Check out my photo highlights from the trip

Check out our route

Neuschwanstein

Neuschwanstein, originally uploaded by blaumond.

So we had a magical fairy tale adventure yesterday. Andrea has an obsession with castles rivaled by no one else I have ever met. The weather was very gloomy on the way over there, showing no signs of any sun in our future - just a lot of rain and snow. Yes, snow. An interesting dialog developed on our way to Castle Neuschwanstein. It went something like this:

Blake: Hey Andrea, I think if the sun comes out, it means that you are meant to be married in a castle.
Chris: I think that would mean that you are meant to be married in this castle.
Andrea: (smiling, nodding, giggling)
Justin: You'll probably have to get a German boyfriend for that to happen.
Andrea: Well we are going to the Haufbrahaus tonight. Maybe I'll meet one there.
Justin: ...
Blake: Zing.

update: the sun came out while we were at the castle.

alright, ok, i suck at blogging...i more than suck at blogging actually, nicely pointed out by our friend blake. however, i figured i would take this little down time and share a couple of stories regarding our travels.

1. on my date with andrea in paris....she set the fire alarm off in the louvre. i tried to run through the exit at the subway (long story why) and the door shut in my face, therefore i slammed into a glass wall in front of about fifty people, andrea pretended she didnt know me

2. sans pluuuuuuuuuuuu

3. blake wanted to hit a guy with a pipe in berlin. this guy had been hitting on his sister all night long and tried to make friends with blake. in the process he tried to explain that he knew and understood blakes protective actions. in fact he stated that he would probably wanna hit whoever was hitting on his sister with a pipe....Blakes mature response, "is that what you want me to do? Hit you in the head with a pipe!"

4. Bongour

5. playing ping pong at an underground bar in budapest, and stumbling around trying to get the ping pong ball out from the tables while completely annoying the locals.

6. running in every city, especially berlin and madrid

7. andrea trying to german at the underground bar in budapest. .. bar tenders response, "speak english please"

8. wearing my american eagle sweatshirt around which blatantly advertises that i am a tourist...good stuff for the conservatives out there.

9. getting lost in kutna hora...interesting/maybe a tad nerve racking (refer to seamus)

10. having to walk absolutely forever, to get back to the hostel last night

11. hoffbrauhaus in munich...if you cant have fun there, you suck

12. by the way, speaking of munich, blakes dinner at the hoffbrauhaus closely resembled a deuce

13. robert, kerstin, and marlene...absolutely amazing hospitality...just what we needed

14. and finally creepy train station stories...i absolutely will not miss sleeping on trains

Trip to kutna hora: after reading in "lets go europe" of an interesting bone church made of human bones, andrea, justin, and i opted to take the one hour train to the small town outside prague. despite lets go saying that trains came every hour, we had to wait two and a half hours for the next train. after taking the train we got off in kutna hora to discover that there was another train leaving for the town ( we were at fake kutna hora) that we had to run to catch. twenty minutes on this one car trolley left us in soggy small town. knowing that the church closed in thirty minutes we looked at the directions to the church frantically. it said, quite literally, "go right, left, then right again and walk to the end of the street". with absolutely no direction of reference we started speed walking. twenty meters out of the station a man with a heavy accent told us that we were headed the wrong way and that city center was in the oposite direction. we turned around and wondered for about forty minutes. we found an boarded up old church (no bones) and then walked through town. we were in remnants of the czech soviet block, huge apartment complexes with signs that said no guns were everywhere. every person we saw looked at us like we were crazy. we shortly gave up our search and tried to find our way back to the station. stopping at a market for some food, we found bread that looked like it had been squished an manhandled systematically all day long. we grabbed some candy bars and continued on our way. seeing a bar-restaurant we decided to eat with the locals. the menu was written in czech and above it hung a picture of an artificially well endowed woman hugging her chest. ignoring it we wandered in and grabbed a table. everyone in the place stared at us, especially andrea. the only woman in sight was the waitress. it appeared as if no woman had ever entered the establishment without an apron on. andrea was a pioneer. a real susan b.. we could not understand anything on the menu so we satisfied ourselves with a beer each. while drinking, six older men walked in and sat at our table. one sat very close to andrea. the seemed genial enough and talked with us extensively. unfortunately they spoke no english and we spoke no czech. this did not inhibit them in the slightest. they continued to talk at us and amongst themselves while frequently pointing to us. occasionally they would present us with what little english they knew like "what time is it" and "how do you do". after hastily finishing our drinks we left while they all very politely said goodbye in a falsetto staccato. we found our way back to the train station while occasionally taking pictures of dilapitated buildings. on the train ride back, we passed a huge church about a kilometer from the station in the direction we were initially headed before we turned around. all and all an interesting day trip.

A couple words on Prague...first of all do not ever go to a currency exchange...not only do they rip you off on the exchange rate but I had this encounter. I was only in Prague for the rest of the day. Amelia and I wanted to go into a museum which cost 190 crowns. So I decide to go to the currency exchange and trade in 10 euros to get 217 crowns. The lady gives me 117 and I knock on the window to let her know about her mistake. She then insists that she gave me 200 and I told her that if she gave me 200 I would have left. The next 30 mins I just insisted that I get my money or get her manager. She calls her manager 3 times and finally she shows up. They count the cash for a fourth time and miraculously the safe is perfectly balanced. The manager said I could write and complain...I told her that I didn't give a damn to complain about 5 euros it's just the fact that I was only in Prague for 4 more hours and just wanted a few bills of their crappy currency to get me through the day.

Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall Graffiti Spring 1989, originally uploaded by davidcharding.

Here is a photo of the Berlin Wall. Andrea and Justin ran along the wall and crossed from East Berlin into West Berlin, through the death strip and back again. This is something that wouldn't have been possible 20 years ago - pretty amazing.

Today I was reading a book at the train station, and some guy came up to me and asked if I had two or three euros for him. I said no, and he walked away. I watched as he asked a few more people with little success. five minutes later, he came back to me, and with a smile on his face he said in a German accent:

"You know, I do this 10 hrs a day, and I make an average of about 200 euros. I have a house in Miami, and $200,000 in the bank. The people love to help out the street people. But it's not just me...there are five of us. We are a team."

Then he told me, that you just have to keep it real. And he sang what he said was a Jennifer Lopez lyric, about keeping it real. An interesting encounter - but what a low life.

Amazing Amsterdam soccer guy

We actually saw this guy in Amsterdam 2 nights ago, and saw all the tricks from this video in person!! Unbelievable...

Beard Time

"Does your beard always come in all...white trashy like that?"



So Chris and I have decided not to shave the whole time we are in Europe. I think it's going uhh...pretty uhhh...pretty good. Just kidding, I hate it. But we have a pact...and that's something special.

So we will forever be indebted to Robert, Kirsten, and Marlene's increddible hopitality. What can compare to a clean shower, amazing home cooked meals, and our own personal guide to Hamburg!

I aplogize to Justin for the romantic comments. I promise I will keep my mouth shut from now on. ;)

Justin and I had creepy train guy #2 waiting for the second train from Amsterdam to Hamburg. This guy kept pacing back and forth on the platform in a weird suit jacket, no bags or briefcase, a crazy look in his eye, and blood in the crevice of his chin. Of course, he proceeds to stop right behind us and breathe down our necks with a crazed man look in his eye. Luckily the train came and we got away. Both our trains that day were crazy because the people around us were partying at 9:30 AM. We saw guys take down at 6 beers in 1 hour. Impressive.

So, I pretty much suck at blogging. I'll try to catch up a little. A couple funny moments:

- Chris having his bag searched at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower and the look on the guard's face when he pulled out Chris' backgammon game, held it up to his ear and shook it.

- Seeing The DaVinci Code with the French (see Chris' post on it)

- "G-A-R-T-H"..."G-R?-T?"

- Andrea in the sex museum...awww

- Whatever the hell Chris ate at the Amsterdam McDonald's...a fried patty of beef stroganoff maybe?

- The crazy soccer dude in late-night Amsterdam who juggled a ball on his head while climbing a lamp post and then proceded to bounce the ball from his head to his feet 15 feet in the air...amazing!

- Robert and Kirsten's unending hospitality and everyone's obsession with their kitchen and modern style...so cool.

- Thinking we missed our train stop for Hamburg. Chris, Blake and I actually put our packs on, were about to get off the train and the door closed so we were stuck on the train and we were sure that we had missed our stop. We procedued to push the alarm and attempted to make an emergency exit...all to no avail. We laughed hysterically as we pulled away from the station thinking we were heading for Berlin or somewhere equally wrong but in the end our stop was the next one all along.

That's all I've got right now. I'll try to stop sucking at remembering to blog. Luckily everyone else has done a good job covering everything. Especially the romantic moments...none of that from me, sorry. :)

Well its been a long time since my last blog. Since then, we've ran into a lot of creepy people, saw some pretty cool sights, and traveled through a lot of different cities. Madrid and Barcelona, Spain were amazing cities for architecture and night life. However, due to my companions lack of enthusiasm, we didn't make it to one of the crazy nightclubs. An old grandmother either tried to pick-pocket me or feel my butt on the subway...it was weird. From there we traveled to Paris where we covered a lot of ground. Me and Blake were worn out after each day, but Andrea the turbo tourist was in rare form dragging us from sight to sight. Yes, I smelled lilacs and took Andrea on a date. But just for the record, the picture taken by Blake was a complete pose. On the way to Amsterdam I woke up to everybody freaking out about a creepy guy named Garth and afraid of walking through the red light district. I slept through the whole thing so you'll have to refer to Chris's post on that. In Amsterdam we went to a sex museum and saw a crazy butt statue with eyes that farted every couple minutes before walking through the red light district. A crazy place, but most of the people walking around were tourists just like us. Hamburg has been a great rest for us. Kirsten and Robert have really treated us great. Great meals, hot showers, and soft beds were definitely needed to help us finish off the rest of the trip.

Sorry, but this post will not be as romantic as kissing on top of the Eiffel Tower with the lights of Paris twinkling below, good job Justin way to one up yourself on smelling lilacs...

So just to add to the whole Amsterdam experience Blake and I had a run in with a crazy guy on a shady train at about 3 in the morning. We were all sitting in the train and we were the only ones in the whole car. Then a guy comes on who has obviously been indulging in the pleasures of the night. He begins speaking gibberish in a language that none of us had heard before, let alone speak. Andrea and Justin were both passed out and the crazy man was speaking in their direction. He finally sits down and begins to whistle. Blake and I immediately start laughing. I turn to look over my right shoulder and when I do the crazy guy is staring right at me. I begin to worry that he might be a little pissed about our laughing. He begins talking to me in his crazy language and I tell him that I can't understand him. Blake was a big help by laughing the entire time. All of a sudden Andrea bolts awake and tries to interpret and then just falls back asleep. Finally the guy says "would you rather I speak English". I say yes. He then asks me and Blake if we are American and we say yes. He then goes on to say "American's and their big guts, big f'n mouths, big cars, big homeless and big unemployment." He asked me if I even knew what work was and I said maybe not...whatever...he then tells us his dad hated Americans and that he had passed away...he then said "I think I inherited something from him" speaking of the hatred for Americans. Then he said that maybe we were different. He asked us if we knew any dirty jokes and we told him no...so he decided to tell us some fat woman jokes that were, to say the least, pretty digusting. He told us his name was Garth and I kept mis-hearing him. After the whole ordeal we tried to lose him at the next stop...we were successful...it was actually a pretty creepy experience. Hopefully we don't run into anymore Garth's.

Eiffel Kiss

(please see previous post)

So we've been so busy that there has been no time to blog. But I'll give you a couple of my favorite highlights:

Madrid
1. Our hostel was apparently the red light district hot spot since we saw a number of women working hard for their money each day as we walked in the door. In fact, we saw a transaction go down at 11:00AM - what can you say, some people have needs.

2. The district also had a one stop shop in the sense that our street had a number of sex shops with bridal gown dresses above them . . . interesting.

3. Quote of the day while in the Prado (famous art museum): Amelia and Andrea: ''Justin, did you honestly just compare Bill Clinton to Jesus?'' - oh yes he did!

4. On a serious note, Madrid is a must see. The streets are gorgeous and soooo old. There is no grid pattern so they are hard to follow but that is part of the fun. Absolutely loved seeing the palaces, the squares, and all the parcs.

Barcelona
1. Funniest moment - Justin attempts to book the Paris hostel and can't understand why his e-mail didn't go through. Turns out he spelled @bonjour.com - @bonGour.com. hahahaha

Paris

1. Prison bathrooms at the hostel = no hot water, slight stream of water, and needing to hold the button down like in a McDonald's bathroom.

2. Justin doesn't realize the sweatshirt he packed says American on it in giant letters. He stands out so much in his running shoes, shorts, sweatshirt, and ball cap that a French couple bet each other what part of America Justin is from. (They guessed Atlanta).

3. I'm an idiot and set off an alarm in the Louvre. I wanted to disappear.

4. Justin and I by accident went out the exit of a subway train when we just wanted to switch lines. Justin did not want to have to repay for the ticket, saw the exit door was open and decided to go for it. The door slammed shut in his face and throw him back. Everybody stared and it was hilarious/extremely embarrasing.

5. My Paris serious note = climbing the Notre Dame cathedral is increddible but even more amazing is kissing on top of the Eiffel Tower with the night lights of Paris twinkling in the background.

Amsterdam
1. We had to take 3 trains to get there at 3:30 Am and pay a homeless man 2 euro to show us where the hostel was in the Red Light district.

Ok so it's been a while since the last blog...so there is a lot to catch up on...I probably forgot a lot of stuff so if I think of it later I'll post it. In this blog I'll just start with Paris and take it into the beginning of Amsterdam...So, first of all Paris is a pretty cool city with a lot of cool monuments to see. Amelia and I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. We actually climbed stairs to the first and second viewing decks and then hopped on an elevator to the very top. I didn't think it would be as tall as it actually was...crazy...While in line for the elevator to the top their was a Scottish family standing behind us...there were three brothers (all older...20's and 30's) and their mom dad. The mom was telling one of the boys to keep moving...he became very agitated and yelled stop pushin' in a thick accent. She said "whatever" and then he yelled "stop your f'n pushin"...pretty funny. To top Paris off we went to the Louvre and then Amelia and I went to see The Da Vinci Code. It was a really funny experience. In the movie one of the actors actually said that the "French could never be trusted"...nobody laughed...however, everyone cracked up at the climax of the movie when Tom Hanks says that Sophie is the last decendent of Jesus...good stuff...well I'm off to a sex museum...peace....

I know we have thousands of readers, so I want to apologize for the lack of blog posts lately. It has something to do with the nearest Internet cafe being 2 miles from our hostel.

Here is our tentative travel schedule:
Paris: now - 18th
Amsterdam: 19th
Hamburg: 20,21
Copenhagen: 21,22
Berlin: 23, 24
Prague: 24,25,26
Budapest: 26,27,28
Vienna: 29,30
Interlaken: 31,1
Venice: June 1,2
Florence: 3,4
Cingue Terre: 4,5
Rome: 8

Chris Hiestand loves Rick Steves.

Well hello! My first post, yeah I know, I´m behind the times by trying to write in my journal. Amazing times so far here in Lisbon, Portugal and Madrid, Spain. Justin and I were a bit of a mess yesterday. My nose was running like a faucet, I almost lost my camera, and Justin tripped on his sandals more times than he actually walked forward. Regardless, we had a great time eating anchiove and fried egg and ham tapas at 11:30 at night when most people were also just starting to eat dinner. By the way, I second the Hiestand snoring story. Next time I will join the effort to control such noise.

Madrid, Spain

Alcala Bancos, originally uploaded by Miguel Acedo.

...and here´s another picture that we didn´t really take

Pretty much Madrid is amazing. And I knew I took all those Spanish classes for a reason!

I´m short on time but wanted to share that Chris snored so loud last night I tried to wake him up and turn him over to which he only responded "I´m sleepy." About 5 minutes later he started up again. Greeeeat.

More later...

So, I already wrote this once...I didn´t realize we had a time limit on the internet. Anyway, last night we sat around with some foreigners and drank at the hostel bar. I got two steins and a pint for nine euros, which I thought was a pretty good deal. The people we were drinking with were two Aussies (Kimberly and Kurstin), an Englishman name Matt who a referred to as Max most the night, and a dude named Jamie from LA. We discussed a lot of random stuff and in the end I came out feeling like American´s are definately a little more anal about some things. Late into the night we got kicked out of the lounge area and had to go to our rooms. Supposedly you´re not allowed to drink or eat in your room but I asked the guy at the front desk anyway. I said "cerveza, no?"...he just laughed at me and said "no". Oh well, you have to try. Upstairs I met some Croations who I´m pretty sure were messing with me. I asked them how they say drunk and one dude told me it was pronounce like pussy. He kept making hand gestures to his crotch and saying "puzzay", it was pretty hilarious. Overall Madrid has been pretty sweet, it is an awesome city with plenty of prostitutes (haha)...but it seriously is awesome. Today we´re going to go to a bull fight and some museums...Blake and I are going to make sure that Justin doesn´t buy food for anymore dudes....until next time....peace.....

On our first Eurail train ride, I was the only one without a sleeper car - this had a direct correlation to my inability to sleep. I went to the train bar at 1:30AM to see if anything cool was going on. I was surrounded by about 10 other people, non of which were speaking English. There was a woman talking to two men on my left, and a very drunk man on my right. The man on the right said something to the woman - I could tell from the tone that it wasn´t a compliment. She then flips out and starts yelling at him and swinging at him right in front of my face. She picked up my beer can and acted like she was going to throw it at him...check please.

Last night at a Tapas restaurant, Justin bought dinner for an Englishman named Matt in hopes that Matt might "think better about Americans next time."

This is my first post.
This is day three of the Euro tour and it´s been pretty sweet so far.
Madrid is awesome! The city is packed with people and has a ton to see. Just walking around the city is cool. The hostel we´re staying at is right in the middle of everything. It has a bar, which is pretty cool. We´re drinking some beer and trying to keep Blake from eating the backgammon chips. The girls are sleeping and we´re wondering about what kind of trouble to get into tonight. Maybe some clubs...we don´t know...

2nd Day in Lisbon

Lisbon, 17-Apr-06, originally uploaded by Dave Appleton.

These aren´t really our photos by the way - I´m stealing them from Flickr.com. We´ve seen all the stuff in the pictures though. We´ll load the real ones later.

Andrea and Justin were acting like a couple of turbos today, and woke up with a 5 mile run around Lisbon. Justin was so dehydrated from the night before that he had to down four bottles of water when they got back.

Our day started off great when we realized we were each going to have to pay an extra 49 Euros for the night train ride (that´s like $60 - ouch!). We thought we paid for everything when we paid for our $670 Eurail pass - guess not...Anyway, my mood took a turn for the better when I discovered how good Espresso is here. I ended up having 3.

We spent the rest of the day seeing the sites that included the Bellem Monastary and Tower. Justing proclaimed that he "really liked the ecosystem around here". We also saw the national park (where we were treated to lots of excessive public displays of affection - some key phrases to describe the situation would be "sweat stain" and "dry humping") in front of the president´s house. We ate some wonderful pastries from a bakery that has been in business for 150 years - we figured they were probably doing something right.

I was offered pot 27 times today. The policia must be getting paid off around here.

So our first post on the blog was pretty tame, but, to be honest, that´s because we left out most of the story. So here goes....Sorry mom and dad. First, during our plane flight from Paris to Lisbon, we received no food or drink due to the fact that the French catering service was on strike. Go figure.
After visiting the Castello S. Jorge in Lisbon we went to a restaraunt in the Barillo Alto nieghborhood; where intellectuals supposively hang out and discuss the mysteries of the universe. After watching Blake pay for butter and bread that he thought was free, I proceeded to order a bottle of Portugese wine (one of my goals is to drink the native wine in each country since I took that wine tasting class this past semester) for me, Andrea, and the rest of the group. However, the rest of the group decides to pass on it and Andrea only drinks half a glass. Needless to say I was not in great shape.
After dinner we decide to go bar hopping and drink the night away with Sangria, the local specialty. We soon found ourselves at a dark techno bar where there were random dogs running around following anybody to the bathroom that went (Andrea can attest) - Solidifying the stereotype of the creepy Portugese. We proceed to talk about Aliens and homosexuality as any normal people would at 11 at night. The only interruption is that, in my mild attempt at revelry, I seem to be breaking glass after glass and spilling drinks all over the place. Apparently this is universally disliked in well reputed establishments. Thankfully the rest of the crew yanks me out of the bar before the bouncers get to me.
We then walk back to the Easy Hostel serenaded by ´I Love Alcohol´ (tune of I love rock ´n roll), where we proceed to ring the wrong door bell and yell for someone to let us in. Andrea then proceeds to rip the door off the locker that is supposed to keep our back packs safe from theft. And we make sufficient noise to ruin our neighbor´s (a Brazillian by the name of Paolo) attempt at hooking up. Probably a good thing for him in the long run from a disease standpoint. A good first night in Europe in all!

Lisbon, Portugal

Night View Of The Castle, originally uploaded by Jester's Tear.

This is the Castello de S. Jorge. It sits atop the highest hill in Lisbon and has dramatic views of the city. Da Vinci designed a parascope that provides the only 360º panoramic view of the city. Afterwards we walked over to the Barrio Alto neighborhood where we ate and bar hopped the rest of the night.