledges. It blew my mind that we actually could hike straight up for that long, although we stopped for lots of breaks. As soon as we got to the top though, the climb was well worth it. I'm not sure if all the pictures that i took will capture even a fraction of how incredible it was, but i really hope they do. I haven't been able to find anywhere how high we climbed during the course of the day, but hundreds of feet up for sure, probably closer to 100 miles straight up (felt like it anyways). The other thing that blew my mind about the hiking was how narrow 75% of the trail was. Most of it was no more than 3 or 4 feet wide (no bullshit), with the outside dropping straight down or very steeply dropping most of the times. There's no way to get medical help up there if someone does slip off (which i'm sure must happen dozens of times a year, but medical help wouldn't matter anyways, because i'm sure 99 times of 100 there'd be no hope for survival anyways. The worst part for us was that we were walking from north to south, but since we were on the west coast, we were always passing people going in the other direction on the cliff side instead of the mountain side, which wasn't always fun and i think it bothered Faye quite abit. Everyone should be very proud of her for doing the trail though! Had i known what it was like, i'm not sure if i would've thought that she would make it all the way from north to south, but she was a trooper. On top of the climbs and the ledges, it was 30 degrees C, which made the conditions even tougher, but she trooped on like a champ, smiling at least 50% of the time. By the end of the first two trails, i was feeling rough, so i can only imagine how she felt. We had the option to train from the middle town of Corniglia to the south end town of Riomaggiore, but Faye wanted to push on saying she hadn't come this far through the two toughest parts to quit then.
The two northern routes were BY FAR the hardest taking us about 4.5 to 5 hours, including breaks, with the last two trails being much shorter and MUCH flatter, taking only about 1.5 to 2 hours. Most tourist only do the two southern trails as the two north ones are too hard. In all, it took us around 7 hours from north to south. WE were both so happy that we did it. After going through breast cancer, chemio, radiation, adn then a heart attack less than a year later, its absolutely amazing that Faye did what she did. She told me that she's sure had she not been training all summer for her breast cancer walk that she's sure she wouldn't have made it.
We got to the last town just in time to find a great table at a bar hanging out over a cliff, 100 or feet above the sea, and we sipped a couple of glasses of the local vino and had the most amazing view of the sun setting across the water. We sat with three Australians about my age and chatted with them over our wine and then found a small local restaurant and dined on octopus and anchovies pulled from the ocean that day.
We caught a train from Riomaggiore to La Spezia at 11ish (only a ten minute ride) adn then had to wait an hour for a 30 minute or so bus back to our place in Lerici.

Fantastic day.

ps- if you're going to hike the 5T, don't wear cotton underwear (trust me)

Day 7 - Greve-in-Chianti and Lerici

2005-09-23T22:59:00.000-05:00

Got up feeling abit rough, but not bad. Had breakie and then we jumped in the car early enough adn headed for the coast. WE went (i drove), through the outskirts of Florence and then west to just north of Pisa, and then north along the coast. The driving was fine; on teh back roads through the mountains from Greve to Firenze (Florence) adn then on the highway the rest of the way. The highway is alot like the 401 between T.O. and Ottawa, but I spent most of the time in the slow lane, but still averaged between 130 and 140. Got passed by more Ferrari's today than in my whole life to this point. The fast lane is FAST.
It was pretty cool as we got closer to the Cinque Terre region and the coast because of the huge mountains, the views, and the bridges adn tunnels. At one point, we came out of a tunnel going through a mountain, onto a very narrow bridge with no walls, so you could see straight down the 100 foot + drop pretty much, and then drove straight into another tunnel in a mountain. Was pretty cool. If anyone didn't know, again, Faye is afraid of heights. I didn't know she was a very spiritual person, but i heard her say 'Jesus Christ' more today than i've maybe heard anyone say it in one day. At one point she was so terrified that she grabbed my arm as i was shifting to pass someone and simply looked at me and said 'No.'. This was as we were on one of these very high land bridges adn the look on her face told me she wasn't joking around.
Based on advice from a few people, we decided that instead of staying right in the Cinque Terre, we would stay in the sea-side town of Lerici instead, just a few km south of the Cinque Terre.
So we made our way into Lerici where theyre's a ferry running to the Cinque Terre and we found a B&B through the tourist information office. The place is really just a families ground floor, but we have the whole thing and even have our own rooms with king sized beds for only 30 euro each a night. the house is maybe 100m from the sea, but of course, straight up a hill and on the narrowest streets i've EVER seen. I had to make this one lafter hand turn after dropping off our luggage and had to turn up a hill with walls on either side of me and 'maybe' one foot of clearance on either side of me and at a T junction. To make things even worse, i had a car and a motorbike behind me waiting. Itìs impossible to try and describe, but it was rediculous and i was convinced that I was going to scrape the bumper on the wall, but then i stalled the stupid thing, going straight uphill, while half turned and by now the bike was right between me adn wall (idiot), adn he couldnn't move, so i tried going up without scraping the car and without rolling into bikerboy. Not sure how, but somehow it worked out. I'm pretty sure i'm a manual transmission pro now. I've never driven one regularly at home, but all this experience through the mountain zigzags adn the steep, narrow hills through towns force you to get good in a hurry.
From our home for the next few nights, we headed along the coast into the heart of Lerici (about a 1 km walk). This place is rediculously nice. Stretches along the coast with beaches and a large marina, with mountains all around and a large castle at one end sticking out from the point. We sat down at a restaurant along the water and drank local vino and watched the sun set over the mountain islands just off the point adn over the Mediteranean Sea. We explored the town abit and then ate alone one of the side streets at a restaurant and we sat at a table literally 'on the road' (there are no sidewalks in any of these small towns). After dinner and some more vino, we headed for home. One the way home we stopped and watched a live band playing in teh main square along the water. They were all Italian adn they did a 10 minute version of 'Twist and Shout' that was rediculously funny.
Up early tomorrow and catching teh first ferry into the Cinque Terre.

Day 6 - Montepulciano and Greve-in-Chianti

2005-09-22T22:59:00.000-05:00

Got up around 8 to a beautiful valley with rolling hills in the background with the sun just slightly hidden by the cyprus and palmegranate trees in the garden. We packed the car and headed the kilometer or so into Montepulciano for breakie and to hit the internet cafe. We left town adn hit the road north for Greve-in-Chianti at around 11am. Faye drove, which stressed me out abit because she can't read the signs, so i'm expected to read them adn tell her where to go, and this usually involves making very quick turns, so its very tough. There are two options with driving 1) she drives, i navigate; or 2) I drive, I navigate.
So anyways, we spent most of the day in the car except for a few small stops. We went from Montepulciano to Pienza (another fortress type town with a characteristic square in teh middle of town with a huge church and a water well). Pienza used to be home to one of the Popes (Papa in Italian; i heard the name Pope Pius the ? kicking around somewhere) and his home was along one side of the square, but of course, we got there during 'siesta' time, so we couldn't take the tour. Italians really have their shit together. They don't open business until 'at least' 9am, then close from somewhere between noon or 1, until somewhere between 2 and 3:30. Sucks for tourists, but great for them.
We brought a lunch of meats, cheese, and rolls during which (sorry for telling this story Faye, but come on, it was pretty funny) a pigeon shit from above us and it landed right in Faye's olives. Not the end of the world. So we threw them out and moved camp over five feet, when all of a sudden I saw a feather drop right in front of me, so I looked up and saw that the pigeon from earlier had now moved over 5 feet as well. Then, in slow motion, I saw him shit again, from about 20 ft up, directly above Faye, accelerating at 9.8m/s^2. I just started to yell as it was dropping and then landed on her directly. Needless to say, she was not all that impressed and when she gets home and reads this, she'll probably want to kill me.
After getting Faye cleaned up, we hit the road west and stoped in Bagno Vignoni, a place with naturally heated baths. Apparently the Romans felt that the baths had some kind of soothing or healing abilities and so Roman Emperors and Popes used to come bathe there. It was pretty cool and we bathed our feet for awhile in one of the baths further down the valley. We were only there about an hour adn then headed north through Buonconvento and then through Sienna. Sienna is ANOTHER fortress type town and then driving/navigating got slightly crossed up here and instead of going 'around' Sienna, we went straight through the middle. Literally. The crazy thing about these fortress towns like Sienna, Montepulciano, and Orvieto is that they mostly go straight up at a very steep angle to the piazza in the middle and then back again. The problem with driving through though is that they were built over 1000 years ago, so the streets are usually not much more than 10 feet across. So fast forward to 2005, and add cars (because there usually aren't any restrictions or laws about driving into town....very weird) adn then add hundreds of tourists. So me and Faye went right into Sienna (not on purpose), driving up, with no room to turn around, hundreds of tourists roaming around, and on top of that, driving a standard up a very very steep hill (think Jacobs' Hill in IF, if you've ever been there). It was stressful, but we made it through fine.
From Orvieto to Montepulciano the day before, the ride was very nice becuase of all of the hills and the characteristic Tuscan style rolling hills, but the drive from Montepulciano to Sienna, on the other hand, didn't seem as nice with everything seemeing more arid or something...not sure what it was, just not as nice. This country is crazy though, because all of a sudden, north of Sienna, everything was gorgeous. WE were now into the Chianti region (very famous for vino) and everything was all of a sudden way more lush. The views from the hilltops were insane and we didn't go for more than 5 minutes without seeing big fat grapes hanging from vines.
We finally rolled into Greve-in-Chianti around 5 o'clock and the only room we could get looked over the main square (which was gorgeous), but at a cost of 90 Euro a night. Again, there was no freaking internet places here, so i haven't had the chance to update my blog since Sunday or Monday).
We found a place for dinner in teh square and split 1.5 L of local rossa vino and ate. I was pretty trashed after the vino and made the mistake of trying to call mom and dad after dinner and probably scared them (let's blame it on Faye being a bad influence).
After a dinner of locally raised chicken and rabbits for me, Faye went up to bed/passed out and i stuck around and talked abit with one of the guys working in the restaurant. Soon enough it wasw decided that i was going to go out with him and his buddies that night, i just had to wait for him to close up so that's when i claled home all drunk and then told mom that i had to go and get even drunker with some local guy (sorry again mom).
So anyways, he took me acros town to some local bar where a bunch of his friends, who also work in the service industry in the area, met up with us. Three of the guys, including the guy i went with, Saed (like on the show Lost), were Morrocans living and working in Italy. So we had a bunch of beers, Budweiser of all the beers in the world. They thought it was crazy that i live somewhere where it snows all the time and thought it was awesome that i play ice hockey. After a few beers, they invited me back to their place to smoke hashish, at which point i kindly said bonne sera and stumbled back to the hotel somehow and went to bed.

Day 5 - Orvieto and Montepulciano

2005-09-21T22:59:00.000-05:00

Deciding that since we were living it up in a hill top fortess that we should leave the 6 foot windows wide open all night.....bad idea. I froze my ass off and hardly slept. What stopped me from closing them them? Not a clue. I'm an idiot. Faye on the other hand, got up, found blankets, put one on herself, but none on me.....grrrrr.
So anyways, Faye got up early and took a last walk around town, and i closed the window and finally and Faye gave me a blanket and i slept for 2 hours until 9:30. WE were outta the hotel by 10am and Faye sent me down to the tourist parking lot where we were parked to get the car and drive it UP the big hill into the city so we would save teh bus fare and Faye the walk down. Driving up streets that are as wide as a transport truck (the small way), is very nerve wracking, especially driving a 4-cylinder diesel, manula transmission when you aren't used to standards at all. Anyways, after a few close calls, all was fine, i grabbed Faye and we headed north.
We decided to take a back highway instead of the A1 (super highway) so that we could enjoy the views of the increasingly mountainous region (heading out of the Umbrio region into the Siena region). I definately became an expert mountain driver today. I've never seen so many tight turns and have never gone up and down so much in my life. The back highway was great though with some unbelievable views. It's nuts how many villages there are built on the top of hills and we saw more vino fields and grapes than i could have ever imagined. We stopped along the way and tried unsuccesfully to go on a wine tour south of Ficulle and then eventually tasted some wines outside of Allerona and bought wine right there at the Monrubio plant where we saw many many tractors with grapes in a huge bucket on teh back weighing in and out (just like the chip trucks in IF, but makine wine instead of paper). We each bought a bottle of what we both thought wasw the best white called 'Roio, Orvieto Classico'. Somebody let me know if you can find it at the liquor store and how much its worth (we paid 2 euro....3 canadian dollars a bottle).
From there we slowly weaved our way thoruhg 'San Casciano dei Bagni', 'Piazze', 'Cetona', 'Sorteano', 'Chianchiano', and then finally into Montepulciano, another hilltop medieval town very much like Orvieto. The difference being that Orvieto was pretty much mostly flat once in the town, but Montepulciano is prety much completely built on an angle all the way up to the Piaza Grande at the top of the town. I'm not sure what the height difference is, but i'm guessing 100 ft or so from the top of town to the bottom walls. Very steep.
We couldn't fine a place in town, so Faye eventually (after fighting with the bitches in teh tourist office) got us a place in some ladies basement. After getting very lost trying to find the place, we eventually found it. The old lady came out to meet us but spoke ZERO english. So me and the old lady tried figuring each other out for a good 5 minutes before she muttered something about her only knowing italian and French!!!! Wow! What a difference it is to go from not being able to communicate to understanding each other perfectly. The room was at least 5 times bigger than our room in Rome and at a cheaper price. We each had our own double beds, and to top things off, they live on a hillside looking over a HUGE valley with huge roling moutains in teh background (kind've actulaly reminded me of Judy and Harry's place, but in Italy). Definately the stuff they make postcards out of.
It was at least 5pm by this point, so me and Faye headed into the fortress and all of the way to the top (20 - 30 minute walk from the base= to have a glass each of rossa wine made locally that goes for about 80 Euro a bottle. I bought them both at a price of about 11 Euro total. Very good stuff called Barollo i think.
From therew we had a nice Italian meal with some more vino and then i drove us home. Up tomorrow early hopefully to see more of Montepulciano and finally use an internet cafe and phone. It's been pretty much impoosible to find places since Rome. There definately aren't pay phones all over and i still don't know how to call Canada anyawys. I asked Heather in an email on my first day to send instructions, but of course i haven't had a chance to go online to read them, so i've been screwed. And don't dare ask a local. They're all dicks as far as i've seen so far. I've had more blank stares when i nod my head or smile at local than i had bottles of beer all the way through university (well, not quite). I think i'm going to start sticking my tongue out at some locals tomorrow just to see if they flinch. Dad told me that the French were 'stuck up dickheads'; i'll compare my experience in the future few weeks. Off to the Chianti region tomorrow for lots of good wines.

Day 4 - Rome and Orvieto

2005-09-20T22:59:00.000-05:00

Me and Faye got up early, had breakie and checked out of the hotel, then jumped on a train from Termini to Fiumicino Airport and picked up our rental car from Avis. By 11:15ish we were on teh Autostrada Roma and then north onto the big Autostrada heading in a big circle around Rome. A couple of hours and a couple turn arounds later, we made it to our first stop, a small town called Orvieto whcih is pretty much right between Rome and Florence in the Umbria region. Orvieto is a town of about the population of Iroquois Falls (the old part of Orvieto anyways), but is very unique becuase it sits on top of a huge hill and then whole city is completely walled in. We got to Orvieto around 2 and found a place to park overnight and then caught a bus into the old part of town. The hill up to the parking lot was very steep and whinedy (spl?) and gave a gorgeous view down into the valley. This view I guess was too much for Faye though, who was driving and who turns out is afraid of heights, because she had to pull over and let me drive because she couldn't handle looking down while driving.
Anyways, we parked and jumped ona bus that dropped us off in the Piazza Duomo (Piazza means square i think cause there were a bunch of 'piazzas' in Rome too). Anyways, we got up to the middle of the city and i was blown away. We were in a pretty big piazza in fron of the gigantic Duomo E Cappela Di San Brigio which is 'one of the greatest Gothic buildings in Italy'. Amazing looking church.
We had all of our baggage with us so from there we headed straight to look for a hotel called 'Posta' which was recommeded in my guidebook 'The Rough Guide to Europe', which has been great so far. We found the hotel easily enough, got a double room, then hit the streets. The town is spectacular. Exactly what you would expect from a city that is 3000 years old or so. The streets were again completely cobblestone and are wide enough for one car and one pedestrian (most of the time room for a pedestrian anyways, if not, you step into one fo the doorways carved out of the stone buildings), churches everywhere, adn just simpley an 'old' feeling that makes you really feel like that if there weren't cars, you'd have stepped back 100 years in a time warp. Tourists were everywhere when we got there, but by the time 6ish rolled around, the streets were bare of tourists and packed with locals.
So we got settled, walked abit, had a beer and i had a 'wild boar panini' (local specialty) in teh Piazza Duomo )the square with teh huge church= and then went on a tour of the underground tunnels located all over the teh city. The tour was 1 hour long and cheap (3.5 euro) and took us under the city into 3000 year old tunnels built for use as a place to grind olives in cooler temperatures adn then expanded into temples and mines. The second set of tunnels we went into had small windows built into the cliffs of the city and had hundreds of bird coops dug into the walls. Apparently they were built as pigeon coops, cause pigeons at the time were a source of food for the locals and so the people who owned the caves were very rich as a result of selling pigeon meat. The tunnels were also apparently used in the 1940s as air raid shelters during the second world war. Apparently pigeon is still a delicasy in teh area, although the only ones that i could find were live and sleeping in the holes in the walls across the street from our hotel windown. Our room had a huge (at least 6 foot high) set of windows that swing in and have small steps along the wall that let you hang your head out the window (and upper torso) in true european manner. We slept with the windows wide open and it made it feel surreal staring out the window at the thousands of year old wall across the street.
After the tour of the underground we wandered around the town stopped for the odd beers and then went out for a really nice authentic italian meal (i had vermicilli ribbon with minced hare) where we had a bunch of wine with dinner followed by sheep cheese with honey (another locally specialty), followed by expresso (basically five Canadian coffees condensed into 2.5 ounces), and then two glasses each of about 4 ounces of straight zambuka. Needless to say, i was a bit buzzed and Faye was pretty trashed (although she won't admit it). We came back and played some cards ebfore bed, during which we got sternly asked by some British dick next door to keep the noise down 'its almost 11:30 for god sakes!' (i blame it on Faye being drunk and loud).
Off to Montepulciano tomorrow. Hopefully i'll be able to find a phone or internet cafe to use cause they've been sparese.
Oh yeah, almost forgot! When we were on our way out of Termini Station in Rome, i was at an automated ticket maching trying to figure out how to get tickets to the airport when a lady with a baby (Faye thinks she had a midget, not a baby on her shoulder...i think Faye was still drunk from the night before) was trying to get me to give her money, but i told her no and then she quicly moved on to Faye who was behind me trying to read over my shoulder adn Faye gave her some change. Didn't think nothing about it till we got on teh train and noticed that her backpack where she kept her cash and everything else was unzipped and she was missing 200 Euro ($300 Canadian), but none of her cards were gone, thank god. Apparently its a well known gypsy trick to distract someone with a baby and then someone else pickpockets you; lesson learnt.

Day 3 - Rome

2005-09-19T22:59:00.000-05:00

Wow! What a long day. Didn't sleep great last night, guess I was too excited about seeing Rome; might also have been all the dam noise out the windor, or the thunder storm. I stayed at the Friendship Place Hostel on Via Milazzo which is aprently a busy part of town (being right close to the central station (Termini)). Got out of bed @ 8ish to pouring rain which cleared up by 9. Said goodbye to my roommates and told the owner that i'd know if i was staying another night by noon so he let me lock my bag in a spare room cause check out is at 10am. Took off for Termini to meet Aunt Faye 'by the bus' at 10' which sounded like a good idea until I saw all the flipping buses at Termini and of course the PEOPLE! So i picked out a spot right in the middle of everyting and made myself look as touristy as possibly (not har) and stick out as much as possible (not hard either). Faye found me no problem. We hugged and then decided we'd find me another place for the night closer to her place so we grabbed my bag from my hostel and ended up working a deal for me to spend the night in her double room at the Hotel Papa Germano for only 10 Euro extra. So i dropped off my bag and we grabbed my first italian cappuccino. 6 ounces gave me such a buzz that i felt drunk. From there we walked. Then we walked some more. We pretty much walked straight from 11:30am till 7pm. It was freakin' awesome though. We walked basically from Termini to the Santa Maria Maggiore to the Colliseum, around the Colliseum, past the Arco Di Constantino, around the Roman Forum and past Circo Massimo (Circus Maximum), then through part of the Roman Forums, then northwest part the Canpidoglio or the Ara Coelri (not sure of the name), then around the Piazza Verezia (several times), then lunch, then up into the church dedicated to Caterina de Siena, and then into the Pantheon, then a quick stop for gelatos and then i convinced Faye to heard further north past the Palazzo Chigi and up to, and all the way up, the spanish steps. Walking up the spanish steps i had to tell Faye for the second time to 'Grow some balls, throw them over your shoulder, and let's go!'. She was a trooper all day though i have to admit. From there we walked all the way home and relaxed for awhile before heading for a 3 hour dinner at the place on the same street as our hotel (our table was RIGHT on the street). After dinner Faye crashed and i walked a German girl from Hanburg who i'd met before dinner back to her hostel (never let ladies walk alone at night....especialy in Rome, although i was shitting myself all the way home alone).
The day started on a huge hilight for me when i got to see the Colliseum. I've been waiting for years to see it and it didn't disappoint. It was amazing (i hope i don't over use that word in the next 3 months....probably will)! I was in utter awe and speechless. Me and Faye sat down across the street and had a Stella Artois (beer) each. What a way to have my first drink in Europe. Perfect.
Walking through a part of the ruins of the Roman Forums was amazing as wella dn i definately want to go back with Rob and take a tour inside the Colliseum and see all of the Roman Forums.
The monument a Vittorio Emanuelle II (whoever the hell he is) was prety impressive too. Everything here just seems to be so oversized...except the streets. Whcih bring me to my next topic...driving. All of the roads here are soooooooooooo narrow and basically all cobble stone too. And ppl park everywhere and ANYWHERE. I've never seen so many scooters in my life either. The drivers are all nuts and there are basically no cross lights for walking. You just have to walk out where its painted, like the crosswalks at Walmart, and hope the cards stop. Although what usually happens is the cars, buses, and scooters will just swerve around you. Its crazy, but as they say 'When in Rome....try not to get yourself killed'. It's insane, but i love it and can't wait to come back with Rob. Its 2am now, we leave Rome early tomorrow for the Tuscany region. Our turn to swerve around pedestrians.....

Day 2 - London and Rome

2005-09-18T22:59:00.000-05:00

Landed at Gatwick Airport just south of Rome at about 7am. Turns out there were two other Queen's people on the flight and soon enough we were all together getting out luggage together. There was Andrew Titus and Maureen (Mo) something (a girl who just graduated from commerce). Titus had people meeting him at the airport and was heading to Glasgow for grad school and Mo was moving to London and looking for work. Lucky for her (bad for me) that we met up cause she had a rediculous amount of stuff and wouldn't have been able to do it on her own i'm sure. We took the Glasgow Express together for 13.5 pounds to Vic Station then she jumped in a cab and i took a 2 pound tube rigde to the Liverpool Station across the downtown (took me my third ride to finally get the right direction). Met up with a French chic at the Liverpool Station and we caught the Stansted Express (14.5 pounds) together which ended up being a bus instead of a train cause the tracks were closed for some reason. Got to Stansted at 10:45 and the French chic took off to catch her flight. I tried getting on the 12:30 flight to Rome, instead of my scheduled 4:35, but they were dicks and were going to make me pay an extra 100 pounds to do it. Here's my notes for the next 5 hours at Stansted that i wrote to try to keep myself awake by doing.

11:00am - so i'm sitting here by myself till i fly out at 4:35
11:32am - tried using the calling card that Heather gave me, but apparently i'm an idiot (can't figure it out)
11:46am - sitting here by myself, listening to my ipod and playing sudoku
12:05pm - apparently i'm an idiot (i can't do the easiest sudoku puzzle)
12:31pm - more tired than i've ever been in my life....didn't sleep at all on the plane
1:00pm - head bobbing and trying to stay awake...if i fall asleep now, i'll miss my flight and probably get all my shit stolen
1:04pm - want to sleep so bad it hurts
1:05pm - i am slowly going crazy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, SWITCH!
2:00pm - at least another 9 hours till i'll be in bed at the hostel in Rome
3:00pm - longest 4 hrs of my life...heading bobbing very hard
3:05pm - bought a travel pillow...thinking too much about sleeping
3:10pm - just bought a coffee and two Red Bull
3:20pm - crazy going slowly am i, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, SWITCH!
4:00pm - boarding time.....off to Rome!

Yeah, i was pretty fuckin tired.

Got into Rome by way of a super budget flight...no tv's, no food, but you could 'buy, whatever you wanted including Britney Spears perfume. Met a guy, 'Sharoose' (i think). I suck ass with names. Ayways, he's an architect student originally from Bombay, but going to Cornell and live in Rome now doing an exchance and had been in Rome for a few weeks so 'kinda' knows his way around. I followed him through a shady looking customs office at Ciampino airport and then jumped on a different bus than they advise the tourists to take, but is apparently, and was, cheaper, but had alot of very rough looking people on it, all of whom were starting at me. The bus took us to a very sketch and scary looking Metro station where after the bus left, turned out that the station was closed and there were no other buses in sight. There were about 6 groups of guys just hanging out, lots over fires they'd made in garbage cans, and as soon as they saw us come back up from the station started yelling shit at us in italian. I pretty much thought the trip was over right there. We just kept walking and started heading towards where the buses are supposed to pick people up but nothing was around at all. One group of guys (all big and black), started yelling at us more and then started walking over towards us. I think this was about the point that i shit myself. I looked at my little Indian guide and he told me not to say nothing and said that in a sec he was gonna run....SHIT! Just as were turning to run, a bus came flying round the corner with nobody in it, slowed, opened the doors, we jumped in and the driver drove off laughing and saying something to us in Italian that we took as 'bet you were happy to see me eh???'. The bus took us all the way downtown to the Termini Station which easily could have been mistooken for Compton, L.A. My new friend then apologized for the tenth time and left me at Termini. So there i was, alone, not knowing where the hell i'm supped to go, but pretty happy to be alive. Termini at night was pretty wild with everyone wanting to talk to you, or wanting you to buy something, or wanting them to go to their place where its 'very nice, very nice'. Thankfully, if you ignore them, they will leave you alone pretty quick. 20 minutes and lots of turn arounds later, i finally found my hostel which was in even sketchier than right around Termini and had pretty much the scariest looking death trap of an elevator i've ever seeen. It was barely big enough for me and me alone, and you had to close the doors manually and then pray that you actually can get out without a scene of 3 or more italians with guns and knives taking your shit. Once up the elevator, someone on the outside pulled the doors open and led me to the hostel. The half Indian, half Italian owner tried swindeling me, then finally gave me my room. After showering and chatting with my two British, Swede and Aussie room mates i decided to brave it outside to try to find internet or phone. The phone place i found was weird as hell and finally after having an American guy show me how to use the phones in the little glass booths i called Heather and left a msg for Mom and Dad (both very quick). I only brought 5 Euro with me being pretty sure i'd get mugged. So then then back to the hostel and to bed right after hanging out with the 4 extremely drunk Aussie girls in the next room. Finally to bed, 32 hours after waking up in TO the night before. Went out like a light.

Day 1 - Toronto and Somewhere Over the Atlantic

2005-09-17T12:14:00.000-05:00

After a great party at Russ and Colleen's Friday night and breakfast with Matt and Meg and Russ and Colleen, Heather drove me to the airport and i left Toronto at 5ish, and then into Montreal for an hour and a half, and then headed out over the Atlantic Ocean for my first time. The plane was packed solid, but keeping with my good luck lately, i had one of 4 empty seats on the plane right next to me, so i had the two seats closest to the window all to myself. By the end of the 17th in North American time (5am in London), we were probably somewhere between Iceland and Ireland.

Almost time to go

2005-09-09T18:25:00.000-05:00

Its Friday. 8 days till i leave for Europe. I'm excited, but more nervous i think in a weird way. Been too busy here too to even really think about it. Defended my thesis a week ago Tuesday. Was really really nervous leading up to the date, but turned out to be pretty easy. The defence involved doing a 20 minute presentation to 5 professors (3 from the department, 2 from outside of chem eng) and then being grilled for 20 minutes by each prof. Ended up being more of a chat then really being grilled, then i left the room, they chatted things over, and then invited me back in and they all said congratulations, etc. They each gave me a page with changes that they wanted made to the thesis, so i've been working on those for the last two days. I definately did not get to them right away after finishing cause i was too happy to be done and was only erally in the mood to party....and as much as possible. The whole lab went out for beers the afternoon after i finished my defence to the Grad Club and then back to my place for bbq and beers for the rest of the night. The next night we had a 'Neal's finished' party at my place. I bought a keg and me and 30 of my closest friends packed her down. The next couple days i just hung out and finished packing all my stuff and put it into storage. I was lucky enough to get hooked up with a friend's sister who has a whole empty basement for me to put my stuff in. I was going to put it into storage for $75 a month till after xmas, so instead i put it in this girls basement for a case of beer and a $100 gift certificate to a good restaurant here in Kingston. When i went over to the girls place i found out that she has a 5 foot python! Pretty wicked. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and play with it. I've never held anything like that before...it was a bit creepy, but more awesome than anything. Friday, me, Heather, Kelly and Sean, George and Becky, Lori, and Heather's brother Sandy and his girlfriend, Lindsey, went to Heather's cottage north of Montreal. Me and Sean rode together so that neither of us had to listen to the girls all the way to Montreal. We got there late Friday night and pretty much just partied all weekend, played in the water a bit, took some boat rides, and listened to tunes. Everybody but me and Heather and Sandy and Linds left Monday and we went to Sue and Ric's (Heather's godparents) that night for dinner. Me and Heather left the next day.

So now i'm living at Heather's place as i'm unemployed and homeless. Its a pretty awesome feeling actually. I've been spending my days working on my thesis corrections and my manuscripts that i'm getting published while Heathers at school. Then she comes back and makes me dinner. :) Just like a good girlfriend.....haha.

Heading to Toronto tomorrow to buy a few more things for the trip at the MEC co-op adn spending the night with Russ and Colleen. Back to Kingston Sunday and finish up last minute things for the trip and with my school stuff until Wednesday, then back to TO on Thursday probably, party downtown Friday night, and out on Saturday at 4:30 from Pearson.

Been talking to Faye abit about our initial plans for the first 10 days of my trip with her in Italy...i'll follow up later today with our tentative plans.

Summer's been a flying....

2005-08-11T11:53:00.000-05:00

So i haven't kept this blog very up to date. I'm a lazy fuck.

So here's a quick recap of my summer.

Knowing i had to finish my thesis by the end of the summer, i knew that the summer was going to pretty much suck and i wasna't going to be able to take any holidays or anything like that. So when the chances came up to hit three cottages in three weekends i jumped on the chance figuring this would be my only fun for the summer.

The first weekend was at Heather's cottage with her parents on Lac-des-Iles in the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal. It wasn't a super exciting weekend, and the weather was pretty shit, but it was still a good relaxing weekend. Had a few good meals (including one which involved duck, bison, rabbit and escargots all in the same sitting) and got a ton of work done on my thesis because i got Heather to bring her laptop.

Second weekend was in the Thousand Islands near Gan at Brent's cottage. Most of the boys from undergrad came up and we tore it up pretty hard all weekend. I went up early the night before and partied at a HUGE cottage and then got rocked in the Gan and somehow made it back to the island where i woke up with a HUGE headache the next day. The next two days were full of the regular drinking and debauchery. A bunch of Gan locals showed up to party on the dock one afternoon and one night inevitably ended with Matthews getting naked. Was pretty awesome to see everyone though.

The third weekend was CAnada Day weekend and we went up to John and Sarah's place in the Muskoka's on Lake Brandie. Was my first time in the Muskoka's and i was pretty impressed. Very posh area. George, Becky, Gavin, Heather and myself went up and met up with a bunch of John's friends. Was a very OLD weekend seeing as how me, Heather and Gavin were the youngest ones there by a couple of years. We still managed to rock out to the Hip in the sun, play some croquet, and kill two + kegs of beer.

The rest of July i spent working pretty hard on my thesis from my room that i'm subletting for the summer. Its been SOOOO hot that its been tough sleeping at night and i sit in front of the computer all day with two fans right on me while wearing nothing but underwear all day. It was pretty awesome.

I golfed a few times over the summer, but definately not as much as i would've wanted to. Golfed one round though at the new course between Gan and Rockport called Smuggler's Glen. What a place. Nicest course i've golfed for sure.

The thesis flew along alrite and so i got to take the Civic holiday weekend off and me, Heather, Jenny, George, Becky, and recently back from their honeymoon, Sean and Kelly rented two island campsites out at 2nd Depot Lake Conservation Area. Was a wicked spot on this island and they even boat all your supplies out for $10 a load and we rented a couple canoes. We spent the weekend drinking and swimming and relaxing. We did two really long swims, one each day, to the rock cliffs the first day and to the rapids the second day. Each swim was about 30 minutes across the lake. The cliffs were about 25-30 feet and we were told it was alrite to jump so we each went a few times (except for Jenny who's a wimp and only went once and very reluctantly). The rapids were pretty cool too because we found a pool of water between two sets of rapids and because the water was moving it was pretty cold which was nice cause of how dam hot it was. Me, Sean and the kid driving the boat to get our gear almost died coming off the lake as we got caught in the start of one of the biggest storm's i've ever seen. I've never been so terrified of getting hit by lightning in my life.

After getting back from that weekend i kicked things from high gear to overdrive and got my thesis done. It's Thursday the 11th today and i'm about to submit all 5 copies to my examiners. My defence date is set for Aug 30. Since i have some time in between i'm heading home for the next 9 days. Actually, i'm meeting mom, dad and jill at a cottage that Faye rented on the Ottawa and then driving home with Jill on Monday and staying for the week. Then i'm back here for a week, defend, to Heather's cottage for labour day, back in ktown for another week and a half to hopefully finish two manuscripts for publication to scientific journals, and then on the 17th i'm off to Europe! I booked my tickets a couple days ago. The flight leaves TO and i flly into London and then i fly home from London to TO on the 11th of December. Everything in between is up in the air pretty much, but there will be much more to come on this blog about it. THe tentative plan is to fly from London to Rome for a week and meet up with my Aunt Faye who will be there and then fly to Stuttgart around the 27th to spend some time at my German friend Christian's place. My buddy Rob Millman from Queen's is going to meet me there (he's coming from Ireland where he's visiting his bro) and then the two of us are going to travel for two months together all over europe. Not sure where exactly we'll be when, but i'm hoping to hit Amsterdam, Austria, Czeck Republic, Hungary, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland. Some kinda order like that maybe, like a big clockwise loop, but who knows how that will change. Our first week that me and Rob are together will be during Octoberfest in Germany which will be a wicked way to kick things off. I can't wait.

So, next time i write i'll hopefully be a Master in Chemical Engineering and maybe be in Europe.

Till next time....

It's been awhile...nothing new

2005-06-21T23:32:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so i've been lazy and haven't written anything in awhile. Not too too much to really tell any good stories about though. Did have a pretty fun weekend a couple weekends ago (weekend of the 4th). Me and Heather went to Toronto Friday night and stayed with Matt and Meagan and a few ppl came up to their new place (same condo at YOung and Dundas, but 14 floors higher), we just sat around and had a few beer. Didn't really wanna get up to too much cause we had to be up early Saturday to get to Markham for Kelly and Sean's wedding. Kelly's a girl in Heather's class. The wedding was pretty awesome. It was at a Hilton's Suite and Conference Center and the two of us shared a suite with Becky and George and Ange and Danny. The wedding itself was alrite...was pretty weird to see ppl my age getting married though. Then we headed to the hotel, checked in and started boozin. They had downstairs in one of the ballroom's and we went down for appetizers and drinks from 5:30 till 6:30 and then were let into the ballroom for dinner and then dancing and shit after. The whole thing was open bar so it was great. Dinner was pretty good too. The whole night was pretty tame, but we all still got pretty hammered and danced all ngiht long.

Next day we were up early enough and finally found somewhere to eat breakie before heading back to TO. Me and Heather both went back to Toronto and went back to Matt and Meg's and go to see their new puppy. They just got a miniature weiner dog from a breeder in Saskatchewan and it came in while we were at the wedding so we really wanted to go back and check it out. We stayed there for dinner and me and Heather went and bought the stuff for pizzas for everyone (Colleen and Russ came over too). After dinner we went back to Russ and Colleen's and stayed the night with them. The next day was Monday, but since i'd just finally finished up all of my experiments for my master's friday before the wedding i decided to take a day off and we went to the zoo. The zoo was pretty good except that it was super super hot all day and so most of the animals were sleeping and we did a hell of alot of sweating. Still took lots of pictures and had a good time (i'll post some pics from everythign as soon as i figure out how).

Sinec then i haven't really done much i guess. That next week was just alot of work and a little poker at night. Oh yeah, i played in a golf tournament with Mike Suits, Mike Brown and another guy. It was a 4 man scramble out at Collonade for Queen's faculty and staff. We didn't play great, but shot 6 under and finished tied for 3rd.

Then on the weekend that just past i went out to Heather's cottage. She came back from being there for a week with her parents and got me. We didn't really do much, but it was still good and relaxing. Had a really good dinner out on friday night at a little restaurant in the little french town near her cottage. Her cottage is north of Montreal about an hour in the Laurentians. The dinner was a 4-course meal and i had bison, duck, rabbite and escargots all in one meal. And it was free, so it was even sweeter. The rest of the weekend was pretty cold, so i spent most of my time working on my thesis, which is aewsome because i got a ton done. I drove back Monday morning with Heather's car and Heather's coming back sometime near the weekend with her parents.

Anyways, i'm tired and don't have anything else to say.

Long Weekend in the Lab???

2005-05-23T13:22:00.000-05:00

WHAT???

Yeah. Unfortunately. That's what i did!

May 2-4 is supposed to be about drinking beer, camping, having illegitimate children, and all that other fun stuff. That's how its been in the past anyways. Apparently now that i'm passed the big 2-4 in age and turned the big quarter century i'm not allowed to have fun anymore.

Well...maybe all that's a bit overboard. Truth is that it was a cold and shitty long weekend and i really want to get my experimetns done with, so i stayed in kingston for the weekend so that i could get one more experiment done and under my belt so that i can stay on my target and be done and outta here by the end of August and then off to Europe!

So i spent about 5 hours here in the lab every day and went out in the evenings. Friday i worked late, then bbq'd with Oreo then headed to Clark for a summer staff party with the kids, back to work Saturday a.m. then headed out to Brent's cottage on Flint Island, one of the famous thousand islands on the St. Lawrence near Gananoque. There were about 10 of us who braved the cold and rain and headed across the river to his cottage. It was cold and shitty, but still better than being in the city. We just sat out there all night and hung out and drank a ton of beer, spent the night, and headed back in the next morning. Sunday when i got back to town i came back to the lab for a few more hours, then hung out with my summer housemates Kevin and Rob and we eventually headed down to Trav's place and played a little poker.

So as you can see, not a very exciting weekend, but at the same time, i got a ton of shit done in the lab, so i'm pretty happy.

The past couple weeks have been pretty busy with just work and stuff. I've been keeping pretty active playing soccer once or twice a week and hockey once a week and then Goodlife once or twice a week with Heather. We've been going to spin classes which are awesome. They're kinda like aerobics classes cause they have an instructor and stuff like that and its to music, but its on bikes. I really like them.

Anywyas, that's about all.

Ever here the one about the doctor, lawyer, and engineer who decide to roof a house together?

2005-05-23T12:59:00.000-05:00

You haven't heard that joke? Well that's because its a stupid fucking idea and a doctor, lawyer and engineer should know enough to know that they can't do the job and should shell out the cash to get someone who knows what they're doing to do it.

We learnt this the hard and stupid way....by trying to do it on our own. Two Friday's ago John Evans (a guy in heather's class who wants to be a cardiac surgeon) had me (the engineer), and George Wray (Heather's friend Becky's husband), who's a lawyer, over to roof his small, 1 and a half story bungalow. It's a small enough place, with four sides to the roof. We thought, "hell yeah! bring it on! and let's get drunk while we do it! If roofers can do it, surely we'll easily do it."

So George and John ripped the shingles off the back of the roof while i was at work in the a.m. and i showed up just after noon to start shingling. The first couple rows seemed to go fine with the tarring and nailing in because we were doing them from the ladders and was quite easy. But then came time to get up on the roof. THat's where the problems started. 1. the roof is pretty steep 2. we don't really know what we're doing 3. we don't have harnasses (just 2x4's for foot support while reaching down to shingle 4. we don't really know what we're doing 5. i found out that i don't like being on a roof that's steep, with no harnass 6. it took a lot longer than we thought it would and it was starting to get dark, cold, windy and rain was on its way 7. we didn't really know what we're doing.

You get the idea.

So i spent most of the time carting shingles up to the boys on the roof (small roof and only room for 2 people at hte most at a time). At first i thought it was a better job then actually being on the roof the whole time, till i realized that it involved me going up the ladder with a bundle of shingles on my shoulder, walking up the 2x4 ladder on the top of the roof, dropping the shingles off, then making my way back down to the ladder (the trickiest part for sure), and getting down. I did this quite a few times, and every time i got back down to terra ferma, i breathed a big sigh of relief and make my legs eventually stop shaking.

We finally finished up and the girls came over and we bbq'd and we collectively decided to have a roofer finish the job off cause there's no way i want to do anymore! It took us a whole day to do 1/4 of the roof, and after its all said and done, it looks like shit.

So moral of the story...don't be a cocky asshole. Pay someone else to do it for you!

Busy, busy, and busier

2005-05-01T13:36:00.002-05:00

Things have been crazy lately. That's not why i haven't posted any blogs though. I haven't posted any blogs cause i'm a lazy SOB at this kinda stuff, but am trying to get better. The school year is done here at Queen's now (my last year ever at university...hopefully). Classes finished off at the start of April and then exams just finished this last week. So basically the past month has been dominated with non-stop partying.

Things started hard about the time of BNO and rolled right into the last Khaki Snack Show on the Monday. That weekend started for me on Thursday night cause Allain (Charette) came to Kingston for the night with his new girlfriend (shit...can't remember her name) and their new puppy Evie (spl?), a 10 week old boston terrier. Very cute little guy. We didn't get up to much, just caught up and had some beers at my place. He was off to the Barrie area the next day to see his mom. Allain's been living in Ottawa for the past year almost managing a Boston Pizza downtown. I've know Allain since we were about 5ish? I still remember meeting him for the first time. He had just just moved in across the road from our place on Devonshire (in Iroquois Falls) and he got outta the car looking like a HUGE nerd. For anyone who doesn't know Allain or didn't know him when he was younger, he had the thickest Coke bottle glasses you've ever seen (think Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys kinda thing). But the other thing is that he's ALWAYS been built like a brick shit house. So nobody ever made too much fun of him. Anywyas, i remember him getting out of his car and walking across the road...no, scratch that....he was strutting across the road. It was the funniest walk ever. He looked scary to me at the time though....for a half a second....until our dog Magee got ahold of him and licked him to death, and that's when i realized that although tough, he's just a big softy and has been ever since (although he's still a fucking tough guy when he wants to be).

So Allain and co. took off the next morning early, which was perfect cause Friday was the last day of classes and was one of the best days (saddest too) of my life. At 10:30, me and Bryce (Howchin) headed to Clark together (after a breakie at Morrisson's) for our last shift ever. Its tradition at Clark for the outgoing staff to get fired during the last ritual of the year. So all of us getting fired get to work for the first few hours (but drink the whole time). It was amazing. We all had coffee cups and were acting like we were working, but really i don't think i did a thing all fucking day. I think the most that i did was pour a few (or a dozen pitchers of beer), but instead of selling them gave them away to friends, or people that i kinda knew, or basically just anyone at all....haha. It was awesome. So i just walked around all day giving out drinks, but slowly and surely getting wired from my little coffee cup of goodness. We had a patio downstairs too for the day (we sometimes set up patios downstairs around Clark by renting a bunch of tents, a draft car, and putting up a bunch of snowfencing....i think we can fit about 350 ppl on the patio and then 159 more upstairs.....we're not a huge bar). So i'd wander around the patio for awhile, then head upstairs and hang out. Everyone once and awhile (more and more often as the day went on) we'd head into the beer fridge behind the bar and chug beers or do shots. It was really just a great great day and a fantastic way to finish my career at Clark Hall Pub and at university. I remember at one point Phil (big guy from Trinidad) was getting pretty nostalgic and said, "Did you ever ever imagine that on your very last day of school at Queen's University you'd be in the beer fridge at Clark Hall Pub chugging beers and doing shots with some of your best friends in the world?". Very appropriate comment, because i guess now looking back at my first day of university i never ever would've imagined that university would be as good to me as it has been or that it would end in such a great great way.

So things progressed till about 3:30ish (i'm guessing at this point cuase i had no concept of time and really didn't care about it at all either). Bryce brought a bunch of posts with red velvet rope to block off the stage just for staff, so we were all hanging out up there dancing and drinking hard (i was onto Jack with a bit of coke in my coffee cup at this point). Then all of a sudden The Final Countdown came on and things got really sad all of a sudden. All of us leaving staff (Bryce, Danny, Jordon, Rob, Marissa, Ali, Rico, Lisa, Jay, Phil, Derek Burpee) looked around at each other and realized that this was it. We were about to be fired. Everyone else in the bar at this point realized what was about to happen to and all 100 some of them gathered around the stage and started cheering for us as we were dancing on chairs and giving're shit during our last few minutes as Clark Hall Pub staff ever. The song was coming to a close and then Brad Jewson, the new manager, grabbed the mike and informed us and everyone that we were outta control and were now officially fired from Clark Hall Pub. So that was it. We all took off our ruggers and then the emotional onslaught came. I thought i was going to be fine and was holding up until i looked over and Bryce was coming over for a hug with tears in his eyes. Things were sloppy after that. Here were all were, drunk, sweaty, covered in alcohol, and hugging and sobbing uncontrollably.

The rest of the day passed in kind've a blur. Russ and Matt made the trip down for the afternoon from TO to see me get fired (Russ used to work at the pub) and we spent the rest of the day and night drunk together. All the rest of the staff were sooo messed up and kind've all split up after ritual to eat or pass out (more passed out then ate). I think we ended up at Stooley's, then back to my place for a bit, then somehow made it back to Clark again! We stayed till close that night and staffed with them, although they definately shouldn't have even let us into the pub we were so drunk. The night finally finished at about 4am. Russ puked all the way home while me and Matt made fun of him, but probably weren't too far off from the same fate ourselves.

The next day Matt left early in teh AM cause he had to drive all the way to London, but me and Russ chilled all day, hungover as shit and just watched movies. At around 5, i headed back to Clark. After the madness from the night before, someone figured it would be a good time to have our last staff party of the year, the New Staff/Old Staff party. How this works is everyone from that year + the new hires for the next fall get together for a catered dinner at Clark, followed by staff awards and final goodbyes and stuff like that from the outgoing managers and staff. Then its onto the main event for the night when the new managers pair people up and they get tied together for the rest of the night. Literally. Returning staff and rookies get tied together and leaving staff get tied together. How it works is two people get tied together buy a short (short) length of string by the wrists. And then you go drink for drink and get hammered together all night. And the crazy part is that its not usually same sex partners. I remember my first year i was tied to Kris and when she went to the washroom, i had to be right next to her in the stall....makes for people getting to know each other very quickly anyways! I was lucky and got tied to Bryce which was awsome. The night was good, but is definately meant for the returning and new staff. Our big bang was definately the day before. It was good though and a great final farewell to Clark.

I'm going to miss the place alot. Clark has been one of the best parts of my university experience. EVerything from frosh week, to the pole, onto BDO, Halloween staff party, fall retreat, Xmas party, winter retreat, BNO, last ritual, and new staff old staff. For three years this went on, and then of course the weekly shift and staffing. For people who weren't apart of it, its absolutely impossible to describe. I know that i'm lucky to have been apart of it and will cherish it forever. My liver will not miss it...

The rest of the month was kind've a blur. I had alot of work to do on my thesis and then the last week of the month was diminated by people finishing exams and wanting to party hard for a last couple nights before they left Ktown for good. So i hung out with Bryce and Jordan mostly alot. Then finally the last couple days of April meant getting ready to move. Sux. I loved my old place at 242 Alfred. Me and George Prpich have lived there together for the past year. Its a great place, huge backyard, kitchen, great living room and i had a huge room. George however was more interested in his girlfriend then being around the house much, so i basically had this huge awesome place to myself which was awesome most of the time, although there were definately times when it would've been nice to have an actual housemate around to chill and talk to. It wasn't bad living with geroge at all, but had i known things were going to be like that, i would've moved in with someone else. So for the summer i'm subletting from Brad Jewson at 300 University, right across from my old place at 299 university (where i lived for 3 years in undergrad with Rob, Matt, and Mike the whole time and for the first year with Patti and Amanda and then the last two years with Aaron. It was a fantastic place. So for the summer i'm living with Kevin MacLean from Clark (also a grad student) and this guy who i just met yesterday, Rob. Took a long time to get moved in and then finally to get the place cleaned up (it was absolutely disgusting), but now that its clean looks awesome and will be a great place to live for the summer. I spent a few hours yesterday helping the landlord clean out the basement at our old place in exchange for taking all of our garbage and furniture with him. He's a really nice guy and brought a friend of his and from 9am till about 2 we moved stuff and got drunk. The two of them are in their late 50s or early 60s and are both Navy vets and decided that a job like that can't be done without beer. I think we cracked our first one not long after 9am (12 o'clock somewhere) and proceeded to have another Ex every 30 minutes or so. Was definately a good time. They even helped me move my last couple of things over to my new place and then came in for a beer....lol.

So anyways, its Sunday now and i'm at work trying to finish up some oxygen experiments with my polymers in the bioreactor. Hopefully i'll be outta here soon and then get to work on unpacking my new rooom a little bit.

Till next time....

A night (to try) to remember

2005-04-05T19:35:00.000-05:00

Last night was the very last ever Khaki Snack, Monday night show. Khaki Snack is a band from here at Queen's with 3 guys in it. Derek (Burpee) and Dave who both play accoustic guitars, and Chris (Provan) who plays the harmonica, base guitar, triangle, cow bell, and of course, the gong. They're not you're average band. They do mostly songs that they make up the night of, and are 100% hilarious. Some of their regular repetoire includes songs like My Mom Had Sex with Robby Alomar, 3 Types of Pimps, Movie Review (where they review movies they saw that week), Stereotypes (a song where they make fun of stereotypes of different groups with some favorites being french ppl, italian and greeks), and of course their big hit (which i don't know the actual name of), but is about how one of them got dumped on xmas eve a few years ago by a girlfriend over icq). Most of the show like i said before is improv and they're definately really good at it.

Anyways, they've been doing a countdown the past few weeks to this show. I worked the second last show (i'm a bouncer at Clark Hall Pub) and the place was jammed pretty much right from when we opened the doors so we all knew that the final night was going to be just crazy...and it was.

I had Bryce over to my place for a few beers and stuff at around 8 and Brad (the new manager) came by the place too. It was cool hanging out like that because me and Bryce are both leaving at the end of the year so we wont' get the chance to hang out like that probably ever again. We headed over to the pub around 9:30 and the place was PACKED. The doors always open at 9 and apparently their had been a line up since 8. We went in backdoor (perks of the job) and started out the night strong with a vodka/Red Bull. Great for the old ticker for sure.

The Starving Artists (two brothers playing guitar and bongos) opened the show and about 10 minutes into their set the lights went out. Apparently it was a blackout right across campus. We all defiantely thought at first that this night that we'd all been looking forward to for such a long time was gonna be over right then. Jordan was senior that night and made a great call by getting everyone to shut up and let everyone know that we could stay for awhile to see if the lights came back on, but if they didn't in the next little bit everyone would have to leave. There were SOOOO many staff there drinking last night anyways, so there weren't any worries bout things getting outta control (Clark's a pretty small place and only holds 160 ppl at capacity including usually 5 ppl working). So us staff that were there positioned ourselves at the exits and everything was good. Khaki Snack decided to jump up on stage at this point with the Starving Artists and they went into a classic song (accoustic guitars so you could still hear them), Down by the Bay. It was awesome. 160 drunk university kids, drinking beer in the dark, and absolutely everyone belting out Down by the Bay together. It was the kinda thing that just doesn't happene and the sort of thing you definately can't plan. I have goosebumps right now just remembering it. And then at the part that goes "have you ever...?", ppl would yell out random verses. It was wicked. "Have you ever been to Clark and drank beers in the dark??? Down by the bay!"

The lights finally came on and everyone went nuts. The blackout definately made the night even more memorable. Well, i guess cause that's really all i can remember. Next thing i know i'm waking up at home and its daylight. Guess i had a bit too much to drink. I've heard from other ppl though that i was there right till the end and partied like a superstar. Glad to hear i represented....haha.

Anyways, that's it. What a night.

Last ever BNO

2005-03-23T14:20:00.000-05:00

Today's a pretty sad day (and painful) cause last night was my last ever BNO as a staff member of Clark Hall Pub. What a fucking night though.

As always, the winter BNO is also the same night as GNO so us boys do our thing, the ladies do theirs, and then we meet up in a big drunken orgy at the end. Us boys started out the night at Clark playing ????? (i dont' know the name of it but i was awesome). The way the game works is you have to get a bunch of cases of dirty dirty cheap beer in cans, and then you start out with one, duct tape it to your hand and then finish the beer. At this point you go grab another beer and have someone duct tape it on top of the empty can, open it, drink it (rinse, lather, repeat). You get the idea. Within two hours i had a stack of 9 cans piled one of top of the other. i pretty much had to tilt as far as i could backwards just to get a sip.

Oh yeah! What i forgot to mention is that we had a theme for the night (as alwasy) which was Hugh Heff-playboy style and porn stars. And sure enough, we get to the pub adn the two organizers Rico and Mickeybitch got us all these big, white, beautiful bathrobes with the Clark decagon on the back followed up with "les boys de clark hall pub" on teh front breast. They are BEAUTIFUL and we looked awesome in them. From Clark we headed downtown to the Tir-Na-Nog for classy english beers, then to Tango for martinis. Almost got into a fight (or thought i was gonna get punched anyways) from some douchbag 30 year old. What happened was Bryce decided he had to piss while we were outside sharing a cigar. So he went down this little alley/opening kinda thing and pissed. While....it turns out that he was pissing in some guys front door pretty much and the guy came out and flipped (rightly so). But he kept going on and on and on.... So i started to talk to him, telling him to calm down and that "yeah, my buddy is an idiot. But can you honestly say you've never been really druunk and just had to piss before?" I mean come on...honestly, nothing was broken and no harm was done and he only pissed on the concrete so give it a fuckign rest already. So the guy keeps on chirping at me and threatens to call the cops. I told him to be my guest and that i'd wait around while they showed up, DNA swabbed the concrete, processed it and then figured out which one of the 20 of us it was....fucking idiot. He didn't like that much and did call the cops, i laughed in his face and left. Sure enough 5 minutes later a cop car rolls around, looks at us, laughs and fucks off.

So anyways, from Tango we headed up to the only place that you really have to go on a boys night out.....THE TITI BAR, THE ZOO, THE PEELERS, BEAVER HEAVEN, call it what you want. We went, strolled in with our white robes, took over pervs row and had a blast. And that's as far as i'll talk about it.

After the rippers we hit Mickey-D's and then rolled over to Clark to meet the ladies. Just outside of Clark i led the parade and stopped, ripped off everything i was wearing under my robe, put my underwear on my head, and encourage/made the others follow suit. Then we headed up and danced our underwear off our heads with the ladies. Great great time. Although sadly for the ladies my robe kept coming undone and i'm pretty sure they all got a good look at least once of my junk....lol.

3am rolls around and they're closing the bar on us. Bastards! So we do the only thing left to do....grab the leftover beer cans and head up to my place. And sure enough, we get to my apartment (3 ladies and 4 guys) only to realize that i don't have keys. Dammit! So i start pounding on the door hoping that George isn't at Krista's for the night. Sure enough...no answer. So i do the obvious thing and tell someone to hold my beer while i break down the door. Luckily for me though someone had a cell and called my place and george was there, picked up and let us all in. What a site we musta been for him. Us guys all in our whites, the girls dressed up with flowers and vails (wedding shower theme) and i had a tiara on i'm pretty sure too....not sure where it came from though. So we partied like rockstars till who knows when and then crashed.

Awesome fucking night.

My first ever blog....WOW!

2005-03-16T14:21:00.000-05:00

So i guess Blake (cousin Blake) is responsible for getting me goign on these stupid blogs, although i guess they do serve their purpose. I've been on his blog site pretty much everyday to read about what he's up to in South Korea (teaching ESL), and since i'm gonna be hopefully doing some world travelling myself in the next few months, i figured it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to do the same.

Right now though i'm just procrastinating at the lab (i'm doing my masters in biochemical engineering at Queen's University) and should really be getting back to playing with my bacteria, although i'm pretty sure that i killed them accidentally about an hour ago...either way, i should get going at something.

I get i'm now an offical Blogger....thanks Blake.

Peace.