Italian Thanksgiving

So this thanksgiving turned out pretty good! I ended up cooking for about 12 people, and it was just about the perfect amount of food. Mom's recipes helped so much! Everybody loved the artichoke stuffing recipe and lots of people said that the turkey was the best they had ever eaten in their life. I can't really take that much credit for the turkey though, it is just the Italian philosophy on food that made it so good! I bought the beast at the central market here in Florence and it was just more fresh and delicious than anything you could find in the states. It had never been frozen, and I even had to pick a few feathers off myself!

Finding all the little ingredients was the biggest trick though. Luckily I had Marco to help me out, but even with him it was so hard to explain some of the things I was looking for. The entire concept of canned food seemed totally foreign to him! Canned pumpkin was absolutely out of the question, as was any sort of cranberry. People had at least heard of sweet potatoes, but nobody seemed to carry any. Other things like "sour cream" took a long time to figure out since they don't translate at all in Italian -- sour cream here is known as "Greek Yogurt." Also, you have to say goodbye to any sort of concentrate, like the mint and vanilla which the brownies call for, so unfortunately that desert was definitely out of the question.

I also was extremely lucky that everything turned out so good because I didn't have any measuring utensils -- but that is really what cooking is about I guess, just going with what feels right. I also had a lot of help from the guests here. There was a jewish woman who works as a chef in Spain who helped me make caramel from scratch for the apple pie, and also the gravy once the turkey was done. Also, just having 20 people here to consult with on cooking turkey or mashed potatoes really helped a lot. Not that many of them really knew how, but combined they all had enough good ideas to make the thing a success. So all in all, here was the menu:

15 lb Turkey (bought and cooked the same day)
Artichoke stuffing
Mashed potatoes (which Marco peeled)
F*ing good Gravy (Turkey drippings prepared by the spanish chef)
Pumpkin pie (made from some sort of fresh squash)
Salad (contributed by Tony[canadian] and Justice[from new york])
Cheese with fruit (contributed by Tony and Justice)
Sauted vegetables (contributed by Colin[from new york])
Pumpkin Pie (with help from Huey[aussie girl])
Carmel Apple Pie (With help from the spanish chef)

All this with about 22 hours of work on my part! I really appreciate what Mom goes through every year now. I never realized how much work it took took to organize a feast like this.

Also, I had to cook everything in two different buildings about 5 blocks apart, so that made things a little bit more difficult. It was really nice that everyone seemed to jump behind this idea... I mean, of course all backpackers would love to have a good home-cooked meal, but I really appreciated that everyone got excited and willing to help out to make the meal possible. In the least, it was nice to be able to share a purely American tradition with people from around the world who had been curious about it but really knew nothing of it before.

Everyone seemed to love the food though! Even the people who would never imagine eating food this way. The pumpkin pie was one of the biggest hits, and that was from a bunch of Australians and Italians who could never imagine eating pumpkin in combination with sugar. Not only that, but most of the Australians and Germans had never even eaten turkey before!

Birthday in Florence

I just had what turned out to be a really really nice birthday out here. I was honestly surprised and impressed that so many people noticed and cared. There was just such a good group of people at the hostel for that night. Every now and again you get people that all just click and for a few days, the entire hostel just feels like a massive 20 person family. We all just hung out on and drank wine on the terrace. I honestly didn't drink much myself. When a bunch of college age people get together and say "stick around, we have a surprise for your birthday," it usually ends up with somebody passed out in the corner in a puddle of vomit... especially when there are Australians involved. Luckily I escaped unscathed this year!

It actually turned out to be a really simple and sweat time. As soon as it turned midnight on Monday night everybody from the hostel got together and sang happy birthday, this girl painted me a really funny "happy 23th!" poster. These two German girls gave me a couple TINY boxes of wine and a finger puppet too, which was really funny. It really wasn't anything huge, but it all just seemed so sweet at the time.

I made up the for the light drinking last night though! Last night was actually really good too! We all went to a local pub that I like and just the people that were there were all so great. I was talking to this British girl the whole time and I absolutely love the way she talks. God they have the coolest words! Them and the Australians, I've been picking up a lot of Aussie slang since I've been out here.

I really like living here. Every time I talk to somebody from a country that I've never even thought of going to, I just feel so blessed to be living in such an interesting and diverse. The amount of different cultures that pass through here make me feel like I am living at the center of the world.

Anyways, just a random little update on recent happenings and my state of mind. Now I have to start cooking. I want all these foreign bastards to have a good experience for their first thanksgiving!

First Day of School

I am really going to like school here! I actually woke up 2 hours late today lol, and I already missed the first day travelling back from Greece, but I picked up enough Italian in the past few weeks to catch up with everyone.

The class consists of 2 hours of grammer practice, and 2 hours of conversation. I only made it to the last half an hour of grammer practice, and even that was really boring, but I genuinley enjoy the 2 hours of conversation. I can't wait until I can actually express myself there.

So this is the beginning of my 6 months in Florence. I don't know if I will have much to write about now, its hard to keep up with a travel blog when you aren't really travelling. But I'll keep in touch, and I'll let you all know if anything cool happens :D

Miss you!

Escaping Pleasure Island

For all the fun that I had on Corfu, I feel a lot like Pinocchio must have when he escaped Pleasure Island. The island of Corfu started to feel like the most hedonistic place on earth, in a bad way. It was fun, sexy, and glamorous at first, but I got a first hand look at the darker side that lifestyle leads to.

I heard plenty of stories of the female tenants being raped by the male employees. One girl was fed drinks all night by this one bartender and woke up in his bedroom and had no idea how she got there or even where his bedroom was. I am positive that the same guy drugged Sarah; I actually caught them before anything serious happened, but I was moments away from literally killing the dude. She was so damn out of it, I tried carrying her back to her room but she was completely limp in my arms. I would have had to get her over a locked fence where I found them, and it just wasn’t in the cards, so I had to sit with her for 3 hours in the cold until she woke up.

I don’t need to go into details about that story, I am just happy that my parents have taught me restraint throughout my life. Whether or not he deserved it, I don’t need a murder on my hands, and I really wouldn’t want to spend my life in a Greek prison. I am just happy that I am off the island, back in Florence, and Sarah is ok.

Greek Island

Corfu was such a good time. The island was absolutely beautiful, I hear it is the most green of the Greek Islands. I stayed at “The Pink Palace,” which was really more like a resort than a hostel. They owned pretty much the entire side of the mountain down to the Beach, and had so much stuff to do. I was so exhausted by the end of my stay there, but it was so worth it.

It took 2 days of travel to get from Rome to Corfu – first on the night train and then on the night ferry, so I was exhausted by the time I got there at 10:am Wednesday morning. I was really hoping to crash for a while, but instead I was handed a shot of Ouzo as I walked in the door and rushed onto their “Booze Cruise.” The booze cruise was so fun! It went around the island on an old converted fishing boat, and they stopped at various beaches, caves, and rocks to jump off of. I jumped off of this one 35-foot cliff bare-ass-naked for 2 free beers. The beer was only $1.50 a can, but it was all good fun. The girls get 3 free shots for going topless, so the dudes definitely get ripped off there.

After the cruise I they had a really good 3-course dinner to recover, and a dance club/bar was part of the dining room so we all partied there that night.

The next day I woke up, had a Long Island Ice Tea for breakfast and did absolutely nothing but lay on the beech.

Friday I signed up for the Quad-tour of the island that the hostel puts on. That was so much fun!!! People in Greece don’t pussy-foot it like they would in the States, and Pele and I were the only people that could actually keep up with the tour guide. He was totally impressed, since it was my first time ever touching an ATV. I have to tip my hat to Pele too for being a badass Aussie chick, she was right behind me the whole time and pulled off some pretty crazy stuff.

One guy actually rode his quad right a cliff because he couldn’t handle the trail – and I mean a serious f*ing cliff. He was caught by some small trees and brush about 20 feet down, he was really lucky that he wasn’t seriously injured.

Anyways, that was a freaking blast, and I will definitely be buying one when I get home, so that will be great if McKay ever wants to teach me how to really ride. The one I was using was automatic and kind of weak, but it was a good warm up and enough to fall in love.

Saturday night was the Toga party and another booze cruise. Sarah and I didn’t really feel like cruising to the same places a second time, and we wanted to save some energy for the party, so we rented some kayaks and went and hung out on a beach a ways off from the main tourist one. I actually was too run down to make it very long at the Toga party, and I just ended up going to bed early so that I would have energy to take a night ferry/bus to Athens, a plane from Athens to Milan, and a train from Milan to Florence, and then wake up early today to start school.

My last day was pretty fun, everyone from the hostel was hung over and we all chilled on the beach together. We dug a massive sand pit to compete with some 8-year-old German kids that were throwing sand at us. It’s amazing how much sand you can move when you have a dozen 18-25 year olds working towards the same goal. Needless to say, our sand pit put those little kids to shame.

Its been a while!

So much has happened since the last time I posted! I've honestly been having too much fun to be posting blogs! Here's the rundown, I'll try not to forget anything...

After Milan I took the train up to Rome with the intention of seeing that city and then working my way back up to Florence.

Rome was surprisingly nice! I don't know if it was just because of the contrast with Naples, but it seemed so clean, simple and organized. The first day I got in to town I went to the Coliseum and took a guided tour of it. The thing that really surprised me was how small it was. After watching Gladiator it seemed so massive, so I was pretty disappointed by that. I had heard that they had staged naval battles there because it was so big, but in reality it was too small to be very good for that, so they only did 2 battles there before moving the event to the Circus Maximus. In reality, it felt closer to a high school gymnasium than the Rose Garden.

I also went to the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel -- another thing that was disappointingly small! Don't get me wrong, the artwork and the colors were spectacular, but the keyword there is "Chapel." I was expecting something like a massive cathedral/basilica, but it was actually just one room within the Vatican Museum.

The hostel I stayed at was also very small but extremely friendly. They supplied breakfast and dinner every night, and everyone was forced into a small commons area with standing room only, so it was a very social environment. Everyone went on pub-crawls every night, so that was a lot of fun exploring the city with a bunch of other drunken tourists.

During a dinner/pub crawl I met this Canadian guy named Pacey, a couple of Aussie girls (Sarah and Pele), and this Irish guy named Andy. I should say that the Irish are 100% cool so far, I don’t know what it is but I have never met an Irishman that I haven’t liked. This guy was totally Irish too, talking about how his great grandma drank 2 pints of Guinness a day for her entire life, and lived to be 105 years old.

But I digress. It turns out that Sarah and Pele were heading to Greece, but they didn’t know where. Pacey had been to this island named Corfu that he really liked and recommended going there. The Irish guy didn’t know where to go after Rome, and I was planning on just killing some time in Florence before school started.

I’m not sure how it happened but we all ended up going to Greece together. I’ll write about that in the next post so that this doesn’t get too long…

So Italian

Ha ha ha, Naples is freaking crazy. There was a MASSIVE pile of garbage outside my hostel that someone ended up burning because nobody was getting around to picking it up. Now the public transportation is on strike -- for no reason really. Someone told me that in Italy, the Unions are so powerful that they often go on strike to remind people that they can. I was talking to a person who immigrated from Palestine, he said that if you can live in Naples for a few months, you can live anywhere.

I do like it though. Naples has its problems, but there is a lot of beauty here too. The coast is beautiful, the Tyrrhenian sea is warm, and the history is amazing.

Yesterday I went to Pompeii with my friends Peter and Dianne. We missed our stop and ended up riding the bus for 2 hours longer than we would have had to. It was entertaining though. Our bus driver was messing with us, even though he barely spoke a word of English. He was trying to tell us that we had to walk back, then he changed it to "OK - €20," and then he kept trying to steal Peter's peach that he was saving for lunch. It loses something when you write about it, but it was all pretty funny. We walked around Pompeii for a few hours, it was absolutely huge. I didn't get any pictures though because my camera broke, and now I can't afford to do anything because I spent all my extra money on a new one! There is a beautiful waterfront street nearby, I am going to go go sit, read and eat gelato this afternoon.

Back on the road

I just arrived in Naples! This city is...

Well...

Cook's Tourist's Handbook of 1884 stated:

"Naples is an ill-built, ill-paved, ill-lighted, ill-drained, ill-watched, ill-governed, ill-ventilated city."

I don't think much has changed! This has by far the craziest, most disorganized traffic system I have ever seen.

Seems a lot more dirty and disorganized than Paris. A lot of crosswalks on extremely busy streets don't even have signals. Its kind of cool watching the locals calmly walk across the road in the midst of speeding cars on a road that doesn't have lanes. I tend to wait for a slight slowdown in traffic and then run for my life until I reach the other side.

I read that when seatbelts became manditory in italy, people in Naples started wearing shirts with pictures of seatbelts on them. I think everyone in this town has a death wish.

But I am excited to see the other places close to the town. I'm going to see the ruins at Pompei tomorrow and then take a ferry to the Amalfi coast or the island of Capri the day after that.

Second Home

It sucks; it almost feels like a family is breaking up. I was watching The Godfather with some friends here at the hostel, and Pablo turns to me and says, “God it feels like this is my home.” He was totally right! New people are coming into the hostel and its like “what are you doing here? I didn't invite you.” It's cool though, they are all nice, it's just not the same though. Anyways, Pablo and Carla took off, the other day, John took off today, it feels like I had the perfect group of people in my life and now they are leaving. It’s cool though! The house with Tai, David, and Marcos will be really great, it still feels like a second home here in Italy.

Yesterday I went to Rimini with this girl named Petra from Argentina. She was totally great, I really get along with the South Americans. I will try to keep in touch with her, she felt like such a good old friend even though I only knew her for like 10 hours.

Rimini is this beach town on the Adriatic coast. It was the perfect day for me, just lying on the beach all day and relaxing. I needed it! I The weather was good too, its been perfect since I arrived in Italy.

I went swimming in the Adriatic Sea, which was really nice. I was freaking exhausted from the past couple of days, it was exactly what I needed. But Petra left this morning – Marcos said that the worst part of his job is that he has to say goodbye to people all the time, now I know exactly what he means.

This is the last night for me in the hostel; I have to figure out what I want to do for the next week. I am going to travel for a little while longer and then return to Florence to get the house together and start school.

Best day ever

Yesterday was by far the highlight of this trip. I woke up at about 9 in the morning and me and some friends rented a car to explore the Tuscan countryside. It is absolutely beautiful out here. We went to a bunch of small towns and sampled local wines, cheeses and meats. In one of the towns Tai saw a poster for an opening night party for this new dance club -- put on by Ministry of Sound who are supposedly the best you can get for House(techno) music. Not usually my kind of thing, but I didn't fly 5000 miles to not try new things. Anyways, one of the people we were hanging out with is fluent in Italian, so he called and got us on the list, and we bought some cheese, olives, bread, sausage and Chianti and brought it back to the hostel to eat and get ready.

The party was a couple towns away from Florence, and we ended up leaving the hostel until about 11:00pm -- we were all so antsy to leave that we forgot to get directions or an address or anything, we just got on the road. We made it to the town we thought it was in, we drove around for a while and didn't find anything, so we asked someone who pointed us in the general direction but pretty much said that we had no chance of ever finding it. It is a total "locals only" club, its out in the middle of nowhere in a sort of industrial park/warehouse area between towns. We drove around for a while, ended up driving through a f*ing castle and almost off a cliff, and after asking a few more people for general directions, and with a lot of luck we actually found it. We finished the last of my Absinthe in the parking lot and went in.

It was actually a lot of fun, we ended up outlasting most of the locals and stayed until 5:00am when they finally turned the lights on. Poor Pablo, the absinthe didn't sit with him and he spent the last 3 hours puking in the parking lot -- but even he says it was totally worth it.

I ended up getting back to the hostel and going to bed at 6 in the morning, and we had to get up at 10 to return the car. The night before I didn't get much sleep because I was out until 4 in the morning playing darts against some really nice Irishmen (America won!), so I am running myself a little ragged. Pablo is still hung over, and Tai took a 5 day trip up to Amsterdam, so I look foreword to some sleep tonight.

Holy shit I'm moving to Italy!

Wow, I can’t believe how much shit is coming together here. I am starting to get a little bit scared because too much random shit just worked out in such a perfect way. I wasn’t even supposed to be in Italy right now! I still have hostels booked in Austria that are going to be charging me for not showing up. I wasn’t even supposed to be here, and now I am going to stay.

Anyways, I signed up for the 6-week language program, and convinced Tye to stay with me too. Tye was not even going to come to Florence either, and when he did he was only going to stay for one night.

My hostel manager, Marcos, has been living and working in the hostel for 2 years now. He loves it, but you can’t be stuck in one place for so long and he just needs a break. When he found out that we wanted to stay for 6 weeks and would need his help to find an apartment, he said that if we wanted to stay for 6 months instead, he would get an apartment with us. It makes it 10 times easier to have him deal with the logistics of apartment contracts and dealing with landlords in Italian

So that’s it! I’m staying in Florence for at least 6 months now! I’ll probably extend the language program over that entire time too; I am going to be fucking great at Italian. This is exactly the thing that I needed. This is exactly why I came out here. I don’t know why or how the hell this all worked out, but I feel like this is exactly where I need to be.

Anyways, to keep the current events updated, two days ago I went to some museum (I can’t remember the name) and saw the most amazing art. It featured the Birth Of Venus, the first and last paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci’s career. They also had on display a lot of sketches, the Vitruvian Man, his famous self-portrait, a lot of his sketchbooks and notes. It was absolutely amazing.

I love this city!

I love it here!

Wow, I am definitely going to stay in Florence for a while. I just signed up for a 6 week Italian lanuage program which starts on October 16. It was recommended to me by an American who works at my hostel, he took it a while ago and he became fluent. 6 week course+ accomidation for only $1400!

ALSO I just saw this flier for a Tool concert here in November. I practically have a religious experience every time I listen to them, and I've never seen them live! I have to go.

*Originally written on Thursday, September 28, 2006*

Wow, let me just say that I love Italy. Florence is an amazing city, and I am staying at a wicked cool hostel.

Shit, I love it here.

Yesterday I took the train down from Venice. That is a very beautiful city. It was sunny and the canals had such a wonderful teal color to them, which is a nice change from the brown water that I am used to back home and in northern Europe. I walked around Venice for a few hours with this Australian girl and New Zealand guy, at which point I realized that there is absolutely jack-sh*t to do in Venice so I moved on to Florence the next day.

This is such a beautiful city! I can’t believe it sometimes. I walked around all day with the New Zealand guy, who stayed here in the afternoon. I went to that famous dome, which I can’t remember who built it or why, and went up a hill which overlooks the entire city.

Anyways, I went back to the hostel and the manager/owner of this place is a super nice guy named Marcos. He took everyone in the hostel out to a wonderful Italian restaurant where I had Spaghetti with wild boar and a plate of assorted meats. Venetian steak is an interesting dish, pretty much raw beef, but Marcos and this other guy who is living her absolutely love it. We all went through a couple bottles of red wine (there was 12 of us, so that wasn’t hard) and then we went up and bought a couple bottles of this local hard licker and more wine and drank that in the park.

Everyone here is so nice, and I love Italians!

I came back to the hostel for a quick shot of the Absinthe, which I bought during the 3 hours I stayed in the Czech Republic, and I went to a bar with this guy from Hawaii, a couple people from chili, some guy from Australia, and another dude from the UK. The bar was pretty lame actually, but I was drunk enough to not care. I ended up walking around with the UK guy for a while because we got lost while he was buying cigarettes and ended up stumbling back into the hostel about a half an hour after everyone else. This is most definitely hangover number 2, but I have never been so content with a hangover in my life.

I came, I saw, I got the hell out

Wow, I've had a long couple of days. I've been travelling for 28 hours, but now I am here in Venice and it is absolutely beautiful.

Here's the story in a nutshell - On the train to Prague I ran into a girl that I met in Seattle once at Annie's 21st birthday party. It was totally random and it worked out that she was with a school group, so I had like 40 Americans to hang out with in Prague. We got there, it turns out that Czech Republic doesn't honor my Eurail pass and I had to pay extra. I was confused on my stop and stayed on when everyone else got off. Nobody at the stop I got off at could speak English, or they were just choosing to ignore me, so it took me 3 hours to work my way by train back to the stop I was supposed to get off at. By that point I just decided that the Czech Republic just wasn't for me so I got back on the train and headed to Vienna. I had to spend the night in the Vienna train station on a metal bench with metal arm rails, and caught the early morning train to Venice. 26 hours of travel isn't bad.

It was totally worth it this morning when I saw some of the south Austrian countryside from the train, some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. I regret not staying in that country, I will have to try to make time for it again someday. For now I am going to head south to Florence and see how I like it there. Maybe I can hang out for a while, explore around the city, learn some Italian and get a little work done.

German Food

I think the food in Germany is the best I have had so far. Today for lunch I had a whole wheat roll with cheese and ham, an 18 inch weinerschnitzel, a deep fried bread thing, some kind of pepper stuffed with a feta-like cheese, a super creamy soft serve ice cream, and washed it down with a half-liter if dark beer. I think I could get fat here.

I needed it though! Yesteday I went for a 30 kilometer bike ride along the Elbe, that along with all the walking/hiking I've been doing, I don't want to get too low on my calories. I am f*ing sore though, I've barely touched a bike for like 5 years, and the one I rented was kind of falling apart. It was fun though!

Deep in Nazi territory...

*Originally written on Thursday, September 21*

Dresden is actually a pretty kick ass little town. I wish I had a group of friends with me because I don’t much care for going out at night when I am by myself. But it is the perfect mix of old world vibe and small college town. I don’t think there is actually a college nearby, but this street that I am staying in has over 150 bars/restaurants and a lot of young people. I’m also on the same street as a couple of record stores and about 3 bookstores. It is difficult for me though, because almost nobody here speaks English. Somebody explained to me that the town is so far east that most people choose Russian as their second language. If I could actually talk to the people here, I think this would be the place for me.

Yesterday was actually a pretty big day for me. I went hiking at this national park that is nearby. It was pretty funny though, when I was packing for the day trip I was making a much bigger deal out of it than it had to be. I was thinking in my head “Ok, if this shit goes south I need to be prepared for the worst. I might have to spend the night out there if I get lost.” I packed my good jacket and my compass and a supply of food and water. When I got out there I found myself on a paved path in a sea of geriatrics. Not to say that the hike was easy, I am pretty impressed at the difficulty of the mountains that those old Germans can climb. It was very beautiful out there too; I think Dad could have gotten some great pictures.

When I got back to the hostel I met a group of California guys that are out here on vacation. They were actually all really cool, I ended up staying out and drinking with them until 5:30 in the morning. Needless to say, I finally woke up with the first hangover of my trip.

They all headed to Prague this morning, the invited me to come but I am staying here through Sunday night. There lot of boring sh*t that I want to get done right now. I found this Italian language program that I really want to attend which starts October 23, and I am already a little late to apply. If I can start then, I can take the 6-week program and have 1 day left to get off the continent or else they will kick me off for 10 years. Or at least, that’s the idea, I have heard of a lot of people staying longer than 3 months with no problem. Seems like Europeans make a lot of rules that nobody really enforces. But I think I will try to leave to England at that time anyways, immigration policies are not something that I want to mess with. It’s a shame though, I really would like to have a few more months to practice the material that I spent 6 hours a day learning.

Germany

This part of Germany really isn't that cool, I wish I could head to Oktoberfest but the best deal I could find was one night in a 40 person dorm room for 40 Euro. Apparently you have to book a stay in Munich well in advance for this time of year.

Yes, Fernando is most definitely a little light in the loafers, but by all means a harmless and well intentioned fellow. And I should clarify that he wasn't "showing me around" Paris, he didn't know that the F was going on either. A city like Paris is just much less intimidating when you aren't alone -- when you aren't the only one that the shop owners are hating. Though I probably would have enjoyed Paris more if I was with someone that wasn't complaining so much.

He's flying home tomorrow, and I'll be heading to a town called Dresden in eastern Germany for 4 nights. It looks like that will be a really cool town actually, and only a 2 hour train ride from Prague.

I do sometimes wonder what the hell I am doing out here. On one hand, travelling pretty much consists of hanging out with people and walking a lot. I'm not sure if that is all that I want to accomplish in my life right now lol. But on the other hand, I do feel like a much different person than when I left. It is honestly hard to imagine that I was living in Camas just 2 weeks ago.

Sprichst du englisch?

Frankfurt is really a clean, nice city. Its a welcomed break from the hustle and bustle of Paris. The hostel is amazingly clean and nice for only 20 Euro a night.

Today I got a break from Fernando because he was sleeping and I met a Kiwi (New Zealand) girl named Sarah that I walked around the city all day with. Don't get me wrong, he is such a nice guy! He's just really hard to handle all day by myself. Tomorrow we'll rent a volkswagen and drive to some of the smaller German cities that are out there.

Germany that I have seen so far is totally different from Paris. Everything is so clean and well organized. The people seem so much more simple, nice, and friendly. I was hoping to go to Oktoberfest this weekend, but I don't think I will be able to find a convenient enough sleeping arrangement. Damn. Sarah did help me pick out a really bitchin Gortex/Fleece jacket so I might wind up heading to Austria instead to try it out.

Moving on

Wow, for such a metropolitan city, reliable Internet was amazingly hard to come by in Paris. wish I could have posted regularly while I was out there.

It's odd, I really didn't think that my country was interesting or at all cool while I was home, but now that I am abroad, immersed in all these interesting customs and cultures, I have never been more proud to be an American. All these cultures have really taught me to be proud of where I come from. Not that I think America is superior, but its a beautiful thing to be proud of where you come from. Then again, it could just be because I like to act like I think America is perfect when I'm joking with people from other countries. I accidentally cut in front of some people going into Notre Dame, and when my Brazilian friend pointed it out I just said, "It's OK, I'm American. These colors don't run."

Paris really was an amazing city, but I was really happy to leave. I really don't think that Paris is really for me. Fernando was kind of getting on my nerves too. He was complaining all the time, slow, high maintenance, and weird, but he's a really good guy and extremely well intentioned. Hanging out with him has really taught me a lot of patience, but I have to admit that Paris would have been much more cold, lonely, and confusing without him.

I got to see a lot om amazing things while I was there: the Louvre, Pompadou, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, Rodin's Garden, etc. Seeing the Mona Lisa in person was totally surreal. I caught a lot of really lucky breaks too. For one, the louvre was free on Friday nights, so I saved money there. They were performing mass at both Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame while I was visiting both of those places, so each time I got in for free and I got to witness the rituals that they have been performing there for hundreds of years. I was actually pretty drunk at the Notre Dame mass, so that one was a lot more fun, I just hope that I didn't disturb anyone. My favorite part of Paris was this "Parade" that they threw on Saturday. I don't know why they were doing it, but they drove dozens of floats/trucks around the streets of Paris, each one blasting techno music with its own DJ. I swear that every Parisian under 30 years old showed up for it -- the streets were literally wall to wall packed with people following the floats and dancing on top of every flat surface that they could find. It was really an amazing site. Unfortunately, Fernando insisted that he had to check his bus ticket at that exact moment, so I had to leave after about 30 minutes. He complained about the crowd the whole time, and the bus station was closed when we got there, so he was fine checking it on Sunday instead. That was really irritating as you can imagine, but I suppose that I am really lucky because I would have never experienced that in the first place if it wasn't for him.

The only thing that really bothers me about him is how much he smothers me, always talking and always saying things like "Oh Dani, I can't stand to spend one hour away from you. I'm going to cry when we leave. I'm going to change my name to 'Fernando Buck Christopher.'" But I've been managing to find other people to hang out with us during the day and he is a lot more pleasant to be around then because it takes a lot of the pressure off of me. But as soon as they leave, he is always trying to hug me and being too touchy and just talking too damn much.

Parlez-vous engles?

The Parisians are an interesting bunch. I have met some really amazing, really friendly, really helpful people that go out of their way to make sure that this poor American boy find’s his way. But the shop owners, the only people that really have anything to gain by my presence, are so rude! They really don’t appreciate me being there. I always ask “Parlez-vous engles?” And they respond “No, do you speak French?” They have really weird rules too -- I can buy a coke for 3 euro, but if I want to sit, it will cost 5.

But France has been good. I went to the Eiffel Tower (of course), walked Champs-Elissez(sp?) and went to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. Ferdinand and I ran into an extremely famous soap opera actress/sex symbol from Brazillian television. At least that’s what Ferdinand told me, he was really excited to meet her.

Ferdinand is growing on me, he is such a nice guy, but he still gets on my nerves a little bit. That kid will not stop talking! Jesus Christ, I know his entire life story from one full day of hanging out, even stuff he says that nobody knows back home. Brazilians definitely get a little smothering, and he takes so long to do anything. I do really appreciate his company though.

Today, my hostel was overbooked by 19 people, so I have to change places. The new hostel will be close to Notre Dam, so that will be cool. I haven’t had a chance to see what any bars are like in Paris though, I just hope I get a chance to have a few beers before moving on to a new city.

Brazil

Wow, Brazilians are f*ing intense. I feel so bad -- Fernando, my brazilian friend, is such a nice, sweet, friendly guy. I definitely couldn't make it through paris without him, and he's really a cool guy. But I am just feeling so damn smuthered. Brazilian people are just sooooooo touchy feely and its really just kind of getting on my nerves.

Viva La France

Little change of plans -- I'm in Paris now. Its amazing! The Eiffel Tower was hands down one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Much better than the statue of liberty, as my brazillian friend put it.

Anyways, I was on a train heading to Bruges, and I started talking to this Brazillian guy and this local girl who was heading to Ghent. The were both like "What the hell are you doing in Bruges? You should just go to paris instead." Seemed like they had a good point, so here I am in France! Paris is a huge, confusing city, luckily this smelly French girl helped us find the metro line to get to our hotel. All the locals have been suprisingly nice and helpful so far.

Anyways, I am sleeping at a place called the Aloha Hostel. I am using their public computer and its really difficult for me to type on the QWERTY keyboard and I don't want to rack up too much of a bill on this thing, so I'll have to write more later.

aNether day

My new hotel room is an extremely nice change from the squeaky bunk bed that I spent the previous week on. Usually the hotel charges 200 euro a night for that room, but with the deal that I found online and with Jessie covering some extra cost, I am only paying 35.

I decided to leave for Bruges on Thursday morning. There isn't a whole lot more I want to do here, but I am really starting to get into the groove of things. Amsterdam is really an amazingly beautiful city. Some of the dutch rules are a little funky though. Last night I was hanging out in a coffeeshop, and I went to grab a snack and came back. The bartender got majorly pissed at me, and it weirded me out because they are cool with people smoking marijuana and doing mushrooms in there, but eating falafel is totally crossing the line.

I think that today I am going to spend the afternoon in Vondelpark reading. I plan on reading a lot on this trip, so if anyone has any good book recommendations, please let me know!

I also want to sample as much beer and food as possible before I move on, maybe I'll try to meet some more locals too. I still can't believe how many attractive people there are in this town! I mean, I've really been trying to keep a mental tally, and I swear there are more attractive women in this town than unattractive. Everyone is in such good shape from riding their bikes everywhere, it's such a change coming from an overweight country like America.

Capoeira

Today was totally rad. I met up with Roxanne, who was working at my first hotel, and Jessie. We hung out for a while, went to a chineese place and then played a couple games of pool. We had to drop off Roxanne at the train station and then stopped at a coffee shop where we hung out with a street musician from Bostond and then some Capoeira performers stopped by.

Anyways, Jessie is passed out and snoring across the room and I am freaking tired myself, so I'll write more tomorrow.

More europe

Wow, I guess you can't talk about Ireland as being part of the UK or the British Isles lol. I was talking to this Irishman over breakfast and totally offended him. He got frustrated but then patiently explained it to me, so that's cool.

I'm not sure what I am going to do today. I booked a new hotel for the next three days with Jessie, which is a lot nicer than the dorm style bunk beds I was living in this past week. I'm also going to head down to the train station to see about getting the Eurail Flexi-Pass. Maybe I'll head down to Vondelpark or a cafe and read a bit. I don't know, I am kind of getting tired of the Netherlands! I think I am going to cut this leg of the trip a little short and move on to Belgium on Wednesday. There isn't a whole lot here for a guy like me. I met a guy who came to Amsterdam for the drugs and prostitution, and even he is starting to get bored of the place.

New friends

I've met some pretty cool people so far. That Ferederico guy that I mentioned before lives in Rome, I will have to stop by and say "Hi" when I am in that area. I totally like Italians, I like their attitudes and language. Plus, like 80% of all the girls I've dated have been at least half-italian. Definitely seems like the place for me.

I've been hanging out with this other guy named Jessie from Colorado. He's this hippie dude, I definitely don't agree with some of his lifestyle choices. He is a totally nice, generous guy and he is definitely interesting to talk to, so thats cool. Plus, I have a place to stay in colorado right next to a ski resort if I am ever so inclined, so thats awesome.

Europeans

I really do like the Europeans, and the European way of life. I pretty much just walk around all day, stop at any sights or galleries that catch my eye, and enjoy a leisurely lunch at a cafe by a canal. I mean, I am going to have to figure out when and how I will ever get any more work done, but so far I have to admit I have been really enjoying a simple life. My calves are really sore from all the walking though! It is hard to get started once I have sat down somewhere.

The food is really freaking rich though! I had a slice of pizza and all I could taste was the butter. It tasted like I was eating one giant stick of butter. Most times that wouldn't be such a bad idea, but I'm not too sure about butter flavored pizza.

What I've really learned from the Europeans so far is that it is good to connect with people and be open, but connecting most definitely does not mean agreeing. It is good to say no and push the argument a little bit. I usually kind of strive to find common ground a little too much, even trying to find the small parts of opinions to agree with even if I don't agree with the overall message. It's a lot more fun be more like "hell no, its more like this..."

Opening Negen Straatjes

Opening Nine Streets.

The dutch are awesome! Apparently they just finished repaving 9 small streets a few blocks out of downtown, and that was reason enough to throw a party. They had a small marching band and balloons and everything, just because their streets got new bricks in them.

I ended up sleeping for about 12 hours last night, so I think that was about the last of the jet-lag weirdness. Not that it was an uninterrupted 12 hours, somebody outside my window started blasting Mexican polka music right outside my window at about 2 in the morning.

Yesterday the compass in my watch got totally stuck. I went to an outdoor store and they couldn't figure it out either, so I had to end up getting a little plastic compass. The compass is the only reason that I picked out this damn watch! I could have just saved $300 and just bought a cheap plastic compass in the first place.

But other than that yesterday was pretty cool, I went to Madame Tussuad's which was actually a lot cooler than I was expecting. The "scary" part was actually pretty freaky. They had a screen with night vision right after the scary part so that you can see all the people behind you get totally freaked by the stuff that you went through, which was pretty funny. And the sculptures were so real! Sometimes it was hard to tell the other tourists apart from the statues.

I also went to the "Experience Heineken" museum. It was an old Heineken factory that they converted inta a tourist attraction. It was totall cheesy and boring, but the had some lame/funny rides. One ride was supposed to show you what it is like to be a bottle in the heineken factory. The 10 euro price of admission was totally worth it though, since it came with 3 beers and a pretty nice bottle opener.

Fitting in

Its nice, I seem to be blending in with the europeans really well. A lot of times people will come up to me and just start talking gibberish, and then I ask "what?" and they say "Oh, English?"

And then after that they still assume that I mean England.

I think it must be the faux-hawk.

people are strange, when you're a stranger...

Ok, its the morning of the 3rd day and I'm starting to get into the groove of things now. Foreign people are starting to grow on me and I am adjusting pretty well. That first day was horrible! I have never felt so lonely in my whole life!

I was lying in bed, thinking that there is no shame in buying a plane ticket home. I don't give a shit about foreign people or museums, what the hell am I doing here? But then I met my roommates and they were pretty cool. Alex from Spain and Frederico from Italy. They were both chain smoking potheads, but really nice!

Yesterday was a pretty relaxing day. I went to the Van Gogh museum and walked around the Vondelpark for a while. At night me and Frederico walked around the red light district. Those hookers scare me! I always see a woman standing in the window in lingerie or a bikini and just assume its a mannequin... then she'll wink at me or something and I get totally startled!

Today I have got to change rooms, and then I will probably go see the Anne Frank house and wax museum or something.

I'm here!

I just got in to Amsterdam, welcomed by some of the grayest skies I have ever seen. From the parts I've seen so far, it does seem like a very beautiful/historical city. Plenty of attractive women too :D

The plane ride actually wasn't bad, but the first leg to Chicago was by far the best. I got bumped up to Economy Plus, so there was a lot more leg room and they sat me next to this really cool girl flying home to Boston. The big flight from Chicago to Amsterdam was much more cramped, and they sat me next to a stinky arab dude.

You win some, you lose some.

Now I have made it through customs and I am wandering the city trying to find a place to sleep tonight and wash myself. I'm actually not too tired at the moment, pretty good considering I only dozed off for about 2 hours on the plane, and I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before because of nerves.

Test post

Hey, this is my first post on my word travel blog. Just wanting to see how the whole thing works. Its August 22 now, I leave in about two weeks. I'm totally stoked for this thing, lets hope it all goes well