Backpacking Europe

Paris...beautiful

2009-03-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

After a brief stop in Brussels, I got to spend three awesome days in Paris seeing most of the major sights. It was somewhat of a blur, it went so fast. We did another walking tour, that guide was quite the entertainer. Marching around, making some of the history come alive a bit.

The Louvre was great, it was awesome seeing even just a small portion of the artwork they have there (most notably the Mona Lisa, obviously). It was good to see the Venus de Milo as well, along with all kinds of great pieces from Egypt, Greece, France, and all over the place.

Notre Dame was enjoyable as well. I got to go to part of a Sunday morning service there with one of my friends in my Bible study back in Bloomington which was really nice...although I don't speak any French, and the whole service was in French...but hey. It was still good nevertheless. Afterwards I transitioned from attending a service to full tourist mode and took a bunch of pictures.

I got to see so many things there, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Montmartre (the highest point in Paris), and on and on. Too much to tell. From there I moved on to Geneva.

Brussels - a simple story

2009-03-17T16:34:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago, before Paris (I'm in Geneva, Switzerland at the moment), I and the three guys I'm traveling with were in Brussels. Our goals were simple, and they got carried out just about completely.

We wanted to eat waffles (probably with cholocate), drink Belgian beer and tour a brewery (in addition to seeing the city a bit through walking all over the place). Obviously we had other aspirations but basically that's what happened.

The waffles with melted Nutella on top were amazing! Beer was good too, and Old Town and the Grand Place were great as well--huge and impressively, intricately designed and built. They made for some great pictures.

Regardless, good pictures aside and seeing a new country as well, I wasn't extremely impressed with Brussels. But that's what I had been told to expect, so no surprises.

The odd thing was though, when we were asked later if we saw the Atomium, built for the world fair (like a ton of huge works of art and scultpure have been) in 1958, we had not idea what they were talking about. We didn't see it. Oops. But we saw what we came to see, so it was a success in the end regardless.

Then came Paris.

Shady activities

2009-03-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

Activities that aren't so acceptable in the US, or are illegal in most places, tend to be a little more prevalent in Europe. This is nothing new. In Prague it's the Absinthe, which you can buy in numerous countries or get it in bars. It's one of those funny things though, because you can usually own it, make it, and drink it, but not sell it.

I've heard some pretty crazy stories about people freaking out after a shot or two of Absinthe. Especially after eating a space cake, which you can get in Amsterdam. They have 'cafes' everywhere, where you can buy marijuana to smoke and brownies containing more of the same. The funny thing is, if you smoke cigarettes in these cafes, you can get fined or arrested. You can't smoke cigarettes in enclosed public places, as of sometime very recently. Funny isn't it? "I got arrested in a cafe where I was buying some pot and a space cake....arrested for smoking a cigarette, that is."

And that's not even to mention the Red Light District. I took a tour of the area, getting startled numerous times by the girls tapping on their windows to get our attention. Startling, on more levels than one. Supposedly the government is looking to close the area down, believe it or not, in the next handful (maybe ten) years or so by phasing it out slowly. The Dutch are interesting people, making laws that make behavior illegal but leaving it tolerated and un-policed as long as it's not hurting people (too much) and as long as it's making money. To be fair, Prague has its crowd of prostitutes approaching you at night too, when you're alone or in a group of just guys, they just don't have a whole district with their own windows to stand in.

In terms of Amsterdam, on a lighter note amidst all the drugs and disturbing sex activities going on, I did absolutely love seeing the Van Gogh museum. I got to see 'Starry Night' and a bunch of awesome works of Van Gogh as well as Mozart and Rembrandt and a handful of others. I really enjoyed Prague, thoroughly. And although I did like the setup and general feel of Amsterdam more than I expected (outside of the sex situation), I don't see myself going back there at any point. There's simply too big of a world out there. A world that I'm exploring, bit by bit.

Next was Brussels...

Walking Tours

2009-03-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

I'm now in the fourth city of this little six-city journey, Paris, and in three of the four cities I've been on free walking tours. I love them! In Prague, Amsterdam and Paris now I've been on one walking tour apiece.

The way they usually work if you don't know or haven't figured it out by the obvious title is this: a person from a small, loose organization of usually young, often recent or current students living in that particular city who has become knowledgeable about the area's history gives you a tour, for free. Simple enough. So they work for tips in other words. They meet in a central, touristy public place and charge no up-front fee, walking you around to the major sites and giving you a brief narrated overview of the history and various entertaining anecdotes about what may or may not have happened there, or other myths or legends surrounding the sites.

They're usually pretty historically informative, but I've been taking some of the stories with a grain of salt. Especially here in Paris, the tour guide did know his history relatively well, but he spent so much time entertaining us that a little bit of the memorability of the locations and buildings was replaced with his constant jokes and style of conveying information. Nevertheless, especially in Prague, the focus was on information and pointing out what we all wanted to see and know about the location that you would never know as you wandered the streets alone or with your fellow travelers. With the thousands of years of history in some of these places, there's just too much that has happened everywhere and no way to find out what happened and where without at least a little help (unless you're the researching type and that's what you're looking to do on your travels). I use a mix of both reading and listening, trying to get a feel for these awesome places.

Anyway that's just a little tidbit of an observation I have made as I travel from place to place, trying to take in as much as possible. Between the inundation of information, the walking with a bit of a knee problem, the constant travel between cities and the food and beer consumption, these travels have been taking a lot out of me. But I'm absolutely loving it!!

I now have just 6 more days, on which I will try and post everyday to catch up a bit on what's been going on. And I'll get a few pictures uploaded too, but it'll be difficult (at this Internet cafe and others they have the USB ports and the operating system pretty locked down). I'll get there though. Cheers!

Dobrý den Praha, what a city!

2009-03-09T19:27:00.000-07:00

That's 'hello Prague', and it did greet us well on the start of our 6-city trip!

The four of us have wandered this city up and down as best we could in four days. We saw a TON of Old Town Square and the surrounding area of Old Town, more than any other area. Our hostel was just east of the square. There is really too much to describe, from the crazy clock tower (Prague Astronomical Clock, parts of which were built in 1410 and 1490) to the Jewish Quarter, Charles Bridge and Prague Castle. Prague Castle just so happens to be the biggest castle in the world, it looks awesome. Quite a lot of films have been shot here (and very often passed off as being cities other than Prague). I'm told the city of Prague is beginning to charge for rights to shoot films here from now on there are so many requests.

I learned an interesting word on our tour of Prague Castle, defenerate. Not too common of a word, as it's underlined in red as I type it. It means to throw something (or in this case, someone) out of a window. Oh the Hapsburgs. I guess a few people got tossed out of a three or so story window at some point, landing on a big pile of manure (so as not to kill them), as a form of public embarrassment. We felt a new word could be added to the English language for throwing someone off a balcony as well: balconstrate was suggested. I thought that was at least worth noting...

I may share a few more stories about the city in my next post, we shall see, but for now I'm getting ready to leave and move on to Amsterdam for another three days!

Resurrection of the Blog

2009-03-04T21:12:00.001-08:00

It's time to get back moving on my travel adventures, I'll be heading to Europe today on the start of a long backpacking adventure (16 days) taking me to six cities in six different countries. I've traveled a decent bit since I last posted, Colorado (twice), Washington, Montana, and Florida (twice), but this is my first serious excursion. For now, this will just be a travel blog until I decide to venture into the territory of commenting on everyday life publicly. Whether or when that happens, we shall see.

I'll be traveling with three friends of mine from the Business School: Erik, Greg and Scott. We're traveling extremely light, just a small/midsize backpack apiece--and hostels all the way.

We'll be starting our trip by flying out of Indianapolis, connecting in Chicago and London Heathrow, finally ending up in Prague on Friday at around 7pm local time. We'll be there until early Tuesday morning when we fly to Amsterdam. After three days in Amsterdam, we're taking a quick trip to Brussels by train just for the day (Friday the 13th) on the way to Paris. We're in Paris 'til Monday night when we fly to Geneva for just a day and a half.

Finally, we're going back to the amazing city of Barcelona where I studied abroad during the summer of 2007. I couldn't be more excited to get back to Barcelona, almost as much as the other five cities that I've never even been to.

That's all for now, more updates will be coming soon!

landmarks

2007-09-09T22:24:00.000-07:00

I'm getting back into the swing of things with school, starting the third week of classes in a few hours with some international economics at 9:30. With a couple friends living in Spain at the moment, I've been looking back at my time there and wanted to post the map of most of my favorite spots around the city. Each of the blue placemarks on the map has a little description if you click on it. Here she is:

View Larger Map

And here's the map of all the places I visited this summer around Europe, minus those helpful little descriptions on the Barcelona map:

View Larger Map

Hellooo America

2007-08-16T22:03:00.000-07:00

Yeah so I said that long ago now, without the craziness of Europe I couldn't find enough to fill up a blog page....Excuses. I just got lazy. Not quite used to this whole thing yet. So anyway, coming back to the States has been great. Less thought to do simple tasks, translation being somewhat less necessary on a regular basis. Phone calls are just easier, it's great. Businesses for the most part keep normal hours now, vs. the norm in Spain, all improvements. I've done laundry numerous times which has been a real pleasure. I'm not missing the stiffness or the stretched-outness of the hang-dried clothing all summer.

I am, however, still missing those somewhat stiffer than normal clothes that I am hoping will arrive before the latest possible date given to me at Correos in Barcelona: OCTOBER 21. My own fault I know, trying to save a couple hundred bucks, but still.

Life here at home has been good, hanging out in Chicago for a few days, a few down in Bloomington, a few in Fort Wayne, and the rest up here at the lake cottage (good 'ole Union Pier, Michigan). Bloomington was really great actually, squatting at the Lodge with the guys since my old house no longer has anything in it, not to mention that now the lease is expired. Seeing people everywhere around town, while unexpected, was a real reminder that Bloomington, while only the town I've gone to college in, is home. Driving in on 45/46 only brings a smile, and going just about anywhere brings me back to my comfort zone. Beautiful feeling.

Europe is great, Spain was fun and very challenging, traveling was all I'd hoped it would be and more, but the US has welcomed me home well. Good to be back.

goodbye Europe

2007-07-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

Well this is it. It's midnight in London and I'm getting on a plane to head back to Chicago in about 11 hours. I'm in the internet cafe at our hostel after a good last day of Amber and I exploring yet another city.

Italy ended well, Cinque Terre was awesome. The hiking between the cities was a blast and the view from the hilltops and the cliff overhangs was quite a sight. The place is just enjoyable, with some good yet not-expensive meals even at restaurants overlooking the Ligurian Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, whatever. Take your pick. The place was pretty crowded though, as we expected because of the Rick Steves' warnings. We did see several other people actually reading, proudly, their Rick Steves travel guides over the course of the two days we were there. He's really spread the word about the place, and I can see why.

So after Italy was Munich, where we got to drink some good beer at the Hofbräuhaus (among other beer gardens), eat some amazing German sausages and sauerkraut, and see a little bit of the city. We wandered around Marienplatz, took an hour bus tour of the city (which we half-way slept through actually...), and bought some stuff in the shops. We stayed away from most of the museums and otherwise 'educational' type stuff because we were relatively wiped out, honestly, after our 12 hour train ride. So we chose a little sleep and a calmer itinerary over a see everything, go crazy sort of plan.

Then we took a trip an hour south of Munich to see Lake Tegernsee and the surrounding towns by train, boat, and on foot. It was good to get back to our roots, see where dad grew up and the like. The place was beautiful! Peaceful lake towns, green grass everywhere, the classic white houses and buildings with the brown trim, uniform slate roofing, the works. It was the most peaceful and relaxing atmosphere I have seen in Europe so far. Loved it.

So that's the rest of Italy and Germany. Today was London, but this is getting long. So we saw Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Harrods department store (one of the largest in the world, it was ridiculous), and the British Library (the UK's national library). The library has a lot of impressive stuff in it, a couple Gutenberg Bibles, a couple copies of the Magna Carta from 1215 off in a side exhibit room, and all sorts of other important texts and manuscripts.

So it's been a busy 8 days since I left Barcelona, and a busy summer before that for that matter. I'm ready to head back to the States and get back to 'normal' life. I almost forget what that is. So, signing off from Europe, I'm out.

good question...

2007-07-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

Who knows exactly where I am. So it's been a really long time since I posted the latest news, but I've been wrapping things up and moving around a lot, so here goes. To pick back up, the rest of Madrid was really cool. I got to dig farther into the Prado, I saw the Thyssen, lots of good art all over the place. I was in a real mood to see some real quality art and soak it in which was good, although a lot of the other people were getting a little tired of it so they kept me on schedule and moving along. I really like Madrid, the place is great.

So after that weekend I managed to make it over to Pamplona for the running of the bulls. CRAZINESS. Even crazier than you'd expect. People passed out in the middle of the square, trash everywhere, and not the greatest smells either. I starting to say that porta-potties smell like Pamplona, not the other way around. Anyway, I'll post some more pictures and details the next time I get the chance.

Right now I'm sitting in an internet cafe with Amber in Vernazza (one of the five cities of Cinque Terre) on the western coast of Italy, hence the lack of descriptiveness that I usually try to include. We just got here from two days in Rome, we've got one more day until heading to Munich by train for two more days in and just south of the city before heading to a day and a half in London. Then flying back to Chicago! I'm pretty ready to get back to the States. Europe has been great, but I'm really looking forward to a washer and dryer, my car, and my grill. I'll keep the updates going this week and then finish up the travel stories sometime next week. Ciao!

Sewage, batteries and serenades

2007-07-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

Oh the metro. Wandering the tunnels underground several times each day is funny to me at times. The routine of the different routes that I take to get to and from the various places around the city have certain little checkpoints, you might say, that I find interesting.

Sitting in the plaza down by La Rambla, almost ready to go to work each day, I can expect to see my friend the battery salesman continuing his sales pitches trying to sell Duracell batteries to the people walking through the metro. He's right on the way to the S and the L6 and L7 lines, waiting for me, marking the first of the several routine spots that I pass each day.

In-between the green and blue lines on the way back from Plaza Catalunya there's this one stretch of not more than 20 meters that has the always welcoming smell of spilled sewage. I have no idea why, or how long it's been there or if someone's planning on fixing it at some point, but I'm always counting the steps until the spot where the smell begins. Is it weird that I keep taking a whiff of it everyday?....doesn't sound smart to me, but nevertheless, I won't lie, I give it a sniff.

I like the city, I like the routes, but being underground for so much of the day in the usually stiflingly hot metro can be somewhat of a drag. But the day just wouldn't be the same without the battery guy. Wouldn't know what to do without him.

The best of all, though, is the musicians playing down there. Some of them are a little sketch, just hoping to collect some money for being there, but for the most part there are some pretty decent performers sending their music reverberating all around the tunnel system. It's great, it helps take your mind off the profuse sweating. I think there are even a couple semi-professional legitimate musicians who just enjoy playing for the masses in the metros because they're dressed up nicely and have quality instruments and even good sound systems with them sometimes. A strong gust of wind and some violins echoing all around, can't beat it.

Sant Joan in Barcelona--craziness

2007-06-30T14:28:00.000-07:00

Bombs. Explosions. Human towers. A couple hundred thousand people plus, who knows, the Sant Joan (San Juan) festival in Barcelona was ridiculous. For a couple days before the actual festival last weekend there were random scattered bombs going off throughout the city, startling you when you were eating whether in the apartment, in restaurants, cabs, wherever and everywhere. The cabs on Saturday even drive with all of their windows up to make sure no errant bombs get tossed in by accident or on purpose it´s so widespread.

So on Saturday we started the night be seeing some of the main cultural events that kick off the festival that continues with various events for the next six weeks or so by going and seeing a couple human towers that are held each year. A flame is brought in from some relatively distant historically significant place supposedly, and after it arrives on site they carry it to the main plaza for the main showing of the human towers. There are hilarious looking hugely tall people-costumes maybe 15 feet tall carried on peoples´shoulders that march around. Thousands of very large fireworks are being continuously set off around the park during the whole event with music playing, people dancing, and a HUGE bonfire being lit that would only allow people to stand no closer than a good 100 feet, minimum, because it´s so huge and the flames are so hot. It was definitely one of, if not the, most fun time that I´ve had in Barcelona to date.

On the beach is where the hundreds of thousands of people pack themselves in. The several miles of beach is packed solid, water to buildings, with people dancing and having fireworks thrown randomly between everyone (vary dangerously I might add). We dodges a couple very close calls ourselves. Everyone stays up on the beach and hangs out all night, a good majority of which wait and watch the sunrise early in the morning. I stayed the whole night and then tried to take either a cab or the metro back to my apartment, neither of which was possible even at 7am because of the amount of people trying to do the same thing. We walked for a mile or two to find a metro that wasn´t so clogged that we could actually get on. The next day nothing is open, everyone sleeps. I followed suit.

So that was this last weekend, I´ll go ahead and post the pictures whenever I get a chance (probably a day or so from now).

I´m in Madrid right now, getting ready to go out and take part in the crazy festival that´s going on here at the moment. We didn´t plan to be here specifically for the festival, it´s an LGBT festival actually, with a couple million interesting characters coming to the city for a huge gathering. So needless to say, if you understand the acronym, it´s interesting. There are some characters around here right now for sure, wow. But I got to see the Museo del Reina Sofia today, which was awesome. I loved the Dalí exhibits and especially the TONS of cool Picasso paintings there of which Guernica was the one I was looking forward to seeing the most. Tomorrow will be the Prado for the second time this summer, a couple gardens and the Thyssen. I´ll fill you all in as soon as I get the chance, have a great weekend people!

Granada is awesome, period

2007-06-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

So I've had another lapse with the posting, but here goes. So I went to Granada last weekend and it was by far my favorite city that I've seen in Europe so far. I mean I needed to spend more time in Florence to get a feel for it, but for now Granada's holding that place. What a city. La Alhambra, in the part of the city called the Albaicin, was one of the coolest thing's I've ever seen. The history of that spot is really interesting, with the Moorish construction and various forms of Arabic rule and the following Spanish conversions that were done after Ferdinand and Isabella took over the city in 1492. The Alhambra has some of the most amazing gardens, all fed by the still functioning system of aqueducts and natural water flow coming down from the mountains using a very ingenious system of channels throughout the entire complex. Everywhere you go you see water and vegetation, it's beautiful. The air's crisp and the place is great, all around. Check out my pictures, you'll see what I mean. It's a hike to get up there if you walk from the city, we got ridiculously sweaty, but I think it was better than taking a bus. It would've lost something without actually 'assaulting' the hill.

The Granada Cathedral was absolutely huge inside. I've been in countless cathedrals so far this summer it seems, all over the place, but that one is different. It's got five naves (two more than normal), huge towering pillars inside and is generally expansive in every way. Then the Capilla Real (Royal Chapel) is next door, which was very impressive. It was exciting to see so many little parts of history come together, from way back in about first grade all the way up through the present, right in front of my eyes. Unfortunately, our very nice guide asked us not to take any pictures in there, and he hadn't said that elsewhere, so I went ahead and followed the rules. That was where things really got interesting.

The tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella, among others, are in the Capilla Real for starters (although unfortunately ransacked and probably emptied out by Napoleon & co. circa 1810). They're relatively important figures, I suppose you would say, with reference to Spanish history, the history of Europe, and Christopher Columbus's eventual little trip across the ocean. Speaking of which, there's a statue of the exchange between Columbus and Isabella out in a public square on one of the main drags of the city. I enjoyed seeing Ferdinand's sword there as well, but my favorite thing was the little empty box that had contained Isabella's royal jewels. It seems that Isabella financed Columbus's journey (at least in part) with the jewels previously contained within. How great is that? Seriously. That whole sailing the ocean blue in 1492 thing, coming down to this little box that the lady in the tomb in the other room gave to the guy from the statue outside to go find India and happen to run into America. Again, relatively important.

So I could go on and on and on about Granada, how much I want to go back, but I won't. I have already. I only still need to mention a few more things. I got to see a Flamenco show, one of the real cultural Spanish music traditions that actually originated in Andalusia (the province Granada is located in). It was a fun night with some really fast feet and quality dancing. I enjoyed seeing the Palace of Carlos V (where they used to hold bullfights in the inner ring), and if you like tea or relaxing massages or spas (there are several local baths that are pretty famous), then this is the place to be. Also, ordering a beer or pretty much any drink in a local bar will cost you only about €2 or so (maybe $3 US) and will come with the tapa of the day for free. It's their local tradition (the history of which I don't know, sadly). If several people order drinks, you get a huge plate of tapas, and the second round of drinks will often get you whatever the secondary tapa of the day is at that bar. I found that very interesting, kind of exciting, and unbelievably cheap which is something that I have not experienced elsewhere this summer. At all. Anywhere.

So again, I've posted a new round of pictures for you to check out; the link's off to the side if you haven't noticed it yet. I've already experienced yet another exciting event this last weekend here in Barcelona, but I'm running extremely long, so I'll have to keep you waiting in suspense for another day.

Wine tasting, Sitges, & football

2007-06-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

Since Italy I've gotten to do a few other cool things along the way. Last Friday I took a nice little tour about an hour southwest of Barcelona to Penedés to visit the huge Codorníu winery that's down there. They've got a HUGE place with tunnels everywhere underground and millions of wine bottles, literally. Sparkling wine's not my favorite, but they've got some good cavas there. I'm not positive, but either that site or Codorníu in general has got something to do with the origins of the cava. The place had been there for a good 400 years or something so it wouldn't surprise me.

Afterwards our group took about another hour trip over to Sitges to hang out at or around the beaches there. Other than a good restaurant and the beach, I went and checked out the little corridors around the cool looking cathedral that faces the beach. It was another interesting and relaxing day, although ridiculously hot by the beach.

Then last Saturday FC Barcelona played Espanyol here in town, so I made it to my only soccer game of the summer. It was sweet!...until the 90th minute, literally, when Espanyol scored the tying goal. Their fans had already left in disgust for the most part, and they ended up tying the game. It was awesome getting to see them play, Ronaldinho was out from a red card the previous week but I got to see Eto'o and Messi. Messi actually scored both goals.

I've got almost all of the pictures posted finally, it's just really slow at uploading them all. This weekend's bringing a 3-day trip down to Granada which I'm really excited for so I'll have some more stories and pictures to come in a few days. I hope you all have a great weekend, talk to you soon!

Birds

2007-06-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

I know it's a relative normality in big cities, but I'm not a big city guy as life would have it, but I like the birds everywhere. Walking into a crowded little path packed with birds and having them move out of the way just barely in time is always amusing. And sitting in the park across from my place, hearing the little purring those things put out, watching the occasional parrot-like birds stop by for a minute, and seeing the fat ones chasing around the skinnier guys trying to find the food on the ground in an already picked-clean patch of path. Funny and amusing stuff, I like it.

So here's the site where I've posted my pictures, check 'em out:
http://s105.photobucket.com/albums/m218/seaninbtown/

There's a ton there and I rarely even take pictures. Plenty more to come.

Italia!

2007-06-08T13:42:00.000-07:00

Ohhh Italy, what a weekend. Attempting to say things in Italian: Roma, Firenze, ciao, scuse (spelled wrong, and probably said wrong too, but we had to say excuse me quite a bit) and come si dice were used early and often. There was also a massive overuse of the phrase "when in Rome", but we cut that out after a day or so. I and four other people made the trip, no plans and just a couple days notice on actually booking the trip really turned out well. We showed up at 10pm with no hotel reservations and needless to say little else in the way of concrete plans other than places we wanted to go, and we pulled off the entire thing without a hitch.

Starting in Rome, we got to see the Coliseum both at night and during the day and checked out the forum next door for a bit. Those were my number one spots, which I plan to see again next month actually. Very cool. We went down the street to the Monument/museum of Vittorio Emanuele II, then into a few cathedrals (the Papal Basilica of St Mary and a couple others). We went in the Pantheon which at that moment had a cool cylindrical flow of illuminated rain coming down through the open hole in the roof which was very cool looking. By the way, there are pictures forthcoming of everything I've seen in a day or two on my photobook site/facebook.

Then we got some gelato at the most ridiculous gelato place that exists I'm fairly sure, it had a good 150 interesting and strange flavors. I had a pretty strange combo, different, but good. So afterwards we went on to the Spanish Steps at the Plaza di Spagna and joined the masses of people hanging around there. Lots of cool but very expensive shops lead off for a few blocks away from the steps, so the girls got to buy a couple things here and there. Personally, I made it out of Italy having only bought a tshirt and a cheap watch. No Italian leather shoes unfortunately.

I enjoyed the Trevi Fountain, during the day as well as at night, but I've got to say it was a LOT cooler at night. Very very good place to hang out and enjoy not walking after the LONG day of wandering the streets of Rome. That was actually just day one, so day two brought with it a trip to Florence where we spent the day trying to find a hotel (in light of the conflicting Italian national day last Saturday that had all of the hotels booked up solid) as well as heading to the surrounding hills and seeing the city from above. Florence is a beautiful city, reminding me of a smaller, calmer version of the public beauty that you see here in Barcelona. Although we didn't get to see much at all since we only had an afternoon to spend, we saw enough to know we need to go back.

Sunday's return to Rome was to see the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. The rest of my group got to see more of the sights there than I did because I spent most of the day with two of my friends from school who are on a summer project in Rome, which was SWEET. I didn't expect it to be quite so refreshing to see people from home and share travel stories and just hang out. It was just what I needed.

We ate tons and tons of unbelievably good food and tested out some of the good yet not too steeply priced wine, loving every minute of eating in Italy. I think the food is what I miss the most honestly. Maybe that's because the Spanish cafe-type pastry, small baguette, tapa-appetizer style of eating doesn't fit my American need for large quantities of solid chunks of food at all times. It's strange to me that a trip to Italy would be what made me feel at home.

I didn't see what I saw with as much depth as I wanted, but thus is a trip including two cities in three days. But I can now effectively navigate my way around Rome and know that I want to get to know Florence, so my interest has been sparked to say the least. Amber and I get to head back that way in just over a month, perfect way to end the summer.

Barcelona, very good times!

2007-05-30T22:26:00.001-07:00

So yes, blog #2 is SLOW in coming, no doubt. It's this city! I've never been someplace nearly so interesting with half as much character everywhere you look. And I'm living near tons of people I know and am part of a program that has constantly got some sort of surprise in store for us, so that's all adding up to a lot of interesting times.

I can't believe I last left off in London, but to pick back up, I didn't see much of the city outside of my hotel, Paddington Station (didn't get touristy and buy a bear there or anything...yet), and a couple places between Heathrow and Luton. Then I shot over to Madrid and got to see the Museo del Prado--lots of Diego Velazquez, this cool painting by Jose del Castillo (la pradera de San Isidro), tons of really great paintings and sculptures. Really enough to fill up maybe two full days or so but I only got to spend 3 or 4 hours or so. Sooo much more there to see. Anyway, I then made it over here to Barcelona and have let the good times continue from there.

Our whole program went to the island of Mallorca for 3 days of 'orientation,' where I got to see the cuevas del drach (some really cool cave systems with rivers flowing all throughout) and the Catedral de Mallorca, and a few other interesting spots. Gaudí was actually hired to direct a restoration of the cathedral so there's a quite distinctive portion of the interior that follows his ocean theme (seemingly somewhat out of place I thought, but cool nevertheless). Speaking of Gaudí, the only house that I have seen of his works here in Barcelona to date was the Casa Batlló. Amazing place, every room has more character than you could believe. Slats in the doorframes for airflow, a cozy little pod of a sitting place by an interior fireplace, swirling ceilings that look like whirlpools, and a skeleton-like outer wall facing the street. Just one of the many, of which I will try and see as many as humanly possible over the course of the next 6 weeks or so.

So as we speak I'm out the door, heading to Italy to see Florence and Rome for the next 3 days (just scratching the surface obviously). The Coliseum is right up there near the top of the list, but I won't give too many precursors. We'll see when I get back where the adventure takes me. I'm starting to settle in so expect updates plenty more often from here on in. I'm off to a slow start but I'll get it going next week.

Adiós!

Finally doing it!

2007-05-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

I'm finally cranking out round 1, my first blog! I'm a little behind the times it seems, everyone has their daily two cents worth kicking around on the internet for all to see and here I've been keeping it all to myself. So I'm setting out to document some of my crazy travels of the next couple months in an attempt to keep you updated on just where exactly I might be and what I'm up to (assuming that I even know). Thus far it's been a fun list of cities seeing friends and family including Fort Wayne, Westfield/Fishers, Toledo/Sandusky (some freeeezing but fun Cedar Point action), then off to Chicago to start my journey towards Europe. I guess I hadn't bought gas in a while somehow or hadn't paid attention to the sudden rise, but all of a sudden I hit the road and found $3.49 to be the new low, occasionally getting teased by the "2.68!!" signs...oh wait, that's diesel. Jerks. I even kept driving until the gas light went on trying to find something cheaper. No such luck.

Anyway, that was definitely a lot of life for the week or so after leaving good 'ole Bloomington, and it kinda caught up with me on Monday when I could barely move (probably since I left any remnants of my immune system on a roller coaster somewhere at Cedar Point). Seriously, 45 and windy combined with going 80mph wearing short sleeves?? Not cool. After a short doctor visit today that ended in me needing to go on the BRATT diet (bananas, rice, apple sauce, tea & toast) and drink lots of gatorade, I find myself in the international terminal getting ready to board my flight in a couple minutes or so. SO--time to go, next stop: London!