Europe in a Backpack

Reflection

2005-07-11T15:36:00.000-04:00

So my trip is done. I'm back in the states... back at my job (until I start grad school). It's a little sad, yes. I mean, I just had the time of my life. I had an incredible experience that was exciting, adventurous, changing, evolving, compelling, ...and fulfilling. I did so much. I:

saw some of the greatest art ever created
found the ruins of some of the oldest civilizations on Earth
hiked some of the most beautiful coastline in the world
watched the sunset over the Italian Mediterranean
ate the best pizza in the world
floated down a raging river
saw the effects of some of the most oppressive governments to date
watched the Eiffel Tower light up at night
traveled under the English Channel
tasted some of the best wine in the world
had a plate broken over my head
watched the sun set at 11:30pm
saw how blue the Mediterranean actually is
got scammed
stood in the same place as Socrates
ate a Hamburger in Hamburg
gave everything in my pocket to a homeless man
stared at the most beautiful ceiling in the world
drank in the capital of every country I visited
went smile for smile with the Mona Lisa
walked up to the top of a mountain
watched a woman smoke a cigar (just ask me about this one)
saw no less than 2500 paintings of the passion or cruxifiction

But the best part of my trip was all the people I met. I can't even try to remember every name, but it was great. Every new place, every day even, offered the thrill and opportunity of someone new to meet and something new to discover.

After such an amazing experience, should I be content to return to a "normal" life? I mean, consider for a moment your typical middle class nine-to-fiver. He spends almost his entire day making money to fund the moments he's not working (now and in the future). Now he loves his job, but he's still trapped in it. He has to go everyday even if amazing experiences are out there to be had. He's given up that freedom, he's submitted to the system in order to gain a little security in his future. ...I've just experienced the exact opposite of that.

Washington Dulles Airport

2005-07-06T17:20:00.000-04:00

My return trip itinerary has left a six hour gap between connecting flights, submersing me once again in the portion of American culture that is the C and D terminal of Washington Dulles International Airport. It's something of a wierd culture shock. I miss Europe.

Getting off the plane, we, with a number of other flights, were herded through the bottle neck of baggage claim, customs, and TSA inspection where angry, frustrated travellers, worried that they'd miss their next flight, started yelling (in English!!!) at others who were cutting the mass of bags and people otherwise called a line. I turned and asked one of them when their flight was and then let them cut in front of me being that they might indeed miss it. I don't think it helped the guy to calm down much, but his wife seemed happier.

The fact that I had forgotten American culture simultaneously put the biggest smile on my face and a huge weight on my heart. My habits are still probably undoubtedly American, but I can see how Europeans must see us. I'm not used to seeing anyone else using a laptop or not getting stares for using one myself. I look around and see so many people talking on a cell phone... constantly. Many are carrying (fast or junk) food or huge cups of soft drinks while they're walking. It's all seems so post-modern and soulless. I smiled because I got away from it for two months... because I gained a better perspective on it. Most Europeans have cell phones, but only a few in a crowd will be using theirs at any one time. And I never saw one walking somewhere while eating or drinking (plenty of tourists do, though, myself included). As far as I noticed, they always sat down for their snacks, drinks, and meals.

But that's all the superficial crap. What really bothers me about being back here is the vibe that comes from everyone here. It's a subtle "I'm not going to let you screw me over by getting in my way" feeling everyone seems to have. I didn't witness that kind of anxiety in Europe. There's the same uncaring oblivion towards anyone the European didn't know but no fear that vulnerability shown today would come back to bite him tomorrow. I'm amazed I lived like that...

Amsterdam

2005-07-06T08:43:00.000-04:00

What can I say about Amsterdam... the stories are all true. Whatever bliss you seek... you'll find it here. The atmosphere is very relaxed, though. I find most backpackers smoke all day then drink all night only to get up in the morning and do it all over again (with the occasional sex show thrown in there).

Since I don't smoke, though, I explored the city during the daytime. I could go on about The Van Gogh Museum, The Anne Frank House, or the calm, peaceful life the locals enjoy (they don't partake in the otherwise commonplace vice fulfilling activities offered here), but no one wants hear about that...

The Red Light District. It a strange and mysterious sight. The streets are lined with sex shops, video stores, neon signs, and opened windows with (moderately attractive) half naked women beckoning visitors to come inside. I've never seen so many uncomfortable, insecure guys walking the streets either. The most hilarious is the group of English men, probably hear on "holiday", who mask their discomfort with bravado, loud conversation, and a fake strut. But back to the topic at hand...

My second day here, I asked the desk at my hostel where I could see a good (possibly artistic) sex show. I was told to go to Casa Rossa. I found about four buildings along one street with that name, and stopped in front of one of them. I tried to get as much information from the guy who subsequently accosted me, eventually agreeing to see the show, which I thought was in the building in front of which I was standing. So I gave the guy my money, and he says, "Ok, follow me..." he takes me three blocks up the street, across the canal, back down another block, and into some unlabelled building. He hands my receipt to the ticket office guy and tells me to go up the stairs... I get up there to find a tiny theater and a woman performing a striptease that ends in an interesting use of a lit candle. The curtains closed and reopened with a couple dressed in hooded robes. They slowly disrobe to reveal that... they're not so attractive... and, furthermore, they continue with their show with absolutely no emotion on their faces whatsoever (also a condition the first woman had). The guy especially seemed to have a certain difficulty staying interested. After about ten minutes, the curtains closed again (thank god), and a voice came over a loud speaker saying, "We'll be back in half an hour with the same three shows." ...Yeah, so this, at least, explained the emotionlessness, and, apparently, I missed the first ten minute show. Needless to say... I got a little ripped off. I didn't stick around to see it again...

My last night here (my last night in Europe) was a little better, though. A group of us, after having a few beers and playing pool at the hostel, decided to go to the Bananen Bar. It wasn't until we got there, though, that we found, for a little extra, it included the show at The Casa Rossa, which was actually seven shows over about two hours. I'm going to leave out the details in case children stumble across this, but I'll just say one involved volunteers and a banana and another a cigar. After that, we went back to the Bananen Bar, which served us free drinks for an hour from naked bartendresses, who would, for an extra tip, perform some entertainment activities, one of which involved the same banana trick. So I have to wonder who came up with that one first... but, needless to say, it was a fun night and a decent way to end the trip of a lifetime...

P.S. Picture taking is something of a no-no in Amsterdam... so don't expect much from my pics server

Happy 4th

2005-07-04T13:01:00.000-04:00

Hey guys... Happy 4th of July to everyone in the states... They don't have any celebrations for the date over here, but Amsterdam is more or less one big party all the time. Still missing the classic American barbeque... but it's definitely worth it. Only two days left.... :-(

Amsterdam: My first day

2005-07-03T08:45:00.000-04:00

Well I've made it to my final stop, the drug and sex capital of the world that is Amsterdam. The second I stepped off the train, I was immediately hit with the smell of marijuana, and I knew where I was. It's a good city... especially if you smoke a little gaunge..... Breathe, mom... just breathe. I haven't touched the stuff... I went straight for the E.... haha.

I visited the Heineken museum and recorded this little cinematic masterpiece for everyone... it was a lot like the Guiness Storehouse in Dublin, except here they try to make it more interactive with multimedia shows and hydraulic seating. It's just kind of stupid, but they give you three drinks (of heineken) along the way. So it's not all bad.

The night train here kind of dicked me over for really going out since I got almost no sleep on it. I had to crash early, but not before hanging out in the bar at my hostel and having a more or less routine conversation with a girl from New Zealand, Adrian. I felt bad that she was dissappointed that I just wanted to crash at like midnight when she was all set to go out.

Copenhagen

2005-07-01T20:18:00.000-04:00

I met a girl from Germany, named Vilsa, on the train ride here. She was headed to a music festival somewhere in Denmark, which sounded a lot like a Woodstock type of thing. Some how we got on a discussion on America's supersized culture, of which I feel like I have a bit more of a perspective. It was an interesting train ride to say the least. Another thing I was also wondering how the train was going to cross whatever body of water separates the island on which Copenhagen is from mainland Europe. I figured there was a bridge... but I was wrong. The train actually drove on to a ferry. and then drove off when the ferry reached the other side.

I also met a guy, Burt, an architect also headed to Copenhagen. So we joined forces to find a hostel. The one we found turned out to be a shithole. Apparently, the US doesn't allow beds to be as closely packed into a room as we found there (according to the architect). So I would imagine running a hostel in the US wouldn't be very profitable.

My guidebook didn't do a great job of describing all the sites I saw here. I walked around a saw quite a few of them, but I only went up to the top of the Rundetarn (Round Tower) to see the city. The more my trip has progressed the less I've been motivated to really go to any museums or galleries... only because they all seem to be the same. There was an art gallery here that was supposed to have works by Munch, which I did want to check out just to see if they had The Scream, but the place seemed to be under construction and I couldn't find the entrance if it was indeed open.

I only spent two days and one night here before getting on the night train out. I didn't go out to check out the nightlife here too much, and I didn't really care too much. Either I'm starting to feel like I've been there and done that.... or I'm just saving it all up for Amsterdam...

Christiania (Copenhagen)

2005-07-01T15:35:00.000-04:00

What drew me to Copenhagen was a part of it I wanted to see called Christiania. At some point, a Danish king created a military fort along the shore here, which had been abandoned until some time in the late 1960's or early 1970's when some hippies and political activists broke in and began squatting in the buildings. They've stayed long enough for squatter laws to now apply to them. There they created a sort of hippie commune, which they consider to be their own territory. Up until last year, the main "street" (path), called Pusher street, openly sold marijuana and, I think, other drugs. But a police raid last year shut that activity down. In walking down the street today, I, nonetheless, got no less than four offers to be sold some hash.

Strangely, though, I felt a little uneasy walking through the area. Where with every city, there are a certain set of basic rules on which I can rely, I wasn't sure if those applied here. More than that I wasn't sure if the rules I live by would make me unacceptable here. Walking around for awhile, though, the people here seemed to look at me with the same insecurity, as if I found them unacceptable. Is it the same everywhere? Are we afraid that other people won't accept how we choose to live?

Hamburg

2005-06-29T23:12:00.000-04:00

Time is winding down for my trip. I only have a week left before my flight back to the states. It's so sad. It's been a good ride so far, and the best is yet to come. Not in Hamburg, though. There's really nothing here. And, you know, I had hoped to escape American culture a little while I was over here. Seeing McDonald's was expected, Starbucks... understandable, but this...

...unacceptable. I wanted to burn down the building... I had my shirt... but not a book of matches... haha.

I knew Walmart was all over the world, but I figured they were in heavy suburban areas where there's more space for the typical Walmart sprawl building. With only a week left in two months, I stumble over it... in Hamburg of all places too....

But since it's here... it still had the lowest prices I could find of any store in the area... so I bought a coke, and was reminded of the IBM mainframe cluster in Arkansas through my transaction is still probably being processed. Then I went to go eat a Hamburger... now it's off to Copenhagen.

Berlin

2005-06-29T08:58:00.000-04:00

I have no idea how best to describe Berlin. Unlike the cities that I've recently visited, such as Rome, Athens, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, etc., whose architecture and history date back to medieval times, Berlin has been the crossing point for the major historical events of the last century... events from which it is still trying to recover. There are beautiful buildings that date back much earlier, but many for damaged or destroyed by Allied bombing and left to rot in East Berlin. They only begun restoration in the last fifteen years. This, though, provided me with the unique opportunity to have a very real experience of the events of the last century.

I don't usually join walking tours because I feel like I can do a better and more efficient job of seeing everything myself, but I heard Brewer's Walking Tours was exceptionally good, and my tour guide for which was currently majoring in recent German history. He showed us all the major historical sites, but, for most of them, he had to use the phrase "damaged by bombs in WWII," a phrase which I haven't heard in any other city... including London. Most of the tour and most of the old city of Berlin were in Communist controlled East Berlin (part of East Germany), and the government chose not to repair any of the damage from WWII (except if it was an apartment building). So work has only been started in the last decade.

The most memorable sites were those where events of the last century occurred. For instance, in 1933 the Reichstag here was the site of a fire that was blamed on a crazy communist arsenist who tried to start the fire with a book of matches and his shirt and somehow managed to get flames to shoot out of the opposite end of the building. The next day the majority Nazi party convinced the Kaiser or whoever to suspend the constitution and to give emergency powers to the chancellor of parliament to counter the Communist threat. (Does anyone else hear the plot to Star Wars here?). And we can all guess who that guy was.

That guy spent the last six weeks of his life in a bunker marked by this unassuming parking lot. The white post in the back is roughly the spot of the crater where his body was burned by a couple of barrels of petro. Personally, I'm glad there's nothing marking this spot. It's further fitting that the marble from his huge palace lines the subway station through which we walked and is used in the Soviet War Memorial.

By far the greatest effect on Berlin, though, was The Berlin Wall. I was amazed to find out that the wall went up in all of four hours, not to protect the East from the West, but to keep the working class in the East. It completely divided family and friends. All to try to show that Communism was better. The Cold War here seemed so much like a fashion show... just bullshit postering on either side.

Prague

2005-06-27T09:44:00.000-04:00

I had a pretty bad day when I first got here. The train ride was fine. Being a Saturday, though, I was worried about finding a hostel. I got into the train station, bought a phone card, and starting calling hostels. I was referred to a hostel by a guy I met in Bratislava, but it was full... as was the first few and closest to the city center hostels from my guidebook. Finally, the fourth hostel I called had a single room open, which they would reserve for me for the next few minutes until I walked there from the train station. I walked outside trying to match up the streets with those around the train station on my map. This was further complicated by the fact that Prague sparsely labels its streets. After walking around for fifteen minutes without finding any streets that matched up, a man finally came up to me to help, who informed me that I was, in fact, at a different train station and that I needed to get on the subway to get into the center of town. I got the hostel about an hour after I had called them to find that my room had been given away. And this is about the time it started raining...

Expecting to be forced to sleep at the train station, I walked back to the station at which I thought I had arrived. I found a accomodation booking office, who luckily was able to book me a room at a hostel fairly close to the city center. I've stayed at worse hostels, but I wasn't a huge fan of the communal showers they had there. It was fairly late when I finally arrived, and, since it didn't seem like I would really meet anyone at the hostel, I went to a pub crawl that had an advertisement there. The rain and an apparent Hell's Angels gathering in the city were the apparent causes for the reason that I was the only person on the crawl. In spite of that, I still had a good time on the crawl with my two guides. I met more locals than I would have if there had been other backpackers there.

I woke up the next morning to find that it was raining again (still). So for the first time on my whole trip, I used my raincoat. The cloud cover gave the city a very Eastern European feel, which, combined with the cobble stone streets and old buildings everywhere, made for a great experience despite getting all wet. I abstained from visiting any museums here because they seemed too much like tourist traps. The city itself is a open museum, though. It was great just walking through it all.

I went back to my hostel after finishing my meandering, self-guided Mission: Impossible tour to change rooms (they switched everyone around everyday or something). They put me in a room with four girls (how lucky for them) who had just got there that day. They asked me to join them for a different pub crawl they were going on, which I did since I had nothing better to do. We only visited three bars (the more historical ones) but got dinner with it too. It was geared more for older people (who were on the tour with us), meaning it finished early. So the younger ones of us went to a few more bars after. But, of course, I had the grudging responsibility of walking the four girls home at the end of the night... haha.

My Own Movie Tour

2005-06-26T21:23:00.000-04:00

Women pay some company in Salzburg to take them up outside the city so they can twirl around like Julie Andrews on the same hill she did in The Sound of Music, but I can't find anyone here in Prague to let me jump out of an aquarium restaurant that I've just blown up with a piece of gum as the water comes crashing down behind me and I go running off into the night. So, after seeing most of the sights in Prague, I decided to walk around and try to find as much of the scenery from Mission: Impossible as I could.

The easiest was the Charles Bridge, where Jon Voight's character staged his own death and fell into the river. I came across this in my normal sight seeing, but I wasn't sure if this or another bridge was used in the movie at the time.

At the western end of the bridge are these stairs, which Tom Cruise went running up to help Jon Voight and from where he supposedly watched the car explode in this square.

This is the square at the base of the stairs. It seems like they might have used another square and edited the movie to make us think it was right next to the bridge, but this one is close to the small amount of scenery I could see around the car.

Literally just to the left of the above square is the bank of the river with this door where "The package is in the open." I think they used different doors for the movie, though.

Walking to the left of the above door, I found the river embankment where the drunk couple was stumbling and I think where we're meant to believe what's-her-name and that-guy got stabbed, but I didn't see the big wooden gate from which they were hanging. So maybe that was filmed elsewhere.

From right about here is where they placed the camera to film Tom Cruise running away from the water spilling out of the Aquarium he just blew up with the gum. They also filmed him walking to the restaurant with St Nicholas' Church in the background (the white church on the left in the picture). The actual restaurant doesn't exist in this square, though, but we're made to think it does (I was disappointed). The square is actually the Old Town Square of Prague, with the astrological clock tower to the left of the picture and the statue and another church off to the right.

Lastly, the email from Max in the movie explicitly states the corner of Prikope and Nekazanka. Fortunately for me, this corner actually exists and is the scenery they used for that scene in the movie. "Can I trouble you for a match?"

I think I actually enjoyed stumbling across all these spots on my own rather than having a set tour that would just point them out (not that anyone would actually go on a tour for Mission: Impossible). It was fun just being looking and thinking "Oh my god, I remember that scene."

Bratislava

2005-06-25T09:20:00.000-04:00

I looked into opening my own hotel here. Turns out that it costs a little more than a nickel. The train ride here took me through the very eastern European, Communist, concrete block apartment buildings in the massive suburban sprawl around the city. I didn't find a old man sponge bathing himself or a dog guarding a human hand for food, though. So that scene from Eurotrip could be accurate (aside from the twenty year lag in pop culture).

The historic city center is actually quite different from the communist influence that sprawls out from it. Consisting of mostly pedestrian cobble stone streets, the center has cafes, bars, museums, churches, and landmarks. The most prominent of them is the Bratislava Castle perched above the historic center. The best part about this town, though, is that it is, except for us few backpackers, practically devoid of tourists. The castle was deserted while I was strolling through its courtyards, and the streets and cafes were full of locals. I hope the word doesn't get out of this place. Nothing can suck the culture out of any place better than massive amounts of tourists, especially tour groups.

After seeing all the sights here, I went back to my hostel to find one of the best atmospheres of any hostel at which I've stayed. The few of us English speaking backpackers pretty much all gathered in the back garden of the hostel for a few beers before the mass of us went out to see what nightlife Bratislava had to offer. Aside from having many of the hottest women I've seen in all of Europe, there were some decent bars including the Irish Pub there and the dance club on which we ended up on a boat in the Danube. It was a lot of fun.

Budapest: Day 2

2005-06-24T07:48:00.000-04:00

We went up to the Terror Museum here in Budapest yesterday, which exhibits the atrocities committed by the Hungarian government while under Nazi and Communist control. It was a little disturbing. We locked Alex in the tiny, shoulder width solitary confiment cube in the basement for ten minutes for a few moments of humor. By far the most disturbing thing was the wall listing pictures and names of every officer responsible for what happened over that time. It's the ultimate punishment, but I can't imagine anyone whose life's work was that...

We spent the rest of the day at the Thermal Baths across the Danube in Buda (Budapest is devided into Buda on one side and Pest on the other side of the river). Housed in some beautfiul architecture are several swimming pools and these heated pools for each sex. The outdoor pool had a wave machine for body surfing too. All in all it was very relaxing, but I saw way too much cock. Why are fat, old men the first to disrobe all the time? The place did offer these loine cloth type things, which looked like a g string from behind. So it didn't really help much.Luckily, we met a few girls at the hostel bar last night to balance out the day.

Budapest

2005-06-23T07:42:00.000-04:00

I met a girl on the train to here yesterday telling me that I have to visit all the eastern European countries, including Serbia (hers), the next time I come over here. I would have done that this time if it was on my Eurail pass, but what can I do. I'm told told that Poland is an interesting (and cheap) place to visit. We'll see what I have time for.

I met two guys getting off the train, Rob and Alex, who were eventually headed to the same hostel as me. Alex was just starting his trip over here. I felt bad watching him confront the language barrier for the first time when we went out last night, a situation to which I've become accustomed now. It definitely makes things more difficult.... not impossible, though. Communication is 93% nonverbal. Hungary has some good nightlife, and the cover charge was only 50 cents (US).

The most helpful thing I've found here so far, though, is the WiFi hotspot in range of my hostel room. I've been disappointed with the quality of my blog here. I've only been able to post summaries of my stays lately rather than anecdotal stories. I guess those will have to wait until I get home.

Vienna

2005-06-22T07:33:00.000-04:00

This is one of those cities that you hear about, one of the big cities of Europe, but you're not quite sure what's there to see or do. Some group of boys from here is suppose to sing decently, but what is there beyond that? I set out to find out.

I couldn't have asked for a better couple of days here (look at that sky). I first got here on Sunday to find a calm, peaceful atmosphere among some absolutely spectacular architecture. At some point in time, the city decided to tear down its outer walls and construct streets and public transportation to encircle the city that they call "The Ring" and inside of or around which lie many of the sites. I walked most of the day to see them all but wasn't really compelled to visit the museums here.

The calm, peaceful air about the city all but vanished on Monday, giving way to a busy, hectic capital city. I headed first for the palace above (you're looking at the back of it) and found a montrous property with this gorgeous garden behind it, complete with a maze and labrynth. I then went and found some famous ferris wheel, but I forget why it's famous at the moment.

The nightlife here is pretty much like that of any other place to which I've been, but a lot of us ended up just staying and drinking at Wombat's (where I stayed). I'm allowed to have one or two boring nights... haha

Vienna is definitely known for its opera, though. I had the opportunity to go see an opera called Werther, about a man, Werther, and a woman who fall in love after a few hours, but the woman is engaged to another guy who she promised her dying mother she would marry. It was a more contemporary opera but still very moving. My problem was that I couldn't get passed the fact that no woman would be attracted to a guy who started telling her he was in love with her after a few hours.

The Perfect Hostel

2005-06-19T08:26:00.000-04:00

Being that I've spent the last month and a half living in them, I've come to have a perspective on what makes a good hostel and what makes a bad one. Here are all the services, amenities, and considerations that a good hostel needs to have.

Location. This is subject to debate. Ideally, the perfect hostel is only a short walk from the train station to prevent the backpacker from having to carry his pack a long distance. However, the perfect hostel is also close to all the major sights and city activity. Lastly, the hostel is simultaneously situated in the heart of all night life activity in the city.

This can be difficult to achieve since the city layout may not allow for an ideal location. In this case, locality with the train station is favored followed by locality with the night life (the shorter the drunken walk back the better). Complementary or discounted transportation is then offered to other points of interest is offered by the perfect hostel.

Facilities. The perfect hostel offers a cozy and friendly atmosphere. A lounge area is offered on the first floor just off the path from the stairs to the door. In addition to the number of couches, it also has a widescreen TV, DVD player, and a huge collection of DVDs (in English) that bored travelers can watch for free. Adjoining this room is the internet room with several stations offering FREE internet access with open network cables for the few backpackers who carry a laptop... not to mention the free wireless access offered throughout the building. Walk through a door and find the self-service kitchen with an array of tables and chairs, where backpackers can make their own lunch and dinner if desired (free breakfast is provided). The refrigerator and cupboard here have a simple and easy labeling system to ensure that food is known to be private or common and recent or old. The bar joins these areas but has it's own tables and chairs. It opens at night to offer backpackers cheap drinks (apart from its happy hour(s)). And by cheap, I mean that it hardly benefits a backpacker to visit the local grocery store to by beer. The perfect hostel also provides a self service laundry room. Here backpackers can buy a small quantity of detergent to use with the free washers and dryers (I find it hard to believe the fixed and variable costs of these really require as big a fee as they do in most hostels). Lastly, a secure left luggage room is provided for all day use by backpackers checking in that day or checking out.

The Reception Desk. The perfect hostel has 24 hour reception that accepts all major credit and debit cards (Those that aren't open all day should at least provide a luggage room while not open). A young, enthusiastic staff is must. They are the face of the hostel. Upon arrival, they are responsible for informing the backpacker of the times and location of all the services available from the hostel. They are knowledgeable about everything a backpacker would want to know about the city. Moreover, they can make excellent recommendations for places to go, things to see, and inexpensive shortcuts to visit the city as well as provide free booking capabilities for such activities.

Rooms. The perfect hostel offers rooms ranging from single bed rooms with showers to dorm rooms with communal showers. In suite showers would be in the perfect hostel but aren't completely necessary. Regardless, the shower stall is equipped with adequate fixtures to secure the shower head above the person taking a shower and provides abundant shelving. The stalls of communal showers are segregated into a shower and a changing area, which contains clothing and valuables while the person is taking a shower and is locked from the inside. It is also designed such that no water splashes or spills out of the shower into the changing area.

The rooms, themselves, are spacious enough. The beds are comfortable and bunked, but one power outlet is provided for each bed. In addition, a big locker is provided for each backpacker to secure his backpack while staying in the hostel. Each locker also contained a power outlet to allow battery powered devices to be securely recharged during the night or day.

Services. The perfect hostel provides all the basic services like free internet and free breakfast. It also provides time tables for all major methods of travel, with prices. It's capable of booking travel arrangements and hostels, and knows the best way to get to all nearby popular destinations.

Lastly and most importantly, the perfect hostel also provides the small and gentle means to force the otherwise independent and chaotic group of backpackers into a community (only the best of hostels have done this). Day trips, free drinks, games or competitions, independent transportation, or interesting daily activities can all do it.

Any other suggestions?

Linz

2005-06-18T21:52:00.000-04:00

I came here because I had an extra day to use before I had reserved my room in Vienna. The only reason I considered coming here was the fact that Linz is on the train route from Salzburg to Vienna.

As it turns out, though, this place has an amazing VR/pervasive computing museum. There's a VR flight simulator where I was suspended in the air and controlled my flight with hand motions. It wasn't all that user friendly, but it was kind of cool to be flying over Linz. They also have exhibits of modern research into RFIDs, human-computer interaction, and digital imagery. One floor had several that involved small plastic "memory devices." For instance, these small green cubes could be inserted in to a video recorder, which would then record five seconds of video "into the cube." When I then took the cube back to this table, the video would be shown in the 3D virtual world at the location of where the cube was placed on the table. In reality, the video would be saved on a server and associated with the pattern on the top of the cube. The cool thing is the software that can, in real time, analyze the video from the camera above the table to find the location of the cube at which to put the video in the display on the wall.

Another exhibit showed several actors who were asked to smile for a camera for like an hour or some god-awfully long time. Software would analyze their facial expressions and beep at them any time they put no feeling behind the smile. (Check out the pics of me flying... ;-))

The bad thing about Linz, though, is the hostels here. There are two: one good one way out in the suburbs, and a smaller one closer to the city center. They both are only open after 5pm... which I didn't know. And I carried my pack all the way out to the good one in the morning to find that out (I hid it there for the day, though). I came back later to find that it was booked for the day, which left me with the other hostel. My first clue was the fact that it was only open for two hours at night. The sketchy (but nice), old man took up me to this room, and, when he opened the door, I was immediately hit with the rancid smell of BO, which I think came from the fat guy who was apparently living in the room. I did my best to keep my mind off of what could possibly living on the shower floor and facet handles while I took a shower before going for a walk to use up the rest of my night... I was hard pressed to find anything to do, though. Needless to say, I left for Vienna as soon as I could this morning.

Salzburg

2005-06-18T08:05:00.000-04:00

Salzburg has a subdued charm to it. Most of everything there is to see here can be seen in a day, but there are some amazing day trips from here, including The Sound Of Music tour that visits all the scenery in the background of the movie. Coincidently, my hostel has daily screenings of the movie, which I attended having never seen the movie before. I'm not really a big fan of musicals, though.

One place that really caught my interest was this chess board. Some old, retired locals, along with some others, seemed to spend all day here playing each other. One seemed to be the kingpin, who spent way too much time there.... I think I could have taken him. Instead I spent a couple of hours just watching the games and listening to the Mozart and Vivaldi coming from the street performers playing in front of the cathedral to the right of this picture. It was fun. My company will definitely have something like this on site (if there ever is a site).

I met quite a few people at the hostel here. We all seemed to be on the same path doing Salzburg to Vienna to Budapest or the reverse. I'll probably run into them again, which would be cool. Despite all the places I've gone so far, I haven't run into anyone I've met again without prior knowledge that they'd be there.

Munich

2005-06-16T09:05:00.000-04:00

Munich has a diverse and eclectic mix of sights and activities that I haven't found in any other city. There are numerous religious and historic sights to visit both within and surrounding the town, there are countless places to relax or sunbath, and Munich drinks better than any other place on Earth.

I started my first day there as I do with most cities by walking around, getting a good idea of the city's layout, and seeing the sights. All of these churches have really started to run together, though. One interesting sight I did find were these lion statues. As I was there looking at them, everyone who passed by them would rub his hand over the golden part towards the bottom and say something in German. I have no idea why they do that or what they say, but it's an interesting tradition. I'm glad I witnessed it.

I found my first anti-american sentiment while I was here. Ironically, the 'S' on USA on this sign is a swastika. Imagine that... The Germans of all people criticizing the US with a swastika... haha. I can see the point, though. The Patriot Act is like step one for creating a Gestapo, and Hitler spread Fascism in much the same way we're spreading our ideas across the globe. Although, I think the US is slightly more benign... for now.

I found this on a posted map guide for the English Garden here, the largest (or second largest) urban park in Europe, a portion of which is clothing optional. Why are these areas always mainly old people? I don't know. In any case, the truly unique establishment to Munich is the beer garden, open bar/restaurants among trees, plants, and picnic tables. Several are located in the English Garden, where I was headed when I found this. I definitely felt German sitting, gaint beer glass in hand, amongst the jovial Munch crowd.

I joined another pub crawl the second night I was here. This one was slightly larger, about 40 people or so. Along with the many stops we made to bars and beer gardens, our guide would stop between places to pour shots for everyone. The pics are priceless. Some Austrailians got angry, though, that there weren't getting enough alcohol for the money they paid... angry enough to almost start a fight, which caugh the attention of some Munich police. Luckily no one got arrested, but most of the group left after that. Six of us remained, which turned out alright. The Irish Bars here are great. Those and the beer gardens have got to go on your 'must visit' list if you ever come here.

Innsbruck

2005-06-14T12:44:00.000-04:00

I got a camera again!!! Thank you, Innsbruck. Walking around I found several little shops that had piles of electronics in the window, used DVDs and games lining the walls, and different stereos stacked all over the place, and I knew this would be the place to find a good deal on a camera. I'm the new owner of a Kodak EasyShare 4.1megapixel camera. It's decent, but I can't change the size of the pictures it takes until I download them to the laptop. Other than that, it's nice to have a camera with a zoom on it. And I talked the guy down to a decent price for the camera. He just didn't include the wall charger with it, so I'll have to figure something out.

Rachel, I know you'll get a kick out of this. I found a store with this statue on the top of it. I'm assuming they meant for that to be Michael Jordan, but I wonder if they know that they screwed up the number on his jersey. The cool thing about this, though, is that it's nice to be in a place that is far enough removed from American culture to make such a mistake. I laughed a little at their mixup, but at the same time I say, "good for them."

Anyway, Innsbruck is kind of boring but has amazing scenery. I don't know how this small little city hosted the olympics... twice. Maybe outlying areas are more developed, but the city center seems small and quiet. Every direction in which I look there is a view of the moutains in the distance. It's beautiful. While I was walking around, I came to this pedestrain square, which didn't seem all that special, but there were a bunch of Asian tourists taking pictures of it. I didn't know what was pictureworthy at first, but it turned out to be this:

It's called the Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof), which I expected to be more impressive than just a tiled facade.

I had wanted to spend two nights here because (a) I've been burning through the Swiss towns, (b) it'd be nice to just take an easy day, and (c) it's cheaper than the towns I've just come from (the reason why I burned through them). I wanted to take today to go hiking in some of the nearby mountains (a guided hike is free), but I screwed up making reservations for my stay in Munich, making them a day too early. I consequently made my reservation for Salzburg based on that too. I generally don't make reservations, but both Munich and Salzburg have a "famous" hostel that I want to check out (they are fun places to stay). And I never know if the day I'm saving now is going to come to good use later (it probably will).

Zurich

2005-06-13T10:48:00.000-04:00

It's the little things, really, that can make my day so annoying. I got to Zurich around noon and walked down to only hostel close to anything to find that the reception desk didn't open until 3pm. This happen to me in Bern too, but the hostel there was smart enough to give any arriving backpacker a place to temporarily store his or her bag. No such luck here. Attempting NOT to waste my time, I walked back to the train station to store my pack in a locker for a few hours while I went sightseeing. The Zurich train station has the narrowest lockers ever, though, which are still actually big enough to hold my pack, but the hinge for the door is buried into the opening (for security) and prevented me from being able to stuff the bag in there. All of the larger lockers were taken because the only people who will pay that much to store something at the train station have something really big to store. Honestly... what were they thinking putting in a million tiny lockers. If you have something that small, it's not that big of a deal to just carry it with you. Anyway, I didn't want to drag my huge pack around the city. Instead, I camped out at a Starbucks between the train station and the hostel for a two hours until the hostel opened.

Once I finally got into the hostel, I ended up having to split a more expensive room with two brothers from Canada, Dan and Dave, who were also waiting for the hostel to open. That actually turned out for the better, though.

It seems like everyone and their grandmother heads for the shore of Lake Zurich on Sundays. I spent most of the day walking along both shores of it. I must say that the street performers I found here are far better than any other city I've visited so far. A family of gymnasts/acrobats were putting on a show of tumbling and human pyramid type stances, the strength needed for which was fairly impressive. I have to wonder how much of their lives are devoted to training for sidewalk shows and the loose change of passers by. I would have to think they have a day gig. There was also a magician/clown putting on a show for children, but he wasn't too good at staying on the one wheeled bike while juggling the fire battons. It was kind of funny to watch him fall, though... Mostly, though, people lay in the grass, sun bath, play pickup soccer games, or go for a stroll along the shores. A lot of tourists buy the overpriced ice cream from stands along the way, which, combined with the scenic mountains in the distance, strangely contributes to the calm peacefulness of atmosphere. It was a good day.

Zurich also has its assortment of churches and sights, but none really impressive enough to mention. Although, they do boast the largest clock face in Europe on their tower. Anyway, I walked back to my hostel in the evening, collected my two roommates and a girl we met in the lounge, and headed out for the Zurich nightlife. Turns out Sunday nights are fairly sedated here, but we made the best of it. One bar actually had decent margharitas (a little watered down, though).

The oddest thing I found here, though, was the five or six girls handing out for samples of OB applicators to the women in the train station this morning. I SO would have taken a picture if I could have. Oh well.

Bern

2005-06-12T08:47:00.000-04:00

Much like Geneva, Bern is a fairly small town (unexpected for the capitial of the country). I'm finding that it seems like most of Switzerland is covered with WiFi hotspots (it's not too hard to find a free one, thankfully). My laptop is definitely saving me a little money (at least offsetting its cost a little anyway)...

Bern has a few sights including The Ogre Fountain, which portrays a gaint fat man eating a few children... Yeah, I don't know why they'd make a statue of that... except it vaguely reminds me of a nursery rhyme, which could have been written here (if it exists) ??? The clock tower is kind of interesting too. But if you're ever in Bern, visit the bear pits. They're a couple of holes in the ground where captive bears live and seem to be constantly fed fruit from viewing tourists. The funny thing is that the bears seem to have become incredibly lazy. The tourists generally through the fruit right at them, and the bears have been pretty good at catching it in their mouths. This happens so often that they don't even get up for the fruit that isn't thrown within the catchable space but still lands within a few feet of them. These pieces become the scraps that the birds then fight over. Some fruit even lands on the bears' asses and they don't seem to care... I feel bad for them. They seem so.... human.

My guidebook said that Bern was supposed to have some good nightlife, which I was determined to check out since I missed Geneva the night before. Unfortunately, the better hostel was full when I tried to check in, forcing me to stay at the worse of the two hostel in town. It also seemed to have gotten over run with high school kids and older women running in a marathon that took place this morning. Consequently, there weren't many people who wanted to go out. I met one guy from Hong Kong who decided he'd rather sleep and a girl named Heather, who was "taking a night off" (I didn't want to take sand to the beach anyway... haha). So I ventured out on my own.

As soon as I got closer to the center of town, I started hearing music, but it didn't sound like it was muffled by a building or anything. Turns out there is a bar called Pery Bar that plays music out into Kornhaus square (or something like that), which had attracted a fairly huge crowd. And right below this there was a huge bar, Kornhauskeller, with really high ceilings and painted frescos on all the walls (similar the Raphael rooms of the Vatican but with a more yellow color). It was quite impressive, and I guess you can make a place like that when you don't have a subway.

The outdoor music cut off at midnight and moved inside Pery Bar. Most people seemed to move to the underground tables in Kornhauskeller. We went to check out another club called Liquid to see how the Swiss did things. There really wasn't anything special about the place except that, rather than play prerecorded music, they had a girl singing to the tracks being played... And this is when I realized from where these one-hit-wonder, no name, gets-stuck-in-your-head, European dance music songs comes.

Geneva

2005-06-11T08:40:00.000-04:00

There really isn't much here. I got here early in the afternoon yesterday, checked into the hostel, and went sight seeing. I went to the UN European headquarters for a tour, but a huge labor conference inhibited what we were able to see. It was still interesting. I walked around town and found a few places dedicated to Jean Jacques Rousseau, who I admire. I also found the church where John Calvin preached. So I found some of the roots for both my philosophical and religious beliefs in one city. Impressive. That was pretty much it all the city had, though.

I headed back to the hostel to finally check into my room. I met a girl in the reception room who I'll refer as A and who was "looking for something to do [yesterday night]." That should have been my first clue. I went up to my room and met one of my roommates, let's call him M, who seemed pretty cool. I wasn't sure what he was doing just sitting around in the room, though. I put my pack away, and headed back down to the lounge where I found a free wireless hotspot. So I camped there for awhile and uploaded my Interlaken pics. A little later, both M and A showed up on their own. Having heard that there's supposed to be some decent bars in the area, I was hoping to head out and find some of them later, the idea of which I tossed around with these two, who both seemed interested. So we watched The Green Mile, which the hostel was showing at 8. After which, though, they both were "tired" and headed to bed... but not before agreeing to meet at 9:30 this morning. I probably should have just gone out on my own...

I woke up this morning at like 7, got a shower, and headed out to the grocery store for breakfast. M tagged along. I spent the rest of the morning surfing the internet waiting for A to get up. When she finally came down, we checked out and spent like an hour trying to figure something out to do. They had told me that they already saw everything, but I learned didn't visit the UN or see any of the landmarks in town. I don't know what they did all day yesterday, then. After finally locking our luggage up, we finally started wandering aimlessly towards the city center. We walked by the Jet d'Eau, which is a fountain that shoots water 140m into the air. It wasn't on when I came through yesterday. It's kind of cool to watch the water shoot that high. As we kept walking, I felt more and more like I was babysitting and I was ready to move on to a different city. I had to get away from them. So we finally walked back to the hostel and then to the train station, where I got on the train to Bern.

Don't get me wrong, A and M were nice and cool people but neither made for any interesting conversation. And the clingy indecisiveness tended to pull me down to their level, which I kind of resented. I'm sure they couldn't have enjoyed hanging out with me much either. I probably should have just gone off and done what I had wanted more than just be polite and accomodate their (lack of) desires. Oh well, we'll see what Bern has to offer.

Interlaken

2005-06-10T09:35:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the extreme sports capital of Europe (if not the world). At this small town, situated between two lakes in the center of Switzerland, you can do any adrenaline pumping activity you can imagine. They have hang gliding, paragliding, sky diving, canyoning, white water rafting, bungy jumping, kayaking, mountain/rock climbing, ice climbing, and let's not forget base jumping. Now of all those, I'm sure you're wondering what the heck is canyoning. Basically, it's throwing yourself in a river and floating through a gorge... with a bunch of waterfalls along the way. You stop at each one and jump, slide, or repel into the pool below. I'm told it's a good time, but my poison was the white water rafting. I would have gone sky diving, but it costs twice as much as when I did it back in the states (I know... I'm sure jumping over the alps is twice as good). Anyway, rafting was still a blast. The river was a little low; so the rapids weren't the best they could have been.

Since I didn't have a camera, I purchased the picture CD of our trip, which I'll post up here soon. There were two rafts in our group: one was called team Korea (you'll understand when you see the pics), and the other was us (we didn't come up with a name). I volunteered to be in the front of the raft, meaning I got the bird's eye view of all the rapids as we paddled through them. I also got splashed the most (the water was only 4 degrees Celcius). Our guide was Austrian, and I so wanted to make him say "I'll be back," but I figured he got that all the time. I was a little disappointed, though, because he was so cautious, and would always make us get down in the boat for any of the larger rapids rather than let us paddle through them. It would have been really difficult to collect one of us if we fell out, though, given the speed of the river. It was still an amazing two hours. By the way, my helmet in the pics says 'Snipers', the girl behind me stole 'Yoda'. haha.

My original plan was to get to Interlaken and hang out for the first afternoon, then go rafting all day the second day, and leave the day after. But I got there to find that the rafting trip took three hours and one was leaving that afternoon. So I didn't waste any time and jumped on it. Consequently, I had my whole second day there open, but my budget didn't really allow for another trip... I was definitely considering canyoning, though. Instead, I decided to make the 1500 meter vertical hike to the top of a nearby mountain. Fortunately, I didn't have to wear my entire backpack this time. The journey up was fairly easy (they have a beaten path). And there is a restaurant at (nearly) the top of the mountain, the view from which is utterly breathtaking. From there, I could see both lakes, the flat green valley with the small town nestled between them, and the huge green and black mountains rising all around, snow capped and glacier ridden. It had a quality I can't even describe.

Interlaken is also home to one of the "famous" hostels, Balmer's Herberge, at which I stayed. I've found that these places offer the most services (for a price, of course), and generally have the best nightlife on site. The bar here was a little strange, though. There was an air of uneasiness. The people here only interacted tenuously. There was no carefree (or consequence free) behavior. I expected differently from people who had just jumped out of a plane... lol.

I met one girl, Jenny, from British Columbia, who was travelling with a guy. She didn't interact with the guy as if he was a boyrfriend, but he still hung around her like a puppy dog and definitely played the part of the cock-block to a 'T'. I couldn't tell if she was annoyed with that or enjoyed the safety that came with it, though.

If I ever do this kind of trip again (I'm thinking about it), I'm definitely coming back here to do some other activity.

The Glacier Express - Zermatt

2005-06-07T22:44:00.000-04:00

I really wish I hadn't broken my camera. I took the train up to a small town (or just a train station) called Andermatt, which was one of the stops for The Glacier Express. This runs across the south half of Switzerland; eight hours of some of the best views of the Alps ending in a town called Zermatt at the base of the Matterhorn. I caught it half way through its trip. The company that ran the train seemlessly integrated the only means of transportation for the area and this amazing tourist attraction. I was quite impressed (by both the train company and the journey).

Imagine the sky filled with huge cumulus clouds, the big fluffy clouds that roll through the sky. Now imagine huge dark rock, snow capped mountains that fade to a deep rich green at their base piercing these clouds and you'll have an idea of the Swiss Alps. It's truly amazing; none more amazing that the picturesque Matterhorn (shaped like a more craggy base of the Eiffel Tower). The clouds even seemed to slide down the slopes like the glaciers that permanently covered the upper slopes of the mountains and melted as they slid down to the lower altitudes, creating countless streams and waterfalls along the train ride.

Zermatt is a beautiful town. Completely car free and a hopeless ski and hiking resort, it nonetheless is situated among beautiful scenery, the likes of which I have never seen before in my life. I really wish I could show you guys a picture or two. I'm definitely going to have to get another camera soon....

P.S. Another interesting thing is the cemetary in the town, which is filled with people who have died climbing the huge mountains in the area (it's a pretty big cemetary).

Milan

2005-06-07T08:42:00.000-04:00

Milan wasn't exactly what I expected. Fashion and shopping had their place here, but they didn't dominate the city like I had expected. The main attraction that drew me to the city was Leonardo's The Last Supper. After reading The Da Vinci Code, I had to check out the actual painting rather than just a picture of it.

The city had other plans, though. The museum where the painting resides is closed on Mondays. Even on other days, though, I would need to make an appointment to see it, and it was booked until the end of the June or something. If I had wanted, I could have joined a city tour of Milan, which shows the painting at the end of it (I wonder why it's booked... haha). I didn't want to spend Tuesday here, though. So I checked into my hostel and went on my own walking tour of the city. The main landmark of the city was supposed to be their Duomo (church), which has an amazing marble face. Unfortunately, restoration work covered and hid the face completely. Great...

I walked along the main shopping street just to see what the whole 'Milan' fashion and shopping thing was all about. Interestingly enough, the mall type area was a fairly beautiful building that ironically had religious paintings in the ceiling.

And I'm done with Italy. Onward to Switzerland...

Venice

2005-06-06T08:26:00.000-04:00

WOW. I can't believe this city exists. I must say that my camera breaking is your loss more than it is mine at this point. The minute I stepped out of the train station, with The Grand Canal right in front of me, the narrow passageways hiding places yet unknown, and the busy arched bridges over the "streets," a smile came across my face and hasn't left since.

For two days, I did nothing more than walk the streets here, and nothing could have been more enjoyable. Like Rome, the narrowest gap between two buildings can be one of the major thoroughfares. They open to wide bustling squares with kind people and a lot of culture. The first, Campo delgi Santa Margharita, had a number of bars, cheap pizza places, the best gelati I've had in Italy, and a hostel right in the square (it was booked full, though). I walked from there to the Piazza delgi San Marco (I might be screwing up these names), which, despite the enormous amount of tourists and stores surrounding the square, didn't lose its charm. The stores were recessed and unseen from a distance under the magnificent building into which they were built, and the basilica to San Marco rose from the eastern side.

The streets were filled with street performers doing everything from water glass symphonies (Beethoven's ninth) to statue imitations. Kids played pick up soccer games in the streets while accordion players, young and old, filled the air with the classic music you'd expect for Venice. I even found a man telling a story to a group of school children using props and wild movements.

Not even my laptop falling could dampen my spirits in this town. I definitely have to come back here someday.

You've Got to be kidding me...

2005-06-05T15:43:00.000-04:00

My laptop took a dive today... I can't god damn believe my stupid luck. My backpack wasn't fully zipped when I went out, and I noticed the difference. When I went to take it off, the weight of my guidebook and laptop pulled the zippers down and provided a decent chute to hurtle my laptop towards the street. Thankfully, it still works... except for possibly the network port which is positioned on the corner that took most of the impact (and has left me with a nice reminder of the incident). But, since I no longer have any pictures to upload to my webserver (aside from the ones I haven't gotten up yet), I don't necessarily need the network port for the remainder of the trip..... after that, though.... mf.

What the hell is up with this... God is like systematically destroying my belongings. It's all leading up to the plane crash or something...

Does anyone know how good Sony's warrenty program is?

Florence

2005-06-04T12:29:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure what to make of Florence. I didn't get in until the evening, and the first of the two hostels to which I went (the good one) was booked full. After getting lost trying to get there, the second, thankfully, had a free bed. I woke up dumbass early to make it over to the Galleria del Academia, which is really just Michelanglo's David. Getting there early was actually a godsend. I stared at it for almost and hour... just in awe, with only a small crowd around. The detail taken to sculpt it is just amazing; even the blood vessels running down his arms and backs of his hands are just fascinating in that they can so easily deceive the eye into forgetting that this was once a piece of stone and not a man. Just wow.

I went to the top of the Duomo after my camera broke. The view was much like every other high place to which I've ventured (I'm just making you feel better for not being able to see the pictures I would have taken). There wasn't really anything else in Florence I was dying to see except for the Palazzo degli Uffizi, which supposedly had a two to four hour wait. So I spent the rest of the day walking the streets of Florence. The city is quite beautiful, but overrun with tourists. I would have loved to have been able to take more pictures for everyone to see... but life (and my trip) goes on.

I woke the second day to get over to the Palazzo delgi Uffizi early and hopefully beat the crowd. I got there an hour before it opened to find there was already a decent sized line. I still ended up waiting a total of two hours to get into the place. It seems like the mean to keep the building relatively empty and force people to wait in line. The waiting sucked, but being able to freely walk about the building without the crowds of tour groups and old people was kind of nice. Although, I'm not sure the wait was really worth it. There was only one painting I recognized (I don't remember the name).

Once I got out of there, I picked up my pack, and it's onward to Venice...

Man Down...

2005-06-03T15:00:00.000-04:00

My beloved, crappy digital camera died today due to injuries sustained in a 3 foot fall. In a momentary lapse of focus, the camera slipped out of my grasp and plummeted to the stone street next to the church of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in Florence, Italy. It is speculated to be the karmic result of the two pictures of Michelangelo's David I was caught taking earlier this morning that are now trapped on the SD memory card contained within the camera.

Ironically, there were a number of street hustlers in Naples willing to sell me a Sony Cybershot for like 20 euro, which I turned down... repeatedly... no such luck as of yet finding anyone like that here (if I see another fake LV bag... I'm going to scream, though).

I'm not sure what this means for my blog here (I'm not sure that anyone is still reading this anyway). I have no way of taking pictures anymore, but I still have about a month left in my trip... I guess the good thing is that it wasn't my laptop...

Patra

2005-06-02T18:46:00.000-04:00

I wound up in Patra, Greece for the afternoon waiting to catch the ferry for Anconda. There really wasn't anything worth doing there. I spent most of my time trying to find a grocery store to buy some fruit and snacks for the ferry ride, which proved exceedingly difficult. They conveniently have the shopping district within a 4 or 5 block section next to the ferry port, through which I meandered for a few hours. I eventually found a fruit stand and made due. Beyond that, I really couldn't wait to get going.

I was dissappointed to find no other backpackers on my twenty hour ferry ride. In retrospect, it probably would have been better to take the ferry back to Bari instead of Anconda, which had a stop near The Pink Palace. Consequently, nothing all that interesting happened on the ride. The boat actually had a swimming pool, and a "disco bar." But, with so few people on the ship, the bar did nothing more than prevent me from sleeping for a few hours (I didn't get a cabin).

I got into Anconda at 3pm, and spent a half hour or so following some rather confusing street signs to get to the train station before asking for directions. I got on a train to Bologna, which had a connection to my preferred destination: Florence.

Athens

2005-05-31T23:22:00.000-04:00

Despite the fact that I didn't really sleep on the Athens bus, I wasn't too tired the morning it arrived in Athens. I checked into the hostel at which we were dropped off, took a quick shower, and walked all the way down to the Acropolis. There actually a few sites to see in Athens: The Acropolis, The Agora, the Roman Forum, The Theater of Dyonius, the Temple of Olympian Zues, and one or two I can't remember. I did them all by midafternoon, but only because they aren't really all that impressive. Despite the swarm of tourists at The Acropolis, it had a magnificent view of the city. Yet the Parthenon was under reconstruction (Yes, they're rebuilding it but with whatever pieces of the original they can salvage). The theater, the temple to zues, and the agora, though, were really just collections of marble building fragments that had be set up along some paths. I didn't really get a sense for the culture that once inhabited the sites like I did in Rome or Pompeii. I would have liked to see ruins where they lie. That would have sparked my imagination as to what the building was like, why it fell, and how did it relate to its surroundings.

I eventually headed back to the hostel to find that most of the people who had gotten off the bus with me were still there and hadn't really gone out at all. It was generally accepted that there wasn't anything to do in Athens, and I couldn't find anyone who wanted to get into some trouble. So I starting scheming to steal Internet access from the hostel with my laptop. Two girls in my dorm room got the idea to go see a movie. So we made the trek out to a theater that showed original language movies. I wanted to see the ten minutes of Star Wars that I had missed in Rome, and I could had pulled them in with me, but one of them preferred to see Monster In Law. It had a couple moments of hilarity.

And that was Athens. My original goal was to make it out to an island in the Aegean, like Mykonos or Ios, but given ferry times (night boats only), the possibility of finding a cheap place to stay (apparently little to none), and costs, I've decided to head back to Italy instead. I'll leave island hopping to a few years from now.

Athens Bus

2005-05-31T08:05:00.000-04:00

The Pink Palace runs their own bus to and from Athens since that the usual next stop when travelling through Greece. It turns out that the Eurail pass isn't valid for half of the ferry ride from Italy to Greece... and the ferry arrives in Patra without enough time to catch the last train to Athens, forcing tourists to spend a night in Patra also. The combined cost of that and the ferry is more than the Athens bus (but not by much).

Actually, the bus turned out to be an interesting (albeit uncomfortable) ride. A girl (who has a boyfriend) I had met at the toga party was also taking it along with three guys from Florida who we had met on the ferry ride to The Pink Palace. I conveniently had the seat right next to hers ;-). But almost immediately one of the guys from Florida sat down next to her (the bus was empty enough for everyone to have their own two seats). So I had front row seats to listening to this guy try to successfully hit on her. Unfortunately, he didn't say anything worth repeating on here. He was that ordinary. I had a sly smile on my face the whole time he was talking, which she noticed and exchanged knowing glances from time to time with me. I almost burst out laughing when the guys in the seats behind her and behind me tried to jump into the conversation too. It was pretty funny to watch. During one of our ferry changes, I had the chance to tell her that I was impressed she was so willing to be nice rather than give the bitchy attitude that would generally save a girl in her position a lot of time and energy (I worded it differently than that, don't worry). The guy came back after that (mistake number 30ish), knowing that this was the time everyone was going to sleep, and started spouting off all these excuses about why he couldn't sleep elsewhere. I felt bad for her (I probably could have stepped up and helped her out at that point). But I had my own uncomfortable double seat. So I did my best to try and sleep. I don't think I did much better than her.

We made it to Athens in the morning, and I think she caught a flight home the next day. Too bad I didn't get any contact info from her, she seemed worthy of keeping in touch with. Oh well...

The Pink Palace

2005-05-30T17:30:00.000-04:00

I've found that the five big hostels of Europe has become a group of ten to fifteen hostels. I'm currently at one of them: The Pink Palace in Corfu, Greece. Of course it advertises for all of them, which has led me to discover the list of them. They are (in no particular order):

The Three Ducks, Paris
Avalon House, Dublin
Circus, Berlin
The Flying Pig, Amsterdam
St. Christopher's Inn, Edinburgh
The Pink Palace, Corfu
Kabul, Barcelona
Balmer's Herberge, Interlaken (Switzerland)
Alessandro, Rome
Euro Youth Hotel, Munich
Yoho International Youth Hostel, Salzburg
Wombat's City Hostel, Vienna
Sultan Hostel, Istanbul
Bauhaus International Youth Hostel, Bruges (Belgium)
St. Christopher's Inn, London

This list is an apparent and shameless attempt at attractive elitism, advertised as the biggest and the best and attracting a bigger frat guy crowd than other destinations I've visited. I found a flyer for The Pink Palace at the hostel in Naples, which made the place seem uncommonly outstanding at an equivalent price, so much so that it also convince the others I was traveling with to join me here too. I made a reservation for The Pink Palace on their website for a dorm room needing nothing more and expecting it to be the cheapest. I got here, though, to find that they had no dorm rooms and their second class rooms were "under renovation," forcing everyone to buy a first class room (the place isn't that full yet, and I'm thinking they just wanted to keep everyone close together). Every activity, service, or rental here also costs some exorbatent fee (this place is more American than Greek, I think).

While far from any other real destination but conveniently located on the journey between Italy and Greece, the beach has a great view, a warm sun, and cool water. The first class rooms are among the best in which I'ved stayed. And they serve us both breakfast and dinner, the latter of which is late enough to lead right into the nightly drunken debachery and dancing (did I mention the jacuzzi?). Saturday night offers what seems to be only exposure to Greek culture with Greek dancing, plate breaking, fire, and the weekly toga party (yeah, the last is a stretch.. I know). None of that really matters without good people here, though. And, once you get past the typical Spring Break personalities, there are some people here worth hanging out with me. Their names were Missy, Leslie, Diana, Anna, Amanda, etc... ;-)

I expected to only stay here three nights, but transportation to Athens is lacking and they managed to keep me here a day longer than I would have liked. Their night bus to Athens leaves every other night. So I've had to wait around here for another day (the first and only I will waste on this trip). The consequence of the true concerns of The Pink Palace... making money (not helping travelers enjoy their trip).

Getting To Greece

2005-05-27T09:17:00.000-04:00

I found out that my Eurail pass could get me to Greece for free, and since I have the time, I'm going to check it out. It's quite the journey to get there, though. I had to get myself to one of the two eastern Italian sea ports, Bari or Brindisi. From there, I could take a ferry across the Adriatic Sea to Corfu, Greece. I left Amalfi early Thursday morning around seven assuming that I would be able to make it across Italy by 8pm. The Italy train system had other plans, thoughs. I made to Caserta, Italy about an hour outside of Naples by noon to find that the only train to Bari from there comes through at 3:20pm.

Three hours later, I stood waiting on track 3 with a number of other backpackers for this train. We waited... and waited... for another hour until it finally arrived on track 1 and began the three hour trip to Bari. So imagine the train arriving at 7:25pm in Bari and twenty backpackers (full pack entail) rushing off through the station, pacing down the street (with strange looks from everyone) towards the shore with no idea where the ferry is or where to buy a ticket for it. We made to the shore at 7:45pm but couldn't see the ferry company anywhere. We ran up the shore asking people if they knew where to go. At just about 8, a cop finally pointed us back to the ferry company store... that was closed.

Now this kind of thing happens to every backpacker at least once (if not often (in Italy)) through the course of his or her trip, and it can turn out to be some the most fun he or she can have. It also makes for some of the best stories.

Of the whole group of backpackers, six of us decided to jump back on the train for Brindisi because a ferry left there the next morning instead of waiting in Bari for the 8pm ferry the next night. Rather than go to the hostel in Brindisi, we decided that staying in the train station would be a better idea.

Brindisi Train Station. Stepping out of the station, we were immediately confronted with a group of gentleman using the little English they knew to convert us to christainity for a good ten minutes. We then went back into the train station to set up camp for the evening. The waiting room was devoid of life except for one unassuming guy sitting across the room from us. As we sat down and settled in, this gentleman decided we must know Italian and began talking to us... and talking... and talking. We quickly became concerned for our safety and belongings; so we rearranged the train station benches in a circle around our backpacks, which we wire locked into one big pile in the middle, and we slept around the perimeter... The guy didn't get the hint. Instead, he decided he should join the circle. This is when we noticed he had one bruised and bloodshot eye. We continually told him to leave the circle, but he pretended on to understand us. We used the language guide in our guidebooks to try and tell him to go, but he still wouldn't leave. He finally left when we started picking up the pile to create a new circle. We decided it would still be best to move the circle into the corner of the room nonetheless. This guy would still not shut up, though. Even as he laid down on the bench, he'd keep talking with his head in his arms. We had no idea how we were going to sleep with this guy around. Most of the group pretty much decided they weren't going to sleep much anyway.

Eventually, the guy finished his beer and left, which was the strangest thing. Why would he just hang out at the train station of all places if he had somewhere else he could be? In any case, we finally got a few hours to rest.

The Ferry Ride. The next morning we hopped on the ferry. Expecting something like airplane seating, we were surprized to find a bar, a restaurant, video games, gambling machines, DVDs (for rent), several lounges, and lots of open space. We brought our own food on board, hung out for a couple hours, played cards, and slept. The time flew by, and it was probably a better time than that which we would have had if we had made the ferry the night before. We finally got to Corfu, Greece at about 7pm... crazy adventures... :-)

Amalfi

2005-05-26T08:23:00.000-04:00

I've been told that the Amalfi Coast rivals that of Chinque Terre in beauty. Determined to see if the rumors were true, I decided to spend a day in the area south of Naples. I met a girl, Sarah, at breakfast in the hostel this morning who was also headed out there; so I let her tag along with me ;-). The only way out there was by a long winding (car sickness inducing) bus ride, but it was definitely worth it. Even from the bus, the rumors were true. The coast line is beautiful and definitely resembles Chinque Terre a lot.

We arrived in Amalfi and found a youth hostel in the town on the other side of a tunnel. It was really hot today, which dissuaded us from seeking out any hiking trails. Sarah was content to lie in the sun all day, but lacking a towel or blanket prompted us to lay on the concrete breakwater blocks. They got really uncomfortable, and I got really bored. I went exploring in the town for a few hours, but I didn't find anything of interest. It was nice just hanging out with nothing to do for once... but also kind of boring... especially being attached to someone who didn't want to do anything (not that there was anything to do really). We made supper at the hostel and checked out a bar called Willy's where they were watching some important soccer game...

I've had better days, but the beach did provide a great view, which probably still paled in comparison to what might have been seen from the hiking trails.

Capri

2005-05-25T22:15:00.000-04:00

The one thing you must do if you ever come to Naples is try the pizza (this is its birthplace after all). Both Da Michele or Trianon across the street have the best pizza you will ever eat... bar none. We need these guys back in the states.

I took another daytrip today... this time to the an island off the coast called Capri, famous for The Blue Grotto. It actually rivals Pisa in all-time rip offs, though. The entire island is overpriced because of all the tourism, but the Grotto requires one ferry to get me out there and a second tiny rowboat to get me inside the cave. The latter actually had the audacity to ask for a tip after the ten dollars(8.50 euro) he already forced out of my hand... yeah right pal. Once inside the Grotto, though, I forgot about all that because the blue glow coming up from the water is awe inspiring. Unfortunately, there were far too many rowboats in the cave to really get a good picture or unobstructed view of it. Still, there was just something about the place.

The rest of my time there was spent lying on the stone beach next to the port and docks. I met a few girls from the US who also took a day trip to the island but were unable to go out to the Grotto because the water got too rough. I don't remember their names, but we hung out on the beach for a little while and then went our separate ways. Finding that the rest of Capri is a huge tourist trap, I hopped on the ferry back to Naples. Our hostel has a selection of DVDs; so I spent the night watching some movies (with the break to go have some amazing pizza) with some other people in the place.

Pompeii

2005-05-24T23:12:00.000-04:00

I didn't really plan on spending much time in Naples despite the fact that I was staying there. The city only further confirmed this for me when I arrived. The hostel had not one but two locked doors through which the receptionist had to buzz me everytime I came back from somewhere. I was twice stopped and offered what I have to assume was a stolen digital camera (I was really tempted... they were better than my camera). Needless to say, I arrived, checked into the hostel, and immediately went on a day trip elsewhere...

I had no idea just how big the ancient city of Pompeii and its 2000 inhabitants was. While spending a few hours amidst the ruins, I definitely got felt a sort of calm and simplicity that I hope was part of life in the city. Still the grooves worn into the street stones revealed the busy chariots that beat the path down.

The SITA bus company in the area did not impress me. Not only do they offer little to no information about their buses and trains, but they dropped me off in Pompeii by the side of the road with nothing but a pole and a sign marking the stop. Once I was done with Pompeii, I had no idea where the stop was to bring me back to Naples, and I certainly didn't know what time the bus would be there. Consequently, I found myself sitting under the pole on the opposite side of the street on which I was dropped off.... for over an hour with no bus. I also told that the ticket would get me on the train as well, and I figured that someone back near Pompeii would know a enough English to point me in the direction of what I hoped was a more substantial station. But of course, Pompeii closed at 6:30pm, which prompted all the little stand owners to pack up their stuff and leave for the evening....hmmph. I walked down the street looking for anything that might help until I reached another entrance to Pompeii and found a police station there. Now there are stories about the police in Italy, but I figured I was just asking for information... low risk. Fortunately, it pointed me in the direction of the station, and it wasn't too far away. So everything worked out... you can breathe now, mom...

When in Rome...

2005-05-23T09:08:00.000-04:00

Rome has a few annoying points. People seems too arrogant to politely make room for me to walk down the street. I hate to be an asshole, but I figure I can't cave to that bullshit; so I just stop and stand right in front of them until they give the little huff and fall behind the person to their right or left. Occasionally, I get a dirty look, but everyone always looks away when I stare them down. But, far and away, the most annoying experience has been my trip to the Vatican Museum (The Sistine Chapel). I tried to go early Saturday morning, hoping that it wouldn't be too crowded. Not knowing that the entrance was around the corner from St. Peter's Square, I wound up in St. Peter's Bascilica first, which was an really impressive church (I didn't witness the optical illusion that the interior dome makes, but I have a picture of it). So I didn't get to the entrance until about 8:30am, and by then there was already a huge... HUGE line. I waited for over an hour before buying my ticket. Then, the rest of the sheep and I were herded through a series of painted rooms, beautiful hallways, and exquisite exhibits before SLOWLY filing into The Sistine Chapel, which under most circumstances would have blown my mind. But after putting up with two hours of numerous tour groups, pokes, pushes, prods, and being literally squeezed through doorways, Most of my being just wanted to get out of the place..... but wait... I had forgotten (or didn't notice) Raphael's The School Of Athens, which I didn't know was painted on one of the walls in one of the rooms throgh witch I had probably walked. Thus, I went through the same crap again to see it. I was half surprised that they didn't slaughter us for meat at the end. To top off the experience, they don't allow pictures to be taken of the chapel (I snuck a few bad ones, of course)... just a bad experience, but a beautiful place.

Sunday morning was spent at the Colloseum and Palotine Hill, both of which had free admission because it was "Culture Week." To be honest, the Colloseum isn't too much to see, but something is still quite amazing about it (perhaps just merely its age). I spent an hour or two just walking among the ruins of what could once house 80,000 people.

I wasn't able to get out to the bars and meet anyone while I was in Rome, but instead, I spent the time getting to know my great uncle, which was just as good if not better...

All Roads Lead To...

2005-05-20T22:32:00.000-04:00

My first full day in Rome was different than that to which I've become accustomed. I actually have family here. My great (or is it 'grand') uncle Dick is a profesor here at a local college. I got ahold of him and set a time to meet this morning. I walked around a little, found the Colloseum and the Roman Forum, and then went to meet him. I hadn't really spent any time with him before this, so I was a little anxious. But it turned out pretty well... he was obviously used to being around people my age. He was also kind enough to get me a room in the residence where he was staying while I was in Rome (I don't know how much that cost him, though, but thank you Uncle Dick).

Once settled in a bit, my first order of business was to finally... finally see Star Wars. It turned out that one of my great uncle's friends wanted to see it as well. We ended up seeing it at the same theater where it was premiered last night. I must that I enjoyed the experience, but I have to hold off any judgement because I liked the first two when I saw them for the first time too (I still think the second one is pretty good... the first, we're all agreed, is crap... haha.. sort of). I will say that knowing Vader's story definitely adds more depth to his character, but it seems like his journey towards the dark side was more of a conscious choice than the expected result of overwhelming rage and fear. Although, perhaps he wasn't fully committed until the very end. Still, he seemed motivated to do evil for good reasons like saving Padme and protecting (what he considered to be) the Republic. I'm not sure if I believed he was evil (again maybe at the end he committed). I guess I'll have to see it again.

I got a small tour of a Baroque Church, Trevi Fountain, and some of Rome's thirteen obelisks from my great uncle's friend on the way back to supper at their residence. I definitely learned and appreciated more than if I had just walked around and found them on my own. After dinner, I got a small walking tour and a good conversation from my great uncle. Rome is a collection of small, busy streets and larger, even busier ones that often open to bustling pedistrian squares that pepper the city. We walked between a few and saw a couple of sights (Definitely get as much gelati as you can while you're here). It was pretty good night.

Mysterious Fate

2005-05-19T23:57:00.000-04:00

Well it was my first night in Rome tonight. I was finally in a place to find an english version of Star Wars. Given a free night here, I went to a theater mentioned in my guidebook to find this: (Soon to be Star Wars Stage image) At first, I thought nothing of it, went towards the front door, but I was stopped at the entrance. Turns out they were having the Italian Premiere there last night with several members of the cast coming. Fate works in mysterious ways.... I didn't try to sneak into the theater, but had I flirted more with the girl at the door, I think I could have gotten in. In any case, I was about two hours early for the show. So I got right in the front of the fence for the red carpet (Don't think I was like the little screaming girls that had already gotten there before me, though). When it finally started, it was pretty cool. Rick McCallum, Hayden Christenson, and Ian McDirmond(sp?) came to it. My pictures didn't turn out too well, but I'll have them up here soon.

Leaning Tower Of We-Have-Nothing-Else-Here-Town

2005-05-19T17:11:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning to find that my watch has gone missing. Everything else, though, like my wallet, money, and credit cards were still there. So theft seems to be out of the picture. I looked all over the room, though, and couldn't find it anywhere. Hopefully, I just foget where I put it in my bag or something. Sorry, little sis, but I definitely enjoyed your gift while I had it.

Pisa is something of a rip off. The only thing to see there is the Tower... and they know this. The admission price... 15 euros. Comparatively, the Louvre costs 8.50 euro, and the Eiffel Tower is 10. No way in hell should the Tower be so expensive.... but on a trip like mine, I can't let money be much of a hindrence.

Since they wanted an arm and a leg for it, though, I decided to throw in my urine free of charge. I mean, paying 15 euros to say that I've been to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is hardly worth it... but being able to say I pissed on the Leaning Tower because the city of Pisa is too opportunistic to earn my respect... that's more bang for my buck. Now don't worry, I found probably the only corner in the whole structure, and I made sure to contribute to the effort to push the tower back the other way. So may my yellow mural stand for all eternity. ;-)

Yeah, you should know what this means by now... Pisa definitely deserves it, though.

Cinque Terre

2005-05-19T08:09:00.000-04:00

Rector, thank you for reccommending this place to me. The five little towns that make up Cinque Terre have a breathtaking hiking trail running through them along the western coast of Italy north of Pisa. Coming down from Nice, I stopped in the northern most town to inquire about the trail. My hope was that I could hike the trail, come back up, pick up my bag, continue down to Pisa, and then to Rome in a day. There were a couple of problems with that: first, I have a lot of unplanned free time (like two or three weeks of it), so I'm not sure why I was thinking I had to be so rushed. Second, I didn't arrive in Cinque Terre until about 3:30pm, and the woman at the information desk though it was too late to start the trail because I wouldn't be able to make a train back up to Monterosso to get my bag (she said the trail takes about 5 hours). So my plans changed and I figured I'd stay the night somewhere, but apparently I still couldn't pick up my bag later. Being the glutton for punishment that I am (and everyone I know at Clarkson can attest to that), I decided to hike the trail with my backpack.... You'd think that'd have been a mistake, but not so much (Barcelona was a little worse). I found that carrying the day pack in the front balances the weight more.

The trail, starting in the north, begins with a grueling climb up a lot of stairs, then down to the next town, and back up over a hill. Towards the end it gets much easier (and paved, even). So I was glad I got the difficult part out of the way first. As for the sights... no words I could say could really do it any justice. I'm just in awe. The deep, rich green mountains rise quicking from the Mediterranean while the waves crash into the rock and coves. It seems endless and timeless. And, as I walked, each little town revealed itself, subtle multicolored buildings and stone stairways draped over a hill. Wow.... I just wish I had had a better camera.

Interestingly, while I was hiking, almost every hiker I passed smiled or said hi. They stood back to let me through or thanked me for letting them by. They stopped to help someone who had fallen. And above all they shared a deep appreciation for the scenery. We shared something in common; we knew the struggle, the task, and did our best to make it easier for each other.

Contrast this with the towns who set up a set of toll boths to ensure that each hiker paid his dues before he could take the journey. It just seems so absurd. We're all here together (on this planet, in this universe), we all know the struggle that each of us is undertaking, and yet we hardly help each other. Travelling around Europe is really fun, but everywhere I go, no one really wants to help me enjoy myself, to help me get the best experience possible. Instead, they seem to position themselves between me and that experience to extract every little cent from my hand that they can.... it is the capitalist way, but it's extemely frustrating when on a budget, especially when I know they've already made enough of a profit from me to offer the services or experience free of an additional charge.

Anyway, I finished the trail in about three and a half hours to find that there were five or six trains I could have still made back up to the original town. Wet (it was raining part of the time), muddy, and sweaty, I found a decent hostel in Rigomagori(sp?), the most southern town, took a shower, found some food, and headed to the beach. Now I know that I once told some of you that I had always wanted to watch the sunset from an Italian beach. Today, I crossed that off my list of things to do. It was a great end to the day. And I wish I had better pictures (I'll get them up as soon as I can).

Surprisingly, though, the little town had some decent nightlife. Overrun by tourists, my roommates for the night and I actually found quite a few english speaking people at what seemed to be the only late night bar in the town. Beer was pretty expensive, but it was still a good time.

Nice

2005-05-17T23:05:00.000-04:00

While backpacking, you learn to appreciate the small things like warm water, good shower fixtures, clean clothes, good conversation, and your native language. I spent this morning lying on the stone beach in Nice before it clouded over and started raining for most of the day. Given that there really wasn't much I wanted to see here, I decided to machine wash my clothing. I've hand washed my clothes twice since I got here, which saved me money, but line drying them is something of a problem because my clothes don't seem to dry overnight, leaving me to repack my backpack with wet clothing (ew... I know). Turns out, though, that doing your laundry over here is unbelievably expensive. What should be like one load of clothes cost me like 12 dollars (US). These tiny ass washers are absurd, and 50 eurocents gets you 8 minutes of drying. Why do these people pay that? What are you thinking Europe? I suddenly wish that I had the $2.25 per load laundry facilities that everyone complained about at Clarkson. Haha.

The rain prompted a lot of the people at my hostel to stay in for the evening, eat dinner there, and shoot the shit. It was actually pretty fun. I few of the girls there were looking for jobs in the area because it's apparently easy to find work in Nice. So if any of you are looking for a job in the French Riveria... Nice is the place to be.

On a side note, there is a small town between Cannes and Nice called Cagnes Sur Mer, which if I remember correctly was one of the stops the kids made in Eurotrip on their way from Paris to Amsterdam?!?!? Apparently then, they decided to take the train all the way to the south of France and then back up to Holland...whatever

Cannes

2005-05-17T00:50:00.000-04:00

Shit. I feel like I'm going to puke. It's May 16th, and I'm in Cannes for the International Film Festival. For some reason that is unclear to me now, I got it in my head that the Star Wars Premiere was tonight... It was last night. I'm twelve hours late. I missed it.

One of the reasons I'm on this trip is that I'm tired of only experiencing the world through images of it. I'm tired of seeing pictures/movies of London, Paris, Rome... of the Mona Lisa and the Mediterranean. And yet because of some cosmic force combined with my own stupidity, all I've been able to see here are the newspaper articles and red carpet photos of what happened last night (Natalie Portman shaved her head, btw). And there are posters for the movie everywhere (they taunt me). What was I thinking. I can't believe I didn't look up the schedule again while I was over here (Maybe there are advantages to constant access to the internet). I've been on the verge of crying all day.

They showed A New Hope on the beach last night too. Even that would have been something to see. I wonder, though, if my blog here would have qualified me for a press pass to the show (I would have had to apply for it awhile ago). It worked for the white house...

The festival was pretty nice, though. The only people who get to see the movies, though, are industry and press people who have ID badges. Nevertheless, I'm confident I could have snuck through all that in what was probably a much bigger crowd to see the premiere last night. In walking around today, I found a path through the parking garage that led behind one checkpoint to some stairs that led up to an upper floor of the Palace Cinema. I didn't tempt my fate for whatever they were showing at the moment, though.

Mostly, the general public just gets to stand next to the red carpet and watch the semicelebrities and a few people I actually know walk the red carpet up to their movie showing. I walked around, found the Carlton Hotel where, apparently, the original Star Wars production deal was inked. It had an appropriate set of posters.

As I mentioned they show movies on the beach for the general public at night, for which I stuck around, but the movie was Korean, subtitled in French. So I could only barely follow along. And we had to leave early to catch the last train back to Nice anyway.

I was having a crappy day in Barcelona too.... I should have just gone to Cannes.... damn.

Barcelona

2005-05-15T18:49:00.000-04:00

I definitely wish I had more time for Barcelona. I arrived by night (sleeping) train early in the morning and have another night train to Nice, France tonight. Consequently, I had a particularly frustrating day because I didn't get a hostel.

I got off the train thinking that the beach would have security lockers and changing rooms. I mean you hear so many stories about theft and robbery in Spain that you'd think they'd take certain precautions for tourists. After all, tourists bring money into the country and leave it there.... Anyway, I took my entire backpack to beach in hopes I could store it there rather than store it at the train station (which I'm still not sure has lockers around here). But no, the beaches have everything else except lockers and changing rooms, which left me to lug around my 20 pound backpack for the whole freaking day.

I made the best of it, though. After exploring the entire beach for a few hours in hopes of finding somewhere to store my bag, I finally gave up, changed in a bathroom, and found a spot to camp out, get a little tan, and relax. But relaxing is hard when you're worried someone is going to sneak off with your daypack or something.

I found that the Spanish don't really seem all that kind to tourists. There was always this tension towards me everywhere I went (or maybe it was my backpack hanging off me all the time). Had I had more time, I think I could have organized myself better and enjoyed my time more. But it's all in effort to get to Cannes tomorrow to see Star Wars (or at least stand in the crowd while other people do). Hell yes....

Madrid

2005-05-14T19:15:00.000-04:00

There are three things you must do if you come to Madrid: Stay up until 4am, try the hot chocolate and a churro, and visit the Museo Del Jamon. That's right... the Museum of Ham. Few people understand and appreciate the varities and complexities that come with a good ham. Here at the Museum of Ham, they are dedicated to educating people on all that Ham has to offer. The self-guided tour takes you through the entire process of producing the rich aromas and gentle tastes that go into making each slab, from slitting the pig's throat to the oven, everything is covered.

Surprisingly, Madrid actually has three really good Museums: El Museo del Prado, El Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, and el Museo Thyssen. For some reason they don't let you take pictures of La Guernica, Picaso's famous protest of Nazi Germany's assult on the tiny town during the Spanish Civil War. I snuck a few pictures anyway... haha.

All these Museums are starting to run together. The Reina Sofia was actually pretty interesting, but the Prado has a similar collection to the Louvre, with really life-like portraits. And if I have to see one more reminder of what Christ went through, I'm going to either scream or break down, fall on my knees, throw my hands in the air, and start speaking in tongues.

Fortunately, Madrid has an excellent night life. My hostel organized a trip to an outdoor cuban music concert last night, which was part of the celebration for some saint. It was kind of cool. The salsa lessons I took actually ended up paying off. I've realized, though, that these chance encounters with other backpackers are great, but ultimately fleeting because everyone knows that you're never going to see the other person again. This has both good and bad characteristics ;-)

I've been hearing first hand stories now of people getting pickpocketed. One guy I met last night had his camera stolen from right in front of him by a kid and his mom with 15 other people at his table. Another girl has her passport and money stolen while she was eating lunch with her friend. Needless to say I've been on Alert Level Orange ever since and will remain so until I get out of Spain. Even now, I'm paranoid that people are eyeing my laptop.

I finally found a free wireless hotspot I could mooch off of for awhile today. It luckily coincided with the location of a Starbucks here. So I plopped myself down for a few hours and took advantage while I could. I have to catch a night train to Barcelona in a few hours where I'll be spending all day on the beach.... Oh Yeah!!!! Then it's another night train to Cannes, France for the the Film Festival and Star Wars Premiere.... I'll update again soon.

Bordeaux

2005-05-13T09:48:00.000-04:00

Do you remember that scene in the movie Big when Josh (Tom Hanks) spends his first night in the St. James Hotel in NYC? Well I had a similar experience last night here in Bordeaux complete with the angry, raving person yelling at someone for like two hours in a language I couldn't understand. Check out this tiny, tiny room:

The Youth Hostel at which I wanted to stay was all booked, which left me with this second place in my guide book. I should have known better when they describe it as "good accomodations for the price." The good thing, though, was that it was the first room I've had to myself since I got to Europe. And the three Austrailian girls staying in the room next to mine more than made up for it ;-)

I went on a wine tasting tour to two Chateaus outside of Bordeaux in the Medoc region, which mainly grows heavier grapes like Cabernet Savignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Fraun(sp?). The Chateaus were gorgeous, built in the 17th-19th centuries. The wines we tried were pretty good. For some reason, the Medoc region is required to blend different grapes in whatever wines they produce... strange that they require it, but the wine was definitely complex. One cool thing on the tour, although we didn't stop at it, we drove by Chateau La Tour, which is a world famous winery.

The downside of the tour was that the only train I could get to Madrid left at 6:50pm. The tour was scheduled to get back to the Tourist Office at 6:30pm. So I was worried the entire time that I wouldn't make it to the train. Fortunately, I there were like two or three other groups of people trying to make the same train. Thus, the tour guide brought us back a little early. It was kind of fun sprinting from the bus with all these people to the train. One group was a couple, Brett and Amy, who were my age and over here for about the same amount of time as me. They hung out with me at the sketchy Border station where we switched to the sleeping train.

My first experience with the night train was pretty good. I slept pretty well and saved money by not have to get a hostel for the night. Yeah! Now on to Madrid...

Paris: Day 4

2005-05-11T18:38:00.000-04:00

My last day in Paris and I finally got to the Louvre. You're suppose to take a whole day (if not two) to walk through and appreciate the massive collection of art contained in the huge building... I had 5 hours before I had to catch my train to Bordeaux. Yikes. I did see everything (that wasn't closed), but I didn't really have time to stop and reflect on any of the art. It's too bad, but I saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus De Milo...

The Place in Paris

2005-05-11T10:21:00.000-04:00

There's one place you must go if you come to Paris... not the Louvre, not the Eiffel Tower, not the Cathedral De Notre Dame... no... This is the place:

It's much different than they show in the movie. They bring you in and sit you at a table. The show starts and the girls come out on the stage, do their thing, then even walk out in the audience to flirt with all the guys. I really through them for a loop, though, cause I sat with my back to the stage, and I never turned to look at them once. So, of course, they all came to see why I was the only one doing this, but I couldn't understand them cause I don't speak French... It was definitely a good night...

hahaha, yeah, none of that happened. They wanted 140 euro to see the show, and I wasn't that desparate to see T&A.

Hiking Paris

2005-05-10T16:19:00.000-04:00

Well I wanted to go to the Louvre today... all day, but unfortunately its closed on Tuesdays. hmmm. Being suddenly faced with an entire day with nothing to do, in Paris of all places..., I decided to agressively seek out internet access to get my blog up to date and make future travel arrangements. The receptionist at my hostel mentioned that some cafes around the Louvre have WiFi access, and another told me that there are hotspots in two places in the city, one of which is in a place called La Defense.

I found a few cafes, but they only give you internet access for twenty minutes at a time (for free, though)... a bit troublesome. Thus, I packed my things, and with hope my heart set off on the long grueling journey through the barren wilderness, my trusty ox dragging my covered wagon to the place were all my dreams would come true.... no, not Oregon.... La Defense... Sadly, it was only a place of false hopes. The hotspot wanted 10 euros and hour for access. Since I had made the trek all the way out here, I bought an hour just so my time wasn't a complete waste.

I did however find the worlds largest Louis Vuitton bag as I was coming out here though. I'm sure all the girls would be impressed:

Paris By Day

2005-05-10T11:48:00.000-04:00

Since I heard its lines are monstrous during the day, the first thing I did was book it to the Eiffel Tower early in the morning. But I had to stop and take a few pictures from outside the Louvre first. The Tower is pretty cool. Definitely check it out if you're ever over here. I hiked over to the Arc de Triomphe, then all the way back through this like 2 mile long park in front of the Louvre before turning down towards the Cathedral De Notre Dame, and down to the Pantheon, but I didn't really feel like paying to go into any of them. I saw the view of the city from the Tower, and I can live without ever having seen the resting places of Voltaire and Rousseau (although I do admire them both).

Almost every building I walked past was amazing. I almost got used to constantly being surrounded by beauty. The sad thing is that there are beautiful buildings worthy of being photographed, but (and I'm obviously guilty of this too) when they stand right next to the Cathedral de Notre Dame or the Louvre, everyone is too busy taking pictures of the more well known architecture.

I'm not finding all that much night life here. My guidebook doesn't mention too much, my hostel got overrun by a group of kids on a fieldtrip or something, and my new roommates just wanted to play crazy eights in the room... so meeting people here has been something of a challenge... what's up with that? ...Paris definitely has the street cafe thing going on. Maybe the culture favors that more than clubs and bars.

Paris By Night

2005-05-09T10:37:00.000-04:00

So I missed my stop on train to Paris and wound up in Euro Disneyland. I was too anxious and frustrated to buy a ticket or take any pictures for you guys, though. Fortunately, a train from one of Paris' subway systems ends its run there, and I was able to take it into the center of the city. Phew.

I think I caught a cold in Dublin. I more or less expected that I would being that I'm exposed to a new environment. So when I finally got to a hostel in Paris, I pretty much just wanted to lie down and rest until the morning before starting my Parisian exploration. My two new roommates, though, Brett and Troy, were in better health. Since I wasn't feeling all that run down, we went out to sample French cuisine and see Paris at night. I'm definitely glad I did. A beget is a delicious and filling meal for €3, and the Seine is gorgeous by night. I can't believe it. Strategically placed recessed white and multicolored lighting, dinner boats, rows of street lights. It's just too bad my camera doesn't work too well in the dark (the shutter opens for a longer period of time). But the city is magnificent. You can't duplicate it... it's just 1500 years of perfection in the making.

Brussels

2005-05-08T16:23:00.000-04:00

The Mayhem Continues. Well I made it out of the Airport alive (they woke me up at f***ing 5am.... if you can call what I was doing 'sleeping'). I took a bus and tube to the Waterloo train station to get on the Eurostar to Paris, but guess what... it was booked up... shit. But, I made the best of it. Since I had to miss Stonehenge, I got the Eurostar to Brussels... Brussels. It's a dump here.... really. There are a few sights to see, but the city looks like it belongs in Eastern Europe. Regardless I went and found a store called Neuhaus, which is supposed to have really good chocolate.... Ladies, you would have an orgasm from this chocolate.. I swear. It's that good. Being that there's nothing else to really do there, I headed back to the train station and found a sketchy open grocery market (check out the pics). Once back at the station.... the train to Paris was booked again... grrrr. They got me on a train to the De Galle Airport, though.... I still had to wait like three hours for it. Moral of the story... don't go to Brussels. Onward to Paris...

Stansted Airport

2005-05-07T23:14:00.000-04:00

My original plans were to fly back from Dublin to London at night, and then take a cheap day tour out to Stonehenge and Bath tomorrow (Sunday). But when I went to book my reservation for the tour, it was sold out. And trust me, that really pissed me off at the time. So I have to scrap the Stonehenge trip because it's too expensive to get out there and back (What are you thinking England... get your ass in with the Eurail... I'm not paying for that shit). The new plan is to get to Paris a day early, which actually helps me ensure that I get to Cannes in time to see Star Wars in a week. Had I planned this ahead of time, I would have booked a flight from Dublin to Paris. Consequently, I'm stuck in London for another night (I wanted to ride the Eurostar under the chunnel anyway). So I'm spending the night in the Stansted Airport. I'm definitely glad I have the sleep sheet now (Thank you, Aunt Gin, for sewing it up for me). This is definitely going to be interesting. There seem to be a lot of sketchy people here sleeping (they all took the comfortable chairs too and left me with the cold, hard floor), but they're backpackers... so I'm not really worried.. I'll write again tomorrow if I'm not dead and/or robbed of everything I have ;-).

Athlone

2005-05-07T21:02:00.000-04:00

My flight from Dublin to London wasn't until 9:15pm yesterday... rather than spend that time in Dublin, I wanted to go check out the county of Westmeath in the center of Ireland. So I activated my Eurail Pass and went to the station hoping to get to a town called Mullingar, right in the middle of the county. Unfortunately, of the two train stations in Dublin, I went to the wrong one (I didn't know which one to go to). The only town I could get to from this station was Athlone, a smaller town on the very west part of the county. Now I wanted to take this trip because my lsat name, Dillon, originated in the county of Westmeath. From what I read, the first person with the name (its Anglo-Saxon) came to Ireland with the last name De Leon, and it evolved over the years. Apparently, the Dillons became some of the largest landowners in Ireland but lost it all somehow. They also became really involved in politics. So I was hoping to get out there and find some cool remains of my heritage. What did I find:

And that's all. Not a worthless journey, but the hole-in-the-wall shoe store (one of many in the town) was a little lacking for such an auspicious past. I wonder if I could have found something better in Mullingar, like an old Dillon's Pub or something... that would have been awesome.

Outside Dublin

2005-05-07T07:35:00.000-04:00

I signed up for a scenic day trip outside of the city. It was well worth the money. Not only did we see some places where Braveheart, Reign of Fire, and Excalibur were filmed, but the hills, waterfalls, greenery, and lakes were just absolutely amazing. My pictures don’t do it justice. I’d have to be immersed in it again to truly know it. The best was the valley of the two lakes (Glendalough) where St. Kevin built a monastery next to two lakes nestled in this beautiful valley just outside of Dublin. The mountains rises in the distance with a waterfall filling the lake in front of me was breathtaking. I hope I never lose the memory of that.

The main thing you do when you come to Dublin, though, is drink your ass off at night. There are bars everywhere. One classic one is The Temple Bar in the heart of the Temple Bar area. They have live Irish music every night. There’s also a store to buy their merchandise next door. The last night I was there, I joined a pub crawl that took us around to six different bars, of which I don’t really remember them all. The first was the campus bar at Trinity College, which served cans of beer… what’s up with that? We also visited a few dance clubs that played new and older music as well as some techno. The Stag’s Head was a much mellower, sit and drink kind of bar (it’s the second oldest in Dublin). The others I can’t remember, but they had great ambiance...I think.

Top Of The Mornin' To Ye: Dublin

2005-05-05T21:51:00.000-04:00

The first thing that everyone does when they get here is of course go to the Guinness factory. They no longer give tours of the actual factory, but they do have a tourist site called the Guinness Storehouse where they give a walk-through presentation of how Guinness started and how it's made. The best part, though, is by far the pint of "The Black Stuff" you get at the end. I was told it would be the best pint of it I've ever had...... they delivered.

I did some other sightseeing, of course, but nobody comes to Dublin for the sights really (that's what day trips outside the city are for). I heard they have some of the best bars in the world here.... I'll investigate further.....

London: Part 2

2005-05-05T08:07:00.000-04:00

Hey Guys... How's the states? Still there, I hope. I've finished up London, and now it's off to Dublin. All in all, I'd say London is a decent town. A little too expensive for my budget, but a good place to start my trip. The last few days there have been pretty busy. After spending so much money to see The Dali Experience, St. Paul's Cathedral, and The Tower of London, I was definitely in the mood to explore London's sights that were more around my price range:... free. Fortunately, London has quite a few of these. Tate Modern was by far the most interesting museum I visited, with modern art and exhibits that make you think and others that just make you say "what the..?" The room with the sculped cleaning crew sweeping up paper cuts of people who are no longer useful to society was definitely sad and thought-provoking. The National Gallery had the original Monets, Manets, and Van Goghs of which I had only previously seen pictures. Lastly, I went to the British (Archeological) Museum where they have Egyptian mummies and other cool ancient artifacts. Check out the pics of them (if I ever get them up there... turns out it's pretty difficult to get my laptop connected to the Internet here).

I met a few people the last night I was there. We went to the bar owned by the hostel we at which we were staying. There was a guy named Janis from Latvia, a girl from Sunnyvale, CA named Kathleen, a guy from Columbia who worked at the hostel, and a whole bunch of girls from Canada (Rachel is the only name I remember). I was a good time. The weird thing is that you go out with these people knowing that you're never going to see them again. I wonder if I'll every remember them in a few years.... I hope so. They seemed pretty cool.

London

2005-05-02T23:52:00.000-04:00

This jetlag thing is bullshit. I slept pretty well last night (all ten hours of it). While I probably spent more of my day awake yesterday, it's officially my first day in Europe. I explored just about everything yesterday, but I didn't do anything in depth. First on the agenda, though, was to change to a different (and cheaper hostel). This one has more backpackers my age, a better energy, and is closer to Picadilly Circus. Once that was set and done, I still had about an hour before the changing of the guards. So I went to the National Gallery until the ceremony started. They have some amazing paintings there... very moving. The ceremony was actually a little boring and crowded. They have a band playing while they do it, and I caught one of the guards trying to keep from laughing while they were going through the motions.

I jumped on the tube and headed for the sights of downtown London. I asked another gentleman to take this picture of me once I had climbed all the way up St. Paul's Cathedral, which has some amazing artwork in its dome. The size of this building still amazes me as it dwarfs all the other builds that have popped up around it over the years. Once out of these, I walked down the Thames toward the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. To be perfectly honest, I was always under the impression that the Tower Bridge was called London Bridge, but, as I just found out, London Bridge is actually a four lane, rather bland, and contemporary bridge. It amazes me, though, that these structures are still here. Nothing in America is almost 1000 years old.

I crossed over the Tower Bridge and started walking up the other side of the Thames. I found an interesting sculpture of used electronic equipment. Apparently, Europe just passed legislation that requires electronics makers recycle their produces at the end of their usefulness (and just when the DVDs were making their piles in the landfills).

I hit up a bar with my roommate, Brian, that night and met a few girls. I laughed at one, Brianna, who, when I told her that I usually don't buy drinks for girls, almost immediate thought I was cheap. She missed the fact that I was telling her I refused to pay for her attention. As it turns out, though, she was from Canada and not far from Clarkson. I travelled half way around the world and met someone who once lived an hour away? Go figure.

London: Here I am

2005-05-01T13:01:00.000-04:00

I sat next to a guy named Dennis on the the seven hour flight from Chicago to London. He was much quieter than the previous woman, but I did learn that he was on his way to Munich for business. He was also really impressed that I was backpacking my way through Europe for two months (everyone seems to be). I got to London at 6am here.. not the best time to be looking for a place to sleep. I found and reserved an HI hostel without too much trouble, but I couldn't pick up my key until ten. So I decided to walk around semi-aimlessly (with everything I brought).

Turns out I ran into Picadilly Circus, Big Ben, and a few parks.

Most people have been surprised when they learn that I'm doing this by myself... and I'm beginning to see cause for their surprise. This would probably be a lot easier with someone else by my side.

Chicago

2005-04-30T16:35:00.000-04:00

I've decided that I'm not really good with names. I sat next to a nice older woman on my flight from Syracuse to Chicago. I asked her for her name and pretty much forget it two seconds later. It was Rose or Blanch or something like that. She has two sons, both of whom got into graduate schools from which I was regjected. How ironic. I finally got up the nerve to start taking some pictures of where I am. O' Hare seems like a pretty big airport. I just hope the 777 in which I'm flying to London is a little more roomy and confortable. This is how it looks from here so far:
Looks sturdy. Hopefully it would bring us down in a water splash of glory.

And I'm off

2005-04-30T11:30:00.000-04:00

10:00AM Syracuse.Day one of my trip has been going pretty well. Despite the rain, my departing flight seems like it's going to be on time. I made it trhough security with minimal trouble. They searched my bag for my sewing kit and toe nail clippers, but I was allowed to take them. I'm incredibly relieved. I don't know what I would have done without my sewing kit. So I'm sitting here in the terminal, testing out the capabilities of my laptop, waiting for my flight to come. There's a lot of sketchy older people walking around and staring at me typing on my computer. I should take a picture to show you, but I don't want to be the sketch guy filming everyone ;-). I hope this mistrust isn't rampant for my whole trip.

Packing

2005-04-23T11:49:00.000-04:00

Considering what to pack has consumed most of the time I've devoted to preparing for my trip. The difficulty is adopting a lifestyle for an environment I have yet to experience. I've never been to Europe, and I have only a vague idea of what I'm going to do once I get there (travel, take a lot of pictures, and party my ass off). So how can I can prepare for all the eventualities that could occur? How much stuff should I take? What stuff should I take? Fortunately, the path to all wisdom that is Google provided a number of websites (links on the right) about backpacking through Europe with pages and forums devoted to this very topic. With the keen insight of those experienced "professionals", I am boiling down my belonging to the bare essentials. Oh is it sweet... The Backpack. The one thing that every backpacker needs to be called a "backpacker" is of course a backpack. I searched the bags from Eastern Mountain Sports, Eagle Creek, Gregor, and The North Face before finally settling on this monster: Columbia Sportwear: Europacker I figured the 5200 cubic inches would be more than enough to contain my societal existence for two months. The detachable day pack was a definite selling point for me, figuring it would be nice to have a bag to carry a subset of things I would just need while walking around for the day. I purchased it from ebags.com without being able to strap it on first. I was planning on returning it if I didn't like it, but it fit pretty well (I think). I've tested it out on a few weekend excursions and have been pleased thusfar. I do have a couple of suggestions for the bag makers, though. They should have figured a way to put the water bottle holder on the day pack. Also, a few pockets conveniently accessible while the bag is strapped to someone's back would be nice. Lastly, some way to securely lock ALL of the zippers would probably be advantagous (It seems the rope zipper handles could easily be cut if they're strung through a lock). Clothing. My philosophy on how much clothing to pack is that every other needed item should be packed first and then stuff clothes into the remaining space. With that in mind I'm taking the following:

3 tee shirts
1 polo shirt
1 button down dress shirt (Thank you wrinkle free fabric)
1 pair jeans
2 pairs kahkis
2 pairs shorts
1 pair of mesh shorts
5 pairs of underwear
5 pairs of socks
1 light jacket
1 thin PVC rain suit
1 swim suit

Footwear.

Shoes take up an enormous amount of backpack space, but having a good pair of shoes on my feet is probably a good thing given all the walking I'm probably going to do. That means I'm going to need a good pair of sneakers. Also, from what I've been reading, a lot of clubs and bars have dress codes, which would require a decent pair of dress shoes. Lastly, I plan on visiting a few beaches during my trip, for which sandals would probably be good. I've conveniently purchased sandals that will double as shower shoes (who knows what's on the floors over there). So I've got a pair of sneakers, a pair of comfortable dress shoes, and a pair of sandals. That seems like too much....

Sleeping. According to the websites I've frequented, a lot of hostels require(or will sell) a sleep sheet, which is a flat sheet folded in half and sown into a sleeping bag type of thing. I've made my own.

Toiletries/misc. I group toiletries into two groups. First, you have your daily personal hygiene/grooming toiletries and, second, you have your less frequently used need-based toiletries. My goal is to determine how much of both I am going to need to just barely get me through two months. Packing less than that requires me to buy more over there, and packing more wastes space (But, when in doubt, pack less).

For me, the former group consists of the following, which, for convenience, I'm packing into what I hope is a water tight toiletry bag from Eagle Creek:

Shampoo
Body Wash
Face Wash
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Dental Floss
Listerine
Deoderant
Razor
Shave Gel

The later group includes:

Travel microfiber towel
Sunscreen
Wet Ones
Zip Ties
Elastic tubing clothes line
Sink stopper
Laundry Soap
Laundry Bag (came with Laundry Kit... might be useful)
Travel sewing kit
Pepto Bismal tablets
Band Aids
Aspirin
Travel toilet paper roll

Entertainment. I'm willing to bet that I'm going to have a lot of free time travelling between destinations. Hopefully, I'll spent some of that time updating my blog here, but the rest of the time is definitely going to require some form of entertainment. While I far and away prefer female conversation, I am nonetheless packing in case I don't find a good conversationalist. Rather than pack separate books, an mp3 player, and since I enjoy movies, I got what will soon be my trusty 3lb, 10in by 8in, Sony Vaio T250/L (or something like that), on which I will store soft copies of books, music, and movies I'd like to enjoy while travelling (Don't worry Apple, I still have some extra computers on which to store iTunes downloads that you let me borrow... yes borrow... grr). Hopefully, it will take up less space and weight than the alternative.

Security. A lot of the stories that get around fast are the bad ones, involving gypsies, pick pockets, and late night gassings on trains. Unfortunately, having identification and money on me at all times is probably going to be a necessity, and the backpack could possibly favor the attention of Europe's more unsavory population. Thus, I have the traveler's money belt to house my passport, emergency credit card, HI card, ISIC, eurrail pass, and airline ticket (if that's not all digital now). I also might do the whole hundred dollar bill hidden in my shoe.

Packed. Putting it all together looks something like this. Everything fit easily in the Europacker with tons of room to spare. Now, from what I've read, I'm supposed to get rid of half of this stuff, but really that's just getting rid of clothing, isn't it? I welcome suggestions....

The only thing I have to put in the day pack at the moment is my guidebook and my digital camera (which eats batteries like no one's business). It will also be the future container of my laptop once I pick it up from the post office. There's probably a load of papers and infomation I'm going to have to take in the pack too, but I'm hoping to have as much of it as possible contained in the laptop.

Planning

2005-04-08T14:46:00.000-04:00

Step One: Time is a Bitch. We get 75 years on this planet if we're lucky. The first two or three, I don't remember, I'll be so torn apart during the last twenty five or so that I'm not going to be able to enjoy life like I can right now, and the time in between is going to be wasted being the system's bitch while I worry about bills, leases, cars, 401K, IRAs, yada yada yada. Thus, now... in my youth, I proudly take a few months to say f**k you to a world that will eventually waste the rest of my life. But when to go? The answer for me worked itself out in choices I made earlier. The coop I took two years ago that pushed back my graduation a semester afforded me eight months this year before I could start grad school, but since I can't afford to spend all that time in Europe, I decided to take May and June off from my current coop for the trip. Step Two: The Essentials. I've had four and half years to think about this trip since I got the idea, and you might think I'd be prepared to the last minute detail... but what kind of recent college graduate would I be if that were true. Nonetheless, no good European backpacker will make it very far (out of the country) without first arranging a few of the essentials:

Passport
Debit Card
Credit Card
Airline Reservations
Eurrail Pass
Time off from whatever it is I do all day

I got my passport last summer (way to think ahead, PJ), and I was fortunate enough to already have some plastic money. Most research I've done suggests also taking traveler's checks, but I like to live dangerously. Besides, aren't those things dinosaurs by now anyway. We'll see how I do without them.

The fine folks at STA Travel were kind enough to find me an open-jawed cheap student airfare (that first takes me through Chicago... :-/) and a Eurrail Pass. I'm not anal enough to quote you my prices on here, though...

Step Three: Extras. I don't know if these extra documents are going to help me at all, but in the course of my planning, I've acquired:

Hostels International card (www.hiusa.org)
International Student Identification Card (ISIC) (www.statravel.com)

Supposedly, the former will get me discounts at hostels around the world, and membership came with free travel insurance. The latter will apparently provide discounts at stores and other places, one which is eBags (I didn't get the card until after I got my bag, though).

Step Four: My Shurpa. I would not recommend basing your initial purchasing decisions on the film, Eurotrip. Frommer's Europe is an excellent guide for sites, hotels, and cafe's, but it contains absolutely no hostel information whatsoever (not even Europe on $85 a Day). Consequently, at the suggestion of a couple of forum posts on the subject, I bought europe on a shoestring from Lonely Planet. Not only does it contain hostel information but there is a language guide in the back, suggested itineraries, and generally budget minded writing.

Step Five: Where to go. Well I can get to and get around in most of Europe now. So where do I want to go... I'm not entirely sure. In fact the mystery and adventure of not knowing where I'm going to end up is really exciting right now. ...Ok, that's not entirely true. I am partly an engineer after all. I have a vague itinerary planned to ensure I can get to all the places I want to see, but I have no reservations about deviating from it... at all. For now, though, this is the plan:

London
Dublin
Bath/Stonehenge
Paris
Bordeaux (one of many wine countries)
Madrid
Barcelona
Cannes/Nice/St. Topez (Can anyone out there get me in to see Star Wars at the Cannes Film Festival?)
Pisa
Rome
Florence
Venice
Zermat, Switzerland
Geneva
Zurich
Salzburg, Austria (or somewhere in that country)
Prague
Munich
Berlin
Amsterdam

Step Six. Where to Stay and How to get Around. As you no doubt have guessed from the HI card I obtained, I plan to spend my nights in youth hostels around Europe. I've read somewhere that there are five big hostels in Europe that everyone should visit, but the only one I can remember is Globetrotter's in Dublin. Hopefully, though, I'll be able to save a little money by sleeping on a night trains traveling between destinations too.

The rail system in Europe seems to be the easiest way to get around, and given the amount of travelling I'm going to be doing, the Eurrail Pass just makes sense.

Step Seven. As the movie says... Let the crazy European sex odyssey begin...