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Never on Sundays [Sep. 9th, 2009|03:13 pm]
[Current Location |Bed with no sheets]
[Current Mood | lethargic]
[Current Music |Annie reading news]

June 12:
Slept in of course as we were so tired from the month's journeys. We woke up around noon, filed some pictures on our computers, and then had some feta cheese and tomato omelettes. Afterwards we tried the shower for the first time. Needless to say, it's not the Hilton.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5602.jpg

You turn it on, wait for it to warm up, and then hold it while you bathe. And get the whole bathroom wet. It's a step above waiting for it to rain. Still, it gets the job done and will make me appreciate first world countries all the more when we get home. We also took some last shots of the apartment. Here's our bedroom.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5599.jpg

And leading off from our bedroom is a sliding glass door to the balcony.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5600.jpg

The balcony goes all the way around the apartment, so you can look into any of the rooms from the outside. Here's Annie looking in the kitchen!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5565.jpg

The only bad thing is we're on the back of the building so we don't really have any great views. Here's a shot of the building from the street. You can see how the balconies go around, but you can't see ours as we're on the exact opposite corner from where the pictures is being taken.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5576.jpg

Around 3:30 we finally headed out to walk down to the school. Once outside it was incredibly hot. There would be no random walking around today, only business. We headed straight to our school. It's directly down the street our apartment is on, only about a ten minute walk. Not bad.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5595.jpg

It's pretty nice. Three stories, lots of classrooms. Annie and I each have our own classrooms for the year. It's nice to not have to move around. Plus, we can leave our materials in the classroom rather than dragging them around with us.

After checking out the school we did a little shopping for necessities and then went home. We mostly lazed around the apartment, snacking, nap, reading, etc. Once the sun went down we headed out again. We walked down the street directly to the marina and turned left along the water. From the pier you can see clearly across the water to Turkey, only a few miles in the distance. It's beautiful watching the sunset and then the lights from Bodrum, the city on the other side of the water, come on.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5548.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5545.jpg

After checking out 'Old Town', where most of the shops in Kos are, we headed home for a feta and veggie dinner.

June 13:
Went for a long walk after sleeping in until 1:30. We wanted to see if we could find an internet cafe as the internet in the school and our apartments wasn't hooked up yet. No dice finding the cafe, but we did find a giant Greek flag.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5553.jpg

It was also while walking around this day we realized that there are more cats than insects on the island.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5571.jpg

Everywhere you go on the island there are many stray cats. Sometimes solitary, sometimes in packs, sometimes missing an eye. Everywhere. Mostly they're cute and we haven't been attacked yet, which is good. Still, the day they decide to have an uprising, the numbers are on their side.

Around this time the heat got to us again. From the first day we landed (until the time of my writing this which is September 9th) there was not a single cloud in the sky and the temperature was anywhere from 78-90 degrees. Every, single, day. Makes going to the beach nice, but just walking around town is like approaching Hell from the desert. Any chance to hunker down in some shade, even if only for a minute, is a relief. Here's me cowering in the shade of the ancient fortress on the tip of the island facing Turkey.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5563.jpg

The last thing we saw as we headed home was the cute mass transit system they have in place for the tourists who come here. It's a long train that you can take from the center of the city to the archeological sites on the outskirts of town, too far to walk. For a small price you can hop on and hop off anytime you want.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5556.jpg

We spent the rest of the daylight hours watching Peep Show and washing up. When we went out again for dinner, we chose a cafe by the water. We brought our laptop since any cafe you eat at has wireless internet. We watched the lights from Turkey reflect on the water while having a nice dinner and checking our e-mail for the first time since being on the island. We had some ice cream for desert and then went home.

June 14:
After watching a movie on our laptop we went our to lunch with Pamela, her husband, and daughter. The father told us to call him 'Teles'. Short for Aristoteles. That's right, the guy's name in America would be Aristotle. Awesome.

They took us to a beautiful restaurant right on the water. It was empty because of the time we chose to go. For lunch they didn't order one dish each. Instead, they ordered a bunch of dishes and everyone just shared. Way too much food to go around, it was crazy. Appetizers, side dishes, main dishes, etc.

After lunch Teles went home with Dmitra while Pamela drove us down the coast to show us the area. She pointed out the entrance to the hot springs on the island, drove us through a Turkish settlement in the middle of the island, pointed out various restaurants, and even showed us where an internet cafe was. Really helped us get an idea of our area. After getting home we relaxed a bit because she wanted to have her first meeting with me concerning classes the next morning at 10:30.

June 15:
I got up around 9:40 and went to school while Annie stayed behind to rest. As I said, the facility is everything you need, tons of reference books, photocopier, etc. Pamela showed me which books I'd be using and gave me a set of keys to get into the building so I could come whenever I wanted to do lesson plans and such.

After work I went home to get Annie. We went to the internet cafe to check up with our families and then had lunch at the taverna directly across the street from our apartment. The family that owns it is friends with the Patouris, so they were nice to us. After a quick nap following lunch, I took Annie back to the school to show her my room. Along the way we found the wall of snails. I was a bit put off.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5577.jpg

It confused me how such a large number of snails could survive so close together on a wall that provided absolutely no obvious form of nutrition.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5580.jpg

Some of them even did it while fully exposed to the sun without cooking.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5582.jpg

While walking this way, which we hadn't gone before, we also found the large church that this end of the island uses for most of their religious functions. It's quite massive, and dominates the street that it's on.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5596.jpg

Once at school I did a few things and then talked to Pamela for a bit about my classes again. She also showed us her garden in the back of the school. It's a vegetable garden where she grows eggplants, tomatoes, green peppers, mint, etc. Periodically throughout the summer she would harvest the garden and give us a bunch of veggies to take home with us. Of course, you have to watch out for cocks who try and steal your food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8SO2JjNN3U

After walking around the school and then the old town again for a bit Annie and I sat down at another cafe. The waiter was nice and asked us how long we were staying. When we told him he was surprised, as he mostly meets tourist. He said the summers are beautiful but that it only rains throughout the winter. That made me happy. We spent the meal drinking wine and feeding some of the cats that came to our table. It was fun since they aren't very bothersome, but quite receptive to any handouts they get.

June 16:
I had to go to school again in the morning to get some things prepared for class. Annie showed up at 11 to surprise me since it was my birthday. :)
She had dropped our laundry off on the way to school and wanted to look up a recipe on the internet for me for dinner. We don't have a laundry machine in our apartment and there isn't a proper laundromat anywhere near our apartments. Across the street there is a man who owns a small laundry facility who is friends with Pamela's family. So we just drop our clothes off there every week and he washes and folds them for us. Since we're with the family, he even gives us a discount, knowing we'll come the whole year. It's nice to not have to worry about doing the laundry. Plus, since we don't have cell-phones or cars or anything, it's our only real monthly expense outside of food.

We were home by one and Annie gave me her present. It was an absolutely amazing video she made for me. It's not up on youtube since she used copyrighted songs to make it, but if anyone wants to see it, just get in touch with our families, they all have copies. We then went to the internet cafe and I got to chat with Dana for a bit. Then we went to the beach for the first time. The water was a bit cold, but it was a beautiful day and eventually you got over it. The beach was sandy, but from three feet before you get in the water until about five feet into the water it's rocks, making entering and exiting the water without looking like a tool extremely difficult.

We picked up the laundry on the way home and settled in for the night. I hung up the birthday cards and other cards from home in our kitchen next to the map of where we live.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5569.jpg

Annie finished making dinner while I did that and then we sat down to her movie she made and a birthday meal of macaroni and cheese!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5566.jpg
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Go away and procreate [Aug. 31st, 2009|04:30 pm]
[Current Location |Bed]
[Current Mood | lethargic]
[Current Music |Annie]

June 10 (still) - 11:
The annoying part about the Athens airport, besides the layover, was that we had to exit the terminal and then re-enter through the main gate. That meant security check again, carry-on check, shoe check, etc. Luckily our luggage was transferred to a holding area for the next flight, so we didn't have to collect all that again, but it was still annoying.

Annie slept in the main lobby and in the waiting area for our flight when we made it through security. As I stayed up all night watching our stuff, when we finally boarded our flight, I passed out. I don't remember anything about it.

We landed at the airport, which was pretty small. Only one runway, but then again I guess they don't get much air traffic. Just lots of tourist planes during the summer and that's it. We picked up our bags and met Pamela at the front gate. She paid a cabbie to take our bags for us while we hopped into her car. The drive to the town was about a half hour, as the airport is in the middle of the island and our school is in the main town at the tip of the island. As we drove into town, Pamela kept pointing out all the people and businesses. She knows or is related to most of the people in the town.

We made it to our building, which is three levels. The whole first floor is a tailor shop and apartment owned by her father-in-law. He's supposedly very well known for his work, and we see him in hist store at all hours working or passing the time with some friends. On the second floor is Pamela's apartment on one side and her neighbor on the other. The third floor contains about four or five apartments, which means they're a bit smaller than Pamela's. That's fine with us, as we're used to living in close quarters.

She showed us around very quickly so as to give us time to settle in. She just explained how to use the oven, showed us how well she cleaned to prepare for us, and pointed out the food she stocked us with. When we left we took an inventory and were quite impressed. We had a number of different fruits and veggies, a full tray of eggs, bottles of wine (red and white), a bottle of Johnny Walker red, a cake, and some cooking supplies (sugar, olive oil, etc.) The bed in the apartment was new, as was the oven. Here's the entry way. The door leads to the hallway, the door to the left to our bedroom.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5542.jpg

This is our kitchen, taken from the entrance.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5539.jpg

Here's our tiny bathroom. The shower is behind the curtain on the right.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/IMG_5541.jpg

To shower, you pull the curtain across the whole room and hold the shower while you do your cleansing, as it's not attached to the wall. Attaching it to the wall isn't really an option because then the water would be directed out of the shower area and get the whole room drenched all the time. As we were too tired to go out, Pamela brought us some food she had made for her family.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Kos/Pamelamadeuslunch.jpg

We took brief showers and caught a nap to rejuvenate. At around 7:30 we went for a walk with Pamela and her daughter, Dmitra. They showed us the beach (about two blocks from our house) and the downtown area. While we were walking, Dmitra pointed out a tree in town that her grandfather had planted, further reinforcing the idea her family has been here a while. We stopped in a shoe store so Annie and Dmitra could try on shoes while Pamela conversed with the owner. Annie said she liked the pair she had on, so Pamela bought them for her!

We then went to a nice outdoor cafe for coffee. I don't drink coffee, so I got a milkshake. While sitting there, random people would come up and say hi to Pamela. On the way home, we made one final stop at the local ice cream place, which was delicious. Pamela got us cones and we walked on home.

Once in the apartment we settled in for the night. The only other thing that happened was when Annie was sampling some of the food from the fridge. Pamela had left us a dish of figs, which Annie had never eaten before. While eating them, she remarked that they tasted just like fig newtons. A minute later, she realized why they were called fig newtons.
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I found Berlin [Aug. 31st, 2009|01:40 pm]
[Current Location |Bed]
[Current Mood | accomplished]
[Current Music |Annie cooking]

June 8:
Finished packing all our belongings to head back to our starting point, England. Checked our internet in the morning, caught a subway, and headed to Gare du Nord for the Chunnel train.

The security getting on the train was like an airport, only not as well organized. Everyone had to go through a customs check, have their bags examined, etc. Only there were no ropes to control lines, so it was just a mass of people moving forward slowly. The train ride was fairly boring. The only difference between it and the other trains we'd been on the last month was that for a long time in the middle it was black outside the window.

We arrived at St. Pancras and walked back to the hostel we stayed at the first time in London. We checked in and were given the annex again, a room in a different building owned by the hostel. When we got there a man was just finishing cleaning the room, which was nice. It meant the room was clean AND we had first dibs on where we wanted to sleep. After dropping off our stuff and changing shirts, we walked down to Trafalgar Square. We didn't have time to check out the National Gallery last time we were in London, so I convinced Annie to go in because it's awesome and free. We walked around the galleries for a little while looking at the pretty pictures. Annie took a number of photographs of all her favorites (and mine!) Here's me in front of one of my faves (which I have a print of back home), the Execution of Lady Jane Grey.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5481.jpg

Annie gave me the camera once we got to the Van Gogh room because she wanted to look at the paintings closer. I took one picture.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5487.jpg

And then was promptly dressed down by a security guard who said pictures weren't allowed. Damn Annie. We hurried through the rest of the galleries, taking in the main attractions (Monet, Manet, Arnolfini Wedding) and then left. Since we had no real plans, I convinced Annie to take a little walking tour down my old stomping grounds when I lived there a decade ago. We walked down Charing Cross Road, the main street leading up to where my apartment was in Camden.

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I was quite happy I could remember where I lived. We stopped to get a picture of me in the same spot I'd been photographed before when I lived there.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5490.jpg

After all that walking we needed to rest and decide what to do that evening. We walked back to the theatre district because it was near our hostel. We looked around and finally decided on seeing Chicago. It was close to where we lived and we got tickets for a pretty fair price. We had a few hours to kill before the show, so we stopped in a pub for some ciders with black currant. After a few rounds, we went to a local Punjabi restaurant for dinner, which was amazing.

The theatre finally opened after dinner was over, so we went in. We were really excited because besides not paying much, we had box seats!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5501.jpg

The set was fairly minimalist, with the orchestra taking up most of the stage in tiered boxes. The conductor was my favorite part of the show as he was very animated and took part in some of the scenes. In addition, from our seats we could see the prompters over the audiences heads which showed the actors and orchestra what the conductor was doing. Whenever a song was performed, he would sing the whole thing while conducting, which was quite amusing. He obviously loved his gig. The only other noteworthy thing from the evening was that the male lead in the play was performed by Jerry Springer. It was amusing, but that's all, as he wasn't very good, couldn't sing, and had terrible timing.

After the play we went back to our hostel to wash up. We were back to sharing rooms with people, which wasn't really a problem except that the floor was REALLY squeaky so you felt bad whenever you moved around. Around one in the morning there was a knocking at the door. I went to check on it and it was one of our roommates who had locked himself out.

June 9:
We were downstairs by eleven partaking of the free internet and complimentary breakfast of cereal our hostel had to offer. We were checking in with Jess to see what time we'd be meeting up. We got her number and called from a pay phone covered in ads with naked women and smelling of urine. She said she'd be in town around two-ish and to meet near St. Paul's Cathedral.

We got on the Underground and headed over to the Tower Bridge, as it was the last sight I wanted Annie to see that we didn't have time for when we were in London previously. While trying to get to the bridge we saw that the Circle Line was shut down, the connection we needed to make it to our destination. We had to get out at Aldgate and walk the rest of the way. We took the requisite pictures of the bridge and then stopped for lunch. We had Indian food again because it's so good in England and we didn't know when we'd have a chance to have it again. We then hopped the tube again to meet up with Jess.

We had no real plans for the day, so we just moseyed around the city. We ended up at Covent Garden for some window shopping. There were performers there singing opera in front of one of the restaurants and one of the best signs ever in front of a store.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5515.jpg

We stopped at a small little shop that sold candy cupcakes. These were cupcakes that were covered with a candy glaze and had a jelly bean on top. Annie's jelly bean looked like an egg.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5517.jpg

I wasn't hungry but I was thirsty so I opted for a skittles milkshake. It was exactly like how it sounds. They had the standard milkshake in the blender and then added a whole package of skittles. It was amazing. While we were sitting down eating Annie and I were amused that pigeons kept attacking Jess. (Not attacking really, just flying really close to her head repeatedly. She did not like it.) I then took this shot for Amy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5523.jpg

We were trying to decide what to do that night. Annie and I suggested the theatre. Jess was happy because she wanted to do that too, but thought we might not be in the mood as we saw a musical the previous night. We went to a ticket shop and got some pretty cheap seats for a performance that evening.

Since we had a lot of time before the play started, we went for a drink at the Sherlock Holmes pub. It was also the last opportunity for Annie and I to get pub food, which we love. We gave the menu a quick glance and ordered some food that looked good while avoiding others.

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After dinner we walked over to the playhouse to see:

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This is the play the movie 'The Birdcage' was based on. Our seats were cheap because they were in the back row but we could see everything perfectly anyway. The musical was fantastic. It was absolutely hysterical. The two leads were perfect in their roles. The timing for the jokes was superb, the dancing from the chorus was outstanding. All in all a great show. My favorite part was at one point one of the leads is introducing the show he puts on at his club and is talking to the audience. At one point while talking he locks eyes with an audience member. Very slowly he bends down, lifts the guys head with his hands, and kisses him full out on the lips. I thought it was so funny, given the stereotype of English people being reserved, that the audience member went along with it. It was an amazing last night in London.

After leaving the theatre we walked back to the tube with Jess. We were concerned because starting that evening a massive strike on the underground was supposed to begin. Luckily, the strike didn't affect the lines she needed to use to get back to the train station. We went with her to Euston to see her off and we walked back to our hostel.

June 10:
We woke up and checked out of our hostel by 9. The tube strike didn't affect us as we could walk to the train station from our place. We called Jess from the station and she picked us up when we reached Hemel Hempstead. We went back to her place and her parents were nice enough to let us grab showers before we repacked all our suitcases that we had left there. Jess then took us out to a lovely part of her town by the river with her brother. I particularly liked crossing the river.

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The bridge looks lovely, but apparently is evil.

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Jess took us to a restaurant she likes called Woody's. It was an organic vegetarian restaurant. Annie ordered an amazing broccoli and cheese soup and a salad with noodles. I got a delicious pizza. The waitress had a most inappropriate shirt on that didn't quite cover her fully. It was a good meal.

It was a quick jaunt back to Jess' place to say our goodbye's and grab our bags. Her car wasn't big enough for both of us and all our suitcases, so we had to take two trips. I went first with two bags to figure out which bus stop was ours (as it was at a terminal with many stops) while Jess hurried back for Annie and the rest of our luggage. While waiting, a toothless man came up and started making small talk with me. I was quite happy when Jess returned with Annie. Jess waited with us for as long as she could but eventually left when a traffic cop yelled at her that her car was blocking a bus stop. We caught our bus soon after and took a two hour ride to the airport. We got hit with some overages for our luggage (later overturned when I challenged the amount on my credit card, woo-hoo!), had to take our shoes off because we look like terrorists, and got some Haribo (gummy bear-type treats) and magazines (Cosmo) while waiting for our plane.

The flight to Athens wasn't bad. We got to watch the movie In Brugges, which was fun because we'd just been there. The worst part of the journey was after we landed. The layover at Athens was seven hours. We found a place to camp out and settled in for the evening. I stayed up to watch our stuff as I'm paranoid and gave Annie a chance to rest. In a few hours we'd be boarding a plane to begin our next year teaching on the island of Kos. This is how our European backpacking journey ended.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5537.jpg
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This world is small [Aug. 31st, 2009|10:42 am]
[Current Location |Bed]
[Current Mood | satisfied]
[Current Music |Annie typing]

June 5:
For our first full day in Paris we got up early and were on the streets by 9:30. We took the subway as we had walked to the center of town the previous day and wanted to get there faster. We went directly to the Louvre, figuring the earlier we'd get there the less tourists we'd have to contend with and the more time we could spend. Once inside we made a bee line for the major works first (i.e. - Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, etc.) as those galleries tended to fill up the fastest over the course of the day. Here's Annie with Ms. Lisa.

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After we'd seen the big pieces, we decided to just wander around aimlessly for a while instead of heading for any specific rooms. This way we got an interesting mix of the different kinds of exhibits they had from different periods and eras. One of the first rooms we ran into was an interesting exhibition detailing the planning and building of the Louvre itself. It included original building shots, adding the pyramid, art that had pictures of the Louvre in it, etc. Really interesting. The other special exhibit we ran into was a photographic history of the Louvre during WWII. The pictures contained how the Louvre was protected during the bombings (sandbags over the windows, etc.), the packing up and moving out of art to keep safe, and the Nazis looting the place. Most of the Nazi high command by the end of the war had paintings from the Louvre hanging in their homes. After the war there was a problem locating all the missing pieces and then figuring out what belonged to whom. NAZIS IN THE LOUVRE!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5268.jpg

The funniest part of the exhibition was the captions that went along with all the pictures. Next to one of the pictures it talked about how the city "liberated itself" in August 1944. If by "itself" they meant "with the help of a few other countries fighting for them" then I agree. Writing it doesn't make it true, France.

We continued walking about. Lots of the displays were of course interesting, but we were slightly annoyed that it was difficult to get more information about every piece. Of course, the displays were all in French and that makes sense as we were in France. However, there was limited information available in English unless you got a headset to walk around with. Some rooms had placards you could walk around with that described some of the paintings, but they were usually in use and only described a few of the pieces. That's why I don't know much about this next piece, only that it's amazing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5257.jpg

Annie really liked how open the museum was. If you were an art student you were allowed to set up shop in the middle of the corridors to copy some of the paintings.

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It was close to here that we wanted to get a couple shot in the Louvre. We really liked the mirror behind the Egyptian guy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5193.jpg

We made it all the way down to the lowest level and found the footprints of the original building, which I liked since it gave more of a history to the building itself and not just the pieces of art inside it. It was also in the bottom floor they had a tactile display which let you touch some of the art pieces.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5251.jpg

We were hungry after walking around so much so decided to grab lunch in the cafe. The prices weren't crazy and we received huge portions of food. For less than I would have paid in a restaurant we got huge slabs of freshly cooked ham with a number of vegetables and small bottles of wine. I'd recommend it!

We only went to two more exhibitions after lunch. On the top floor was a reconstruction of Napoleon's apartments. It was a series of lavishly decorated rec rooms and bedrooms and such. Here is the chair Napoleon sat in when presiding over court functions. You can tell it's his because of the subtle monogram on the cushion.

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While walking back to the stairwell we had an excellent view of the plaza through the windows of Napoleon's apartments.

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The last thing we saw before leaving was Hammurabi's Code, which was a giant stone block with the first set of written laws carved on it. Wanting to end on a historical note, we decided to take our leave. All in all, we spent about four hours walking around the place, and definitely didn't see everything.

We hopped back on the subway as we had an all day pass and went to the stop marked "Bastille". There we found the road called Bastille and the Opera house where the original fortress had been. While walking around we found a park near Victor Hugo's house that we sat down in for a bit and watched some kids playing. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to rest up for the evening.

Around seven we headed back out to near the Arch/Eiffel Tower area to attend the show at the Crazy Horse. We got our own little booth off to the side of the stage which was perfect since it gave us a clear view of everything and no one to bother us. Included in the price was a bottle of champagne, which we enjoyed over the course of the evening. Before the show started we were reading a list of names on the wall of some of the people who had been here. It included famous actors, musicians, entertainers, politicians, etc. After settling in for about twenty minutes, the show began. It was an all-nude burlesque show broken up into different segments. Each segment the girls were "dressed" and danced to a particular theme. Some of the themes included were: Pirates, English guards, an elaborate spinning circle in the middle of the stage with two girls dancing on it, a swing, the Great Depression, and a jungle cat caught in a cage. The show was interspersed with video from the history of the theater in-between each segment. Also, at one point in the second act, a guy came out and did shadow puppets for about ten minutes. It was quite a non sequitur, so we figured it was a stall for time while they took care of some issue backstage. The dancing was pretty phenomenal, and the nudity wasn't raunchy at all, but rather just a part of the experience.

We stepped outside to see the Eiffel Tower lit up and glowing for the evening. We hopped back on the subway and went home for some candy bars and sleep.

June 6:
Slept in a bit today following the late night show. When we finally got down to the subway to buy our day passes, the woman asked Annie how old she was. She was young enough to score a youth pass, which made her happy and me feel old.

Our first stop for the day was O'Chateau. We had booked a wine and cheese lunch that was being held in the former basement of Louis XV's sommelier (French for guy who chooses the wines at meals).

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The host for the event was funny but spoke very quickly. While we ate he gave a brief history of the wine industry and showed us the different areas of France that produced wine while comparing them to wine's from around the world. He introduced each bottle that was served with our meal (we had six total, including some champagne) and taught us how to properly taste each one to get its full effect. He also showed us how to look at the wines to see the difference in amount of sugar, viscosity, age, etc. The people we took the lunch with were nice, a mix of Irish, Americans, English, and Spanish. In addition to the wines there were a number of cheeses, each suggested to matched with a specific bottle, along with bread and sliced meats. My favorite was the camembert because I like soft cheese.

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Feeling a bit tipsy following the lunch, we decided to take it easy and not do anything too touristy. We rode the subway to the Gare Nord station, where we reserved our Chunnel tickets for going back to England. We saved money by buying round trip tickets as the one way tickets were more expensive for some reason. Round trip tickets came out to be half the price of the one ways. Weird.

Once we had our tickets, we headed over to the Cemetery du Montparnasse. It is one of the two main cemeteries in the city proper. It was full of many family crypts erected quite close together to save space. There was a map in the front showing the location of some of the more famous graves. We didn't go out of our way, but managed to find Sartre's grave near the entrance.

Since we'd been walking around so much, we thought it'd be nice to just relax for a few hours. We ended up near the Arch again and were on the Champs de Elysses so we decided to take in a movie, as this was where most of the English language theatres were. We went into one cinema that had a gigantic, beautiful theatre. The screen was huge, the ceiling was domed. It was amazing. Unfortunately, the beauty was ruined by Terminator: Salvation.

After the movie, we got on the subway again because Annie wanted to see where the Moulin Rouge was. At the subway stop we finally took a picture of the scary, alien-type sign that showed the entrance to all of the subway stops.

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The exterior of the Rouge was not as impressive as Annie had hoped for. As we walked through that part of town back towards our hotel, we realized that the Moulin Rouge was in its own special area of Paris.

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Sex shops were everywhere! In hindsight, it kind of makes sense, but it was surprising at the time without knowing it was coming. We made it back to our area of town and sat down for a nice meal of Belgian mussels, as there was a Belgian restaurant right by our hotel. Following that, we went to sleep.

June 7:
We got up early once again because we had two main things we wanted to do that day. First up we headed for the center of town to find the entrance to the catacombs that ran under Paris. The line was short since we were there so early so it didn't take too long to get inside. Once you entered at the street level, you descended 133 stairs straight down. We walked through the first few tunnels with no problem, as they were mainly just stone corridors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkNLLxHcAWY

Along the way there were various signs telling you where you were in relation to the streets above.

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I was surprised that I didn't get very claustrophobic, given how low the ceiling was in some areas. Sometimes, it was only Doug-high.

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As we walked along, there were some pretty amazing sights. In one area there were large stone models carved into the walls. The original diggers had done this in their spare time. The coolest part of this was that all the sculpting was highly detailed and done solely from memory.

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There were underground waterways that scared the heck out of me, as you could see how deep the wells went.

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And then occasionally the corridor would open up into giant domed archways. These supported some of the main crossroads of the tunnel while also giving you a break from the feeling that the walls were closing in around you since the ceilings were so high in these areas.

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And that's when the skeletons started.

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The walls for the rest of the catacombs were composed of millions of bones from previous occupants of the city. The walls were laid out in such a way that the bones fit neatly together and wasted no space.

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Sometimes the walls were just femurs and arm bones. Sometimes they were skulls. Sometimes mixed!

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In some places the architects decided to get a little fancy. So, not only walls, but also columns and supports were constructed with bones surrounding them.

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It was difficult to take pictures in the corridors. The lighting wasn't the best and I was playing around with my camera's aperture, so some shots were dark. This wasn't one of the best shots, but it shows an underground chapel that was built so the workers could have services held in memory of what was going on around them.

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Finally, we found one area that had enough light for good pictures. So we took a couple shot. Here's us and a large number of dead people.

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Once we exited the catacombs, we realized how hungry we were. It was about a 1.7 kilometre walk to get through the whole complex. Of course, that thought was immediately driven from my mind as the giant ball of flaming gas in the sky burned the retinas out of my sockets following their prolonged exposure to minimal light underground. For the next few minutes we blundered our way down the street, nearly blind, hoping not get mugged. Once vision returned, we stopped in a small cafe for some sandwiches and pain au chocolat. After that, we got on the light rail and took a trip to our last sight, Versailles!

When we got to the palace it was about a thirty minute wait in line to get tickets, which I didn't think was too bad because on busy days it supposedly takes hours to get inside. Once inside the building, however, we kind of lost focused. It was just like a lot of the other galleries and museums we'd seen, only this one was in a palace. That didn't make it different enough to keep our attention, as we'd seen so many similar things recently. We were hoping for more history. Where the servants slept, how meals were prepared, life at court, etc. Instead, it was mostly art galleries and preserved rooms. And compared to the Louvre from two days before, they weren't laid out nearly as well. Still, the building itself was quite pretty. Couple shot!

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My favorite picture from the day was of Annie. We were in the king's bedroom and I wanted to take a picture of the ornate grandfather clock in the corner. She thought I had the king's bed in the frame. Cuteness ensued.

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There were only two rooms that were very interesting. There was a giant cathedral built into the palace near the king's chambers. It was a few stories high and you could see into it from different levels while walking through the palace. The other room we liked was the hall of mirrors. It didn't have as many mirrors as I thought it would, ironically, but I could see how beautiful the room would be during sunrise or sunset since all the mirrors faced huge windows that let in plenty of light. Couple shot!

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After the inside o f the palace we took a cursory glance over the gardens, which were beautiful, but would cost extra to enter. As it was starting to get a bit rainy and we were tired from all our walking, we decided to just head back to town. Once near our hotel, we sat down for a nice, authentic French meal Annie had been wanting to try since we got there.

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After that we went back to the hotel for some internet and final packing before our road trip was over.
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Banana Respite [Aug. 27th, 2009|09:45 am]
[Current Location |Bed]
[Current Mood | chipper]
[Current Music |Counting Crows - Mrs. Potter's Lullaby]

June 4:
We left our hostel in Brussels and went down to the Central train station. After a quick connection at the Zuid (south?) train station we were on our way to Paris. Free internet was provided on the train to Paris, which was nice because we wanted to catch up on e-mails to our families.

Once in the train station we hopped the metro to our closest subway stop, Republique. Checking in was no problem, but the elevator to the fifth floor was tiny and only one person could take it at a time. Annie hopped in with our bag while I hoofed it to meet her at the top with the rest of our stuff. The room itself was nice, particularly the fact that it had a balcony!

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We dropped off our stuff and hit the streets, heading towards all the main sights down by the river. We walked along Rue de Temple, which connected our hotel all the way through the city down to the Seine. On our way to Notre Dame, Annie saw this guy. You were supposed to leave money, but let's face it, he's got an accordion. What's he going to do, chase us?

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We crossed a bridge and walked won the island Notre Dame was on. We took the requisite pictures. There's the front, which is nice but kind of oppressive. I just want to drop a tetris piece in the top to make it solid concrete block. One of those three across pieces, with a piece coming down the middle.

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I prefer the garden in the back. It's really pretty, has wifi for some reason, and I like the architecture on the back of the building as opposed to the front.

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We crossed back to the mainland from the Notre Dame island. We then found a staircase that took us down pretty close to the Seine as opposed to looking at it from about twenty meters up.

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We next hit the Louvre. We didn't go inside since we wanted to spend a lot of time in the museum, so we just took some nice shots of Annie on the outside by the glass pyramids. Here, she's bigger than the whole museum.

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And here we've shrunk her down and marooned her on a fountain in the middle of the courtyard.

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I like this picture.

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After walking around the glass pyramids a bit we headed down Champs de Elysses. We passed one of many obelisks that we'd be seeing over the next few days. Paris seems to have a lot of Egyptian architecture. We took the regular picture of the Arch de Triumphe.

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I don't know why, but I got a huge kick out of this street sign.

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I'm sure it's there for historical reasons, relating to WWII. But I'm sure it pisses off some French people that one of the main streets of the Champs de Elysses is named after an American. There's a Lincoln street in the city too.

We took a detour at this point to a theatre called the "Crazy Horse". Annie really wanted to see a show in Paris, so we read about this one and Annie seemed interested. We booked seats and would be returning the following evening.

We started walking toward the Eiffel Tower but at this point were pretty zombified. A few weeks ago we were in Edinburgh, freezing underneath multiple layers of clothes and jackets. Now it was the exact opposite. The sun was quite oppressive and we didn't have much water with us. However, we still managed to get an amazing shot of us in front of the tower. Jealous?

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Since we were so beat we decided to head on back home. We caught the light rail and headed the wrong way on it. We figured it out pretty quickly though and turned around after just one stop. We then connected to a subway and had to speak to a man entirely in French. We got off a small conversation pretty well as he explained to us how to use the tickets transferring from light rail to subway.

Once back in our hotel area we stopped for dinner at an Italian restaurant. We figured we'd get enough French cuisine in the next few days and really wanted something simple. The waiter was really nice and funny. He saw we didn't speak French and asked us what we spoke in about five different languages. We settled on English. After a nice pasta dinner and a bottle of wine, we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep to rest up for another day of walking around.
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Delete the queen [Aug. 25th, 2009|12:58 pm]
[Current Location |Bed with no sheets]
[Current Mood | blank]
[Current Music |Annie cooking]

June 3:
After a nice sleep in we headed out for the central station. We wanted to get there in time to reserve tickets to Paris for the following day and catch a train to Brugges. It was the shortest train ride we had the entire trip, which was nice as we had planned to only spend the day in Brugges and get back to Brussels that evening. Once we got to the town, we walked about a block from the train station and the realization that it was the first non-capital we had been in since leaving England hit home when we saw how quaint the town was.

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The whole town looked like it was out of a storybook. There were cottages and cobble stone streets, old buildings and churches, cute little houses, and even a beautiful canal cutting through the center of it.

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We walked directly into the heart of town and ate at a restaurant here, constantly remarking how this town was definitely one of the places Disney took its influence from when designing their parks.

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The restaurant was great because it overlooked the central square and was directly across from the bell tower in the middle of the town. Our waiter was quite flamboyant, joking around with us and even patting Annie on the head because he liked her hair. It was fun, yet kind of weird. For lunch Annie had a scary-looking-yet-quite-delicious tomato with shrimp salad. I enjoyed an appetizer of frogs legs in an amazing sauce followed by Flemish beef stew. It was no Irish stew, but it was still quite tasty.

After being energized by our food, we set about climbing the bell tower. It was 366 steps from bottom to top, which got continually smaller and narrower the closer you got to the bell.

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It was definitely worth the exertion though, as when you reached the top you were got to see the mechanism in the tower that rang the bells. I really liked how it was designed. It took up the entire center of the tiny room, with the bells all being hung above and around it

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Of course, the reason you climb a tower is to see the city and countryside around it. I really enjoyed being in a much smaller town than all the cities we had previously been in. And with Paris and London both ahead of us, it was the last "small town" feel we were going to get for a while.

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After the church we went to the only other main tourist attraction we wanted to see. It was a church whose main possession was a holy relic (a vial) which is said to contain the actual blood of Jesus. Here's a painting of it in the narthex.

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We had just missed the mass where they took it out and I guess prayed over it, but we got to see it in its casing. So officially Annie and I have seen where some of Jesus' blood is and the supposed resting place of some of the Buddha's ashes in Seoul. We're just trying to cover all our bases.

After the church, we headed directly to a chocolate shop. We purposely avoided getting any in Brussels, wanting to try Belgian chocolate from a small town shop. We were not disappointed. It was some of the best chocolate I think we will ever eat. We bought two boxes as gifts for Thom and Jess' parents and then spent the afternoon walking around the town. Here's Annie in front of the canal, bell tower in the background, chocolate in her hand.

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The town was great at getting lost in because it was gorgeous no matter where you went and after a few minutes, you'd find your way again by running into the canal. We particularly liked this area as it was a beautiful brick building that connected to an old stone bridge spanning the water across from a stunning church.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_5077.jpg

And then Annie goes and gets herself arrested.

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After meandering through the town for a while we took a few couple shots by the canal and headed home.

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In the train station, we saw a restaurant that had in my opinion the most racist hot dog I've ever seen.

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And I don't know why, but this guy also rubbed me the wrong way.

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The train came and we made it back to our hostel. We stayed in for a bit and rested while watching an episode of the Simpsons. We left after an hour or so to look for dinner. I was really in the mood for pasta, but as we were in a French speaking country dominated by cafes I didn't know how lucky I was going to be. Providence came through though and a block from our hostel overlooking a lovely green courtyard we found a cafe advertising pasta in their window. We sat down and I immediately knew what I wanted. When the waiter looked at Annie, she asked if he spoke English. He replied that he spoke a little, and showed her the menu. As Annie was perusing it, a nice, loud, chimney-smoking, drunk lady helped us communicate. Her English was pretty good, but it deteriorated over the meal as she continued drinking. When the waiter returned, I ordered spaghetti. Annie only wanted a salad, something simple like mixed greens. The waiter paused for a second and then waved his hand over the menu saying, "That is not possible".

Annie got lasagna.

The cafe was a fun place to be in. It obviously had a regular, local clientele and they were all drinking and talking merrily. Drunk lady would occasionally speak to them and then sometimes engage us in broken, drunk conversation. The environment was nice and we felt the people enjoyed the fact that we were American, although we couldn't communicate as well as they could. After dinner (during which drunk lady consumed at least 4 DIFFERENT drinks and who knows how many before hand) we went back to the hostel. We showered, repacked our bags, and enjoyed some tv before bed.
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How much black? [Aug. 19th, 2009|07:53 am]
[Current Location |Bed]
[Current Mood | good]
[Current Music |Weston - El Differente]

June 1:
We woke up in time to catch the breakfast at the hostel. It wasn't amazing, but it WAS free, so that was good. Some mixed luncheon meats, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, bread, etc. Afterwards we packed our bags, caught a bus to the central train station, and waited for the Brussels express. The train was about ten minutes late, but as we had no plans for the day we weren't really bothered. What DID bother us was the waste of skin who got on the train with us. This idiot of a human being was with a family. She was obviously a part of some tour package and had been their guide for the past few days in Amsterdam. Since the train was late, she was telling the family stories about past groups. As the train pulled up, she was in the middle of a story about how she had gotten on a train with a family to make sure their seats were correct. She boarded the train with the family to finish her story, wherein she lingered too long on the train and it set off before she disembarked, so she had to ride with the family to the next city. She was such a bad story teller and it took her so long to get this horrifically boring anecdote out that when she said goodbye to the family and turned towards the door, it closed and the train started moving. While telling a story about getting stuck on a train she got stuck on a train.

We made it to Brussels after a pretty short ride. Once we got out at the central train station our first priority was to hit an ATM. We wanted to make sure it was Amsterdam that was messed up, not our ATM cards. It worked perfectly in the machine, we replenished our cash reserves, and struck out for our hostel. It turned out that this was a hostel in name only, as it looked and was furnished like a hotel. The door was locked, so we had to buzz to get in, which made me feel good from a security standpoint.

The receptionist who opened the door seemed annoyed that we were bothering him to do his job. He gave us a key to the room, told us the password to the door so we wouldn't have to buzz him again, and then went back to the kitchen to continue watching TV and talking to his friends. He wasn't rude or mean, I was just amused that he hurried up to give us access to the building but didn't ask for money.

We dropped off our stuff and headed out into the city. We had no clear direction in mind as it was the afternoon and we figured most tourist places would be closing soon anyway. We headed in an opposite direction from the middle of the city and found ourselves in an immigrant neighborhood. The cool thing about it was they were having a street fair that day. There were stages set up with music playing, go-karts, pony rides, and giant inflatable rides for kids. It was nice, but we were kind of hungry so our priority was finding an open restaurant, not riding on a go-kart.

We found a nice little cafe a few blocks away. Annie had a salad espagnol, I had the salad niciose. They were alright, but the ice cream at the end was amazing. It was drenched in caramel and covered with walnuts. Fantastich. The funniest thing that happened during our meal was at the table next to us. A woman was there with her daughter and a friend of hers. The woman wanted to smoke a cigarette but was all out. Instead of going to the store or asking her friend to go, she gave her EIGHT YEAR OLD DAUGHTER some money and her go to a store to fetch her a pack. I was incredulous that not only did she choose to send her daughter, the daughter actually succeeded in making the purchase.

We started the walk home after that. We picked up some provisions for the evening (peanuts, beer, and water) and settled into our hotel room. There was a TV in the room, but it only had two English channels and was positioned at an extremely awkward height, as Annie will now demonstrate.

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We also finally took all of our old clothes out from the bottom of my backpack and washed them in the sink with the travel detergent Annie brought.

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The hotel had internet, so we used the opportunity to Skype with every single member of the Peters family because they were all on at the time. Then we watched some TV on my computer and went to bed early so as to be ready for a full day of touristy stuff.

June 2:
We got up and immediately headed for the Grand Market in the middle of the town.

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We then went to a small restaurant that specialized in the local cuisine. Belgium is apparently very famous for its french fries, waffles, ice cream, mussels, and chocolate. For lunch, we decided to focus on the mussels and fries.

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As expected, they were delicious. The restaurant itself was pretty cool. It was situated close to one of the more famous sites in Brussels, a statue of a little boy peeing. It's so famous that countries from all over the world send outfits to Brussels so the boy can be dressed in different outfits for different holidays. These outfits were reproduced and displayed throughout the restaurant. Of course, upon leaving our first priority was going to see the statue, which was in a fountain a block away.

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He's so popular that you can even eat him if you want.

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Following the pissing boy fountain, we decided to just wander around the city for a while with no real agenda in mind. We discovered that the city was very much into comic books. We found many stores that specialized in comics from around the world, with the focus being French comics of course. This love of comics extended from beyond the stores onto the buildings themselves. This is an example of one of the MANY murals we saw throughout the city that had obviously been commissioned. You can see it has a very "comic book" feel.

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That's not to say that the people who did normal graffiti weren't artists themselves. This was on the back of a bar in a small, dimly-lit street that smelled suspiciously of urine.

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We next hit one of the local souvenir shops. We collect magnets from all the places we go to. Annie also liked to grab postcards, both to send home and to make scrapbooks with.

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The economic recession was in full swing at this point, and some stores were making no bones about how much they wanted you to buy their products. (Not work safe.)

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The funniest thing we saw (after the pissing boy of course) was an advertisement that was posted all over the city, including next to our hostel so we got to pass it many times. I believe it's trying to play off the love affair people have with the french fries in Brussels, and that nothing is more important than getting some.

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We were tired from walking around so much by this point and were in the mood for a repast. We had already tried the mussels and fries, so we opted to go for some waffles. Annie got hers chocolate covered, whereas I went for the glazed.

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If you think they look good, you're wrong, because they were god-damn great. Recharged with sugary goodness, we headed across the city towards the jubilee park. On the way we got to pass by the complex where the governing body of the EU resides, which I thought was pretty cool. Of course, I think self-timers on cameras are cool, so what do I know?

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The park itself was beautiful. There was even a small castle in it for some reason.

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Before leaving the park we found this archway. I was confused, because I'd already seen it in Germany. It's like the arch they have in Paris that's also in London, NYC, Rome, etc. Can't these cities get their own unique structures?

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Annie liked the way the archway was melting though, so I guess that makes it look a little different from the German one.

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After a full day of walking we headed back to the hostels, making only two quick stops. The first one was to get a beer from the tap in a nice quiet bar, which was delicious. The second stop was the grocery store to get a few cold beers and some bread for dinner that night (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with fruit, as per normal). On the street somewhere Annie saw this and thought it was funny.

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We got in, showered, internetted, caught Old School on the one English channel, and went to bed. Tomorrow, we'd be going to a movie...
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You can have my pants if I can have your bicycle [Aug. 15th, 2009|11:40 am]
[Current Location |Bed]
[Current Mood | creative]
[Current Music |Ask a ninja]

Once again we were treated to compartment seating, but it was much better this time as we had our own room. No one else was assigned to our section. We spent the time reviewing old pictures, eating sandwiches, and watching the country pass us by out the train window. The journey was an hour longer than it should have been because we were held up at some stations but it was still the afternoon when we arrived in Amsterdam.

The problem with hitting Amsterdam from Berlin was that it connected you to a station on the south side of town, not the central station in the middle of town. It took us a bit to get our bearings, but with the help of a VERY nice transit man, we were shown how to use the metro to get around town and reach our hostel.

This time we were staying in a place that was pretty far from town center (about 15 minutes by bus), but that didn't bother as us there was a bus stop right outside the front door and we had our own private room for the same price as some of the multi-bed rooms that were offered in the middle of the city. We checked in and relaxed in our room for a few minutes, enjoying the privacy and the fact that we had our own bathroom. After freshening up, I checked with the front desk about the best way to use the transit system. The lady at the counter explained the ticketing system they used in the city which worked on all buses and trams. It was pretty simple to figure out, so we headed off to catch what was left of the daylight in the middle of the town.

After a short bus ride which took us through most of the neighborhoods where immigration was readily apparent and along one of the canals that form semi-circles in the city we were left off at the main train station. One of the things Amsterdam prides itself on is their lack of cars, preferring many forms of public transport and personal, non-gas-guzzling transport. This was immediately noticeable as soon as we stepped off the bus.

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The train station itself was a pretty amazing building in the heart of the city.

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As we were walking down the street, Annie wondered out loud if the stories about the city were true and whether or not some of their main commodities were marijuana and mushrooms. As we turned a corner at a pizza place, Amsterdam said yes. There was a whole pedestrian street full of stores that just had paraphernalia and such in the windows. People were walking around smoking joints. It was quite pungent. We continued walking around and were amazed at how prevalent it was everywhere. We stopped in a small grocery store, blocks away from the street full of "coffee shops", and were amazed that even there they had bongs and pipes and such, next to the milk and fruit. We stopped to replenish our own pantry, which was growing light since we had eaten so many sandwiches in the previous few days. We also wanted to get the snack that Annie had been craving ever since we learned about it in Oslo from our Dutch roommates. Stroopwaffle.

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Stop reading now and go find a store that sells these things, as they are the best snack ever. We also picked these up to go with our sandwiches, as we thought they had a very funny name.

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The light was fading and I wasn't interested in being in the middle of the city at night when the more "colorful" people come out to enjoy Amsterdam, so we grabbed a bus and headed home to enjoy watching tv in our own private room. We had sandwiches and snacks for dinner while watching 12 Monkeys and Starship Troopers. It was kind of surreal.

May 30:
We slept in for the first time that trip as we had two days in the city to enjoy and no one to bother in our room by being lazy. We took long showers and headed out to the bus stop by noon. Once we got to the city center we had no real direction. We just wandered through the streets taking the city in. There were no big landmarks we knew of, so we decided to just look for our own neat things to see. We thought Thom might get a kick out of this.

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I particularly liked how this one church kind of blended in with the buildings that were immediately surrounding it.

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We walked along one of the canals and found a giant outdoor market. It specialized in fauna, and you could get all sorts of flowers there, tulips in particular as they were the main flower of the Netherlands. If you wanted to, you could buy some bulbs to ship home.

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Or you could ship home other things to grow.

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Around this time we started getting hungry, so we found a nice, small, bar-type restaurant for lunch and had sandwiches with fries. When we left, we decided to follow one of the canals for a bit, because they were so beautiful.

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After a while following the canal and enjoying the nice residential parts of town with their quaint stores, we were once again surprised by a store that had some "other" things in the display window.

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We turned around and found this place right across the street.

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So, naturally, we went in. I found that the term "museum" was used rather loosely here. However, there were some interesting displays inside. I found the corner showing the wonders of hemp to be quite amusing. I mean, if for no other reason than this hemp should be grown all over the planet. You can make clocks out of it!

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And if that wasn't enough to convince you, there was a great big bag of it you could just run your hands through, for some reason.

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We left the weed museum and headed down the street to the hemp museum. Buying entrance to one included entrance in the other. It was more of the same thing, showing the "wonders" you could do with the plant, from paintings, to clothing, etc. Once we looked around for a bit and left we noticed that the area we were in was quite different than the quaint little areas of before. These buildings all had windows, like the earlier buildings, the only difference being that these windows contained whores.

We had unwittingly strolled into the red light district. Almost all of the buildings along the street had ladies standing in the window, waiting to be "chatted up" as it were. They didn't pay much attention to us, as we were obviously a couple that weren't in need of their services. But any single guy that came by would get propositioned or given a look. Here's a shot of the canal directly AFTER the red light district because any loved how the buildings looked on the water.

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You weren't allowed to take pictures of the ladies in the red light district because they were protected by the police who would take your camera or yell at you or something. Personally, I thought it would just make them sad, as if they were objects on display for your amusement or something.

In addition to the lovely entertainment in the windows, almost every other building was a sex shop. For those of you not interested in spending your money on goods but rather services, most shops contained live sex shows. There were lots of pictures on display in front of the stores so you knew exactly what you'd be getting when you walked in, which is why Annie and I didn't walk into any of them.

Rounding the corner, the theme of the red light district changed from sex back to drugs. Here there were tons of establishments more than willing to offer you all kinds of goodies. You could choose between 'smart' shops or 'coffee' shops. At 'coffee' shops:

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you could walk in and find a bar-like atmosphere. There would be a full bar selling beer and liquor in the front and tons of tables. Go near the back and there's be a small window where a guy would sell you pot. You could get it in various quantities, rolled into joints, loose, mixed with tobacco, etc. At most tables there were bongs and hookahs you could rent to enjoy said products once you bought them.

'Smart' shops:

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ere just stores that you weren't allowed to do things in but they sold more. This is where you could purchase your mushrooms, herbal ecstasy, pipes, etc. This particular one is supposedly the fore-runner of all modern day smartshops, being the first one to sell mushrooms legally in the city limits.

We left the red light district and headed to the main square in the center of the pedestrian part of the city. We watched a street performer for a while who had a large crowd of people around him. He was good, riding a unicycle, juggling flaming torches, etc. But, he had a microphone on and whereas he was a great performer, he was a terrible orator. Everything he said made me hope the tire on the unicycle would pop and he'd fall on a torch. After a bit we decided to move on, as his stock had fallen rapidly after his first trick was over.

It was getting late and we'd been walking around a lot that day, so we meandered back to the bus stop. We got a quick bite for dinner and then headed home. We both showered and then checked our e-mail to get in touch with our families. Having a private room was so much better than all the hostels we'd stayed in before.

May 31:
We woke up the next day and were out by eleven. This day we thought we'd try and find the one landmark we were aware of in the city, the Anne Frank house. While looking for it, we found this really weird balcony hanging off a building. Was it art, or something weird someone did while they were high?

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Eventually we found the house. Not as exciting as you'd think. Or maybe as exciting as you think. I mean, it's just a house.

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And here's the reason we didn't go in.

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I appreciate the story, but that doesn't mean I have to pay a bunch of money to see the closet it took place in after spending hours on line. Instead, we grabbed lunch (take that Anne Frank) which consisted of some really good pizza, salad, and soup. From there, we continued along the canals heading for Vondol Park. Along the way, we saw this awesome (if a bit naughty) mural on the side of a building.

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We reached the park and enjoyed all of the people that were there. Some were eating, some on blankets, some playing guitars. A nice, open atmosphere. Plus the lake was gorgeous.

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We looked around for a bit to take a nice couple shot and found these weird, out-of-place "statues" in the middle of a field. We figured they represented the town about as good as anything else.

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It was around this time we hit our big snag in the whole trip. Following lunch we didn't have much cash. However, since we were headed to a park, looking for an ATM wasn't a big concern of mine. After we got back into town, we started looking for a cash machine a bit more intently. We looked for HOURS. Any machine we used rejected my card. We eventually found out that it was because our card was from a bank that was not popular, or even present, in Amsterdam. Unless you had a more widely-known, or Dutch, bank card you were out of luck. We decided to just charge some groceries and walk slowly back through town to head home with our final bus tickets. On the way, we ran into Paulo!! He was our Brazilian roommate from Oslo who we ran into again in Stockholm. It was the weirdest thing that happened to us the whole trip. He was in the city with his mom (making it even weirder) before they moved on to Berlin. We had a nice chat, he kissed Annie on the cheeks, and we parted ways for the final time.

We made it back to the hostel, repacked our bags, showered, internetted, and hit the hay. Tomorrow, Belgium!
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Eat meat and mate [Aug. 14th, 2009|05:17 pm]
[Current Location |Bed]
[Current Mood | tired]
[Current Music |Project Runway]

The train ride was pretty normal until around 1:30. At this time the train pulled into a depot and stopped. In order to cross from Denmark to Germany, they had to move the train onto the deck of a gigantic ferry. Once the train was on board, we were all made to disembark and proceed up to the top deck for safety reasons. It was fun because we got to walk around for a bit and watch as the ferry crossed the water to Germany. The wake was incredible due to the size of the ship. On the deck we came from were all the train cars, and on the two decks above the train were dozens and dozens of cars brought on by people doing the crossing. We just couldn't believe how much weight was on the ferry. After about forty five minutes the ferry docked and we were allowed back on the train to continue our journey. I really liked seeing how the tracks the train were on went from the ferry and connected to tracks waiting on the land. The way they synched up was quite amazing to see.

We made it to Hamburg and after a short delay caught our connection to Berlin. On this train instead of being assigned seats in an open car we were in a closed compartment with four other people, two Brits and two Germans. Due to track construction what should have been a ninety minute trip turned into a two hour and twenty minute trip. Because we were kept on the train for an extra fifty minutes everyone was given snacks. I chose orange juice and what was described as cheezy bread. When I ate it it tasted like sausage though, which was quite tasty. The Germans helped us translate the different snacks and the announcements, which was quite nice. After a while, we finally made it to the Berlin train station.

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We followed the signs in the station to the public transit office to see how to get to our hostel. The lady at the counter didn't speak English, but using maps, computer print outs, and charm we managed to get out of her which local elevated train to take to the other side of the city and which tram to switch to in order to reach our destination. It didn't take too long to reach our destination, nor did it take long to figure out that our hostel was definitely in what had been East Germany. Not a lot of commerce, giant concrete apartment blocks, etc. It was interesting, which probably also explained why the hostel was so cheap. It was called Generator and was a fine place. The rooms were nice, it had atmosphere, it was just a bit off the beaten path. We liked it though since it was interesting to be staying in a hostel in a place twenty years before we would have been shot at for being in. After checking in and dropping our stuff off in our room we headed out for some light, evening sight-seeing. When we first stepped outside we got a very auspicious sign.

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We walked around our area for a bit and it just became more obvious that we were in what was formerly East Germany. Block apartments, no ATM's, no restaurants, etc. We walked down Karl Marx Boulevard. It was quite an experience. After walking around for a long time, we finally found a restaurant, which was underneath a dinner theatre. Hidden from people being able to see it easily in the past maybe? We had been walking so long looking for sustenance that by the time we sat down my hands and legs were shaking a bit from the exertion of walking/looking and the lack of food/water for an extended period. The food was quite excellent and we had an excellent, East Berlin dinner. Afterwards, we walked back to the hostel and hit the hay.

May 27:
We got up and had breakfast at the hostel. It was included in the price, which means it's not very extravagant. A couple different cereals, bread, meat, cheese, etc. Good enough to get us going. Headed out of the hostel and decided to walk into town center rather than take the tram to see more of the city. As we got going, we noticed that the crosswalks had different pictures in them than the normal "green - go" man and "red - stop" man. Apparently, when the city was divided, in the Eastern side the man in the lights looked different. He had a hat and walked in a slightly different way. When the city reunited, one of the things the East Berliners wanted to keep was their crossing man. As we walked to the town centre, Annie found a pretty good representation of what he looked like that was easy to photograph.

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Near the story Annie took this picture we saw our first example of the Berlin Bear.

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This guy is all over Berlin in different colors and poses to represent the different districts in Berlin. Once we grabbed these photo ops, we continued on to the center of town, and caught our first glimpse of downtown Berlin when we saw the Berlin tower break through the skyline.

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We were headed for the train station as we wanted to reserve our seats on the next train we were going to take in two days. As we were headed to the train station, we found the best named store ever.

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We also found an interestingly named part of Berlin which we never found out the real use for.

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We made it to the train station without any troubles and reserved our seats for the Netherlands. On the way out I saw this giant sign. It confused me as the whole sign is in English, except for the name of the country. Why would they do that?

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Heading back into town we passed the central government building THE REICHSTAG!!!!!!!!!!!

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We never went in as there was always a huge, continual line, but felt it was cool enough to grab a picture of from the outside. We next headed for the main arch in the center of town that was one of the main division points during the Cold War. We felt the area had seen enough hate, it deserved a little love.

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After seeing the arch we decided to grab a little lunch, so we hit a restaurant in the area and rocked some schnitzel, which is basically chicken or pork cutlets beat down to about a millimeter in thickness. Pretty good overall. Headed back to the arch and walked along the line in the street where the Berlin wall used to be until we found the outdoor museum dedicated to the Holocaust. It didn't contain any facts or histories or anything. It was simply a wide-open concrete park that was full of casket-sized stone statues. These ranged in size from one foot tall to eight feet tall, making the outer parts of the display easy to see and the inner parts like a maze.

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We continued following the line of where the Berlin wall was until we came to the point in Berlin where the three main areas connected - the British, American, and Russian sectors.

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There were a number of displays here, including giant sections of the original wall that were intact from when it came down.

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The line in this area was also clearly marked, so it was easy to see where East and West Germany originally were divided.

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Following the line led you out of the main square where the three powers divided Berlin and took you along where the original wall was still standing as it led to Checkpoint Charlie. Some sections of the wall remained standing with their original graffiti-art still displayed.

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Once again, Annie and I thought a bit of love would be nice for such a sad area.

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Checkpoint Charlie was marked by a giant billboard with pictures on it. On one side was a picture of a Russian soldier looking towards East Berlin. On the other side was an American soldier looking towards West Berlin. Here's the American guy.

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They also had a replica of the original warning sign hanging where it would have been at the checkpoint where you could cross from East to West Berlin (the original is in the Checkpoint Charlie museum).

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After checking out this area we started heading back towards town center, stopping briefly at an outdoor exhibit called the 'Topography of Terror'. It was an outdoor picture exhibit discussing the various buildings throughout Berlin that Hitler used to coalesce power and build up the Nazi party, culminating in the beginnings of the Holocaust. We then walked around downtown for a while, stopping in at places that looked interesting like the lego building with the giant Einstein face, which moved!

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Wanting to save some money, we stopped into a small grocery and grabbed some bread (for the peanut butter and jelly we still had) and pears for dinner that evening. We then began our slow walk home, stopping to take a picture overlooking the river that cut through the city.

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On our way, we ran into the Berlin tower again and checked to see if we could get tickets. As it was a slow day, there were still spots available, so we headed on in to get a bird's eye view of the city. When we purchased our tickets and headed for the elevator, we passed through security where we learned you were not allowed to bring food up into the tower. We started freaking out, worrying that all the stuff we had just bought for dinner would have to be disposed of. Luckily, we found out you could just leave your bag at the base and pick it up again on your way out. It would have been nice if they'd mentioned that at the beginning! We headed to the top of the tower and took some nice landscape pictures of the city. These pictures evoked some pressing questions about Berlin's place in a relatively new unified Europe. One of the more troubling ethical questions I was faced with was, when you think about it, who really let the dogs out?

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However, questions soon leave the mind when you are looking at the beauty of one of the capitals of Western civilization spread out before you.

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It reminded me of the last scene in Willy Wonka (the Gene Wilder, original, good one) when he's in the glass elevator flying over the brown roofed houses of Europe in the 70's. After checking out the town from up above for a while, we headed out and got some ice cream. We then grabbed the tram at the base of the Berlin tower, laughing because that's where we had transferred the previous day to get to our hostel but were so preoccupied with getting the right train we never noticed the tower in the background. Once we got back to the hostel we e-mailed our families, ate our PB and J dinners, and then planned the following days activities.

May 28:
After the hostel breakfast in the morning we decided to take the tram into town rather than walk as we did the day before. Our first stop was the official Birkenstock store in the town center because it was one of the main souvenirs Annie wanted to grab through our travels. After her purchase, we walked to find the Ramones museum that was advertised in the streets, but discovered it was just a cafe with lots of Ramones memorabilia in it. We opted not to enter and walked back to where the arch was in the center of town, but instead of following where the Berlin wall was next to it we walked through the arch and dove into the main park behind it.

We walked the length of the Tiergarten, the largest park in Berlin, and stopped to take in the various sites, like confusing road signs.

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Restaurants named after family members.

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And amazing monuments to war and glory.

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Our goal was the Berlin Zoo, which was at the base of the park. Once inside we saw many of the random animals you'd expect in the zoo and a few worth mentioning. We got to see the famous Knut the bear, one of the crown jewels of the Berlin Zoo. While watching him it began to rain so we ducked under a tent near his compound and checked him out for a bit. We also got to see a hippopotamus and her baby.

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Annie particularly liked this bear because he seemed very down-to-earth and non-judgemental.

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The most interesting part of the visit was that we luckily timed it so we were there for feeding time for the giant cats and mongoose paddock. It was simultaneously amazing, as the cats were very active prior to and following their feedings and disgusting, as none of them ate pasta so much as other animals. Only click on this if you don't mind disgusting.

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The last interesting thing that happened was during our time in the cat house a freak hail storm started. The hail was about the size of ping-pong balls to tennis balls. It made the cats all rush to the windows, making it easy for us to see them quite close up. It also made us laugh because at the beginning of the storm, an entire colony of rodents were out doing their thing but when the first ball of hail hit the ceiling they immediately scattered to their hidey-holes in a quite amusing way. We left the zoo after a while and found an amazing church that had been hit in the bombings during WWII. The church was mostly intact, but they left it damaged (including all the windows missing) as a memorial to the war. It was quite an impressive site.

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By this point we were masters of the public transit system in Berlin and hopped a tram back to the center of town for some dinner. We found a famous beer hall that specialized in Lowenbrau. We got some white beers, Annie got a wiener schnitzel, and I rocked a traditional bratwurst and sauerkraut. Yes, I finished the whole thing.

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From there we headed along the river back towards our hostel. While walking, I realized that after two large beers I really had to pee. Feeling incredibly nervous and embarrassed, I broke a few laws behind a building in lieu of wetting my pants. However, the payoff was we made excellent time to the East Side Gallery, a large section of the Berlin wall that has been preserved to save some of the art that was done during the Cold War. The wall stretched for a very long time, but these were some of our favorite images from the site.

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We especially liked one area of the wall that was reserved for artists to continue what was started in the 80's by putting up new murals to represent the past, present, and future in Berlin. We actually got to see an artist in action touching up a piece he'd been working on for a while.

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We headed home to our hostel after that, with our last picture being of a street that paid homage to not only my family, but an important part of American cuisine.

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We showered, packed our bags, and went to bed.

The last story of the day happened at about 1 in the morning. A new roommate came in around this time. I was between asleep and awake so I got to watch as he came in, was confused at which beds were taken, and threw all his stuff down on an occupied bed. I would have felt bed except for the fact that the bed happened to be occupied by a complete tool, so I got to fall asleep in a good mood.

May 29:
We packed our stuff, grabbed a quick breakfast, and grabbed some mass transit for the Berlin train station. The train came ten minutes late, but since they announced that would happen we weren't concerned. We got on board and prepared to hit the Netherlands.
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My country is older than your vinegar [Aug. 14th, 2009|08:11 am]
[Current Location |Bed]
[Current Mood | accomplished]
[Current Music |Dana on Skype]

Catching the later train from Stockholm to Copenhagen, we found that our seats were in a compartment which we shared with a nice Swedish man. We made small talk about jobs and such (he was in the military, going to Copenhagen to do some exercises with their army) and he was also kind enough to translate the announcements for us. After two hours we had to leave the compartment though and move to other seats. Since we had gotten our tickets at the last minute, the best the ticket guy could do was move our seats at certain stops since there were no two empty seats on the train for the whole journey from Sweden to Denmark. It all worked out though and in addition to not having to switch trains we had free internet and got free sandwiches and drinks because we were first class passengers. We arrived in Copenhagen and Annie figured out how to get to our hotel from the train station pretty quickly. She took us through the square in the middle of the city and down one of the main roads to Dan Hostel, which was a giant concrete block. It looked like an apartment complex or a hotel from the outside.

We checked in and were in our room by eight o'clock. There was already a guy sleeping in our room, so we dropped off our stuff quietly and headed out for the evening. The first place we went to was Wagamama's. It was close and we had a coupon from the hostel for a free drink. Plus we really like the restaurant and we didn't know the next time we'd have a chance to eat there again. After an amazing noodle dinner we stepped outside and started a long evening stroll. Even though it was kind of late, it was still pretty light out, just as it had been in Norway and Sweden. The first thing we saw was Tivoli, a crazy amusement park and garden attraction in the middle of the city. We didn't go in, but we could see a ride that someone told us about in a previous hostel.

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That's a normal swings ride you'd find at any carnival with a twist. It rises two hundred feet in the air before it starts spinning you around. We walked away from the park though and dove into the middle of town, heading through the pedestrian streets near the town square.

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Annie really liked window shopping, especially when she got to see some of the ridiculous fashions that were for sale.

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My favorite new thing I saw were the trash cans.

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They use solar power to provide energy for a crusher inside the can so the trash gets more compacted and uses less space in bags. I thought that was really neat. It was starting to get dark by this time though so we headed back to the hostel, took a shower, and went to bed.

May 25:

We got up pretty early and headed over to the train station to reserve tickets for our next journey. The man at the counter was really nice and explained how to transfer trains at Hamburg to get to Berlin. We then went back to the middle of town to see some of the sights. First, we saw the street named after one of the most famous Danes.

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From there we went into the H. C. Andersen museum. It was pretty depressing, as the fairy tales in their original forms are mostly sad. Find some on-line and check them out. From there we walked to the Guinness World Records Museum. When we walked in, the lady didn't charge us. This made me happy at the end, because the displays were pretty boring and wouldn't have been worth the admission price, but they were definitely worth free.

We spent most of our time walking around the town, because it looked so different from everywhere else we'd been so far. The architecture was amazing and I liked how all the streets were wired with lamps hanging in the middle of the street.

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We started to get hungry so we headed down to the canal area to grab some lunch. This is what the area we ate in looked like.

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Annie opted to get the special that was advertised on the table consisting of local cuisine, predominantly fish-based.

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Lunch was amazing and cheaper than it had been in previous countries so we were happy. We followed the water along the canals and headed for the main river cutting through town. This took us by the political center of town, close to the Parliament and head of government. There were guards there that reminded us of the soldiers guarding Buckingham Palace.

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We set up the camera for some timed shots and decided to dance through Copenhagen.

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We dove back into town looking for the statue of the Little Mermaid. What we found first was the Danish museum dedicated to the resistance during WWII. It was only closed one day a week, the day we happened to be there. Still, we got to see some interesting vehicles around the museum.

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Along the way to the mermaid we explored an old church close to where the statue was. It was situated on a beautiful lake and surrounded by a field of green.

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From there we finally saw a group of people standing along the shore which helped us find the elusive statue. If you take a picture that includes the opposite side of the river it's not very spectacular as there is some industry in the distance. However, if you crop out everything but the statue and water, it looks quite nice.

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We walked back away from the water through a fortress that is still used by the military today. There were a number of rules (no dogs, eating, etc.) but you could walk right through the little army town which was neat. We got to see the barracks the soldiers lived in and the vehicles they drove around in. The coolest part of the fortress was that it was in a star-shaped depression in the ground. From the middle of the town you were surrounded by a sloping hill on all sides. If you climbed to the top you saw the town had five points, forming a star, and was surrounded by a moat.

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Plus there was a windmill!

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We walked through the town and out the other side, stopping to take a rest on a bench since we'd walked so much to get from the center of town to the Mermaid statue and back. While we were stopped, I took a short video of a phenomenon that we noticed throughout Scandinavia. We were traveling in May, so it was the height of pollination season. In every part of every city we traveled in there was a constant shower of seeds floating through the air in the afternoon every day. The video doesn't do it complete justice, but you get an idea of what we were walking through for a week. It made you feel like you were surrounded by fairy dust, or walking through a dream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLuy8hBJvNo

We stopped for one more timed shot to capture the moment and then headed back towards our hostel.

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We decided to walk along the main roads that connected the college of Copenhagen to the town center. We got to see all the academic buildings and stopped to rest in a giant park on the side of campus. Tons of students were here relaxing, studying, drinking, throwing frisbees, etc. We just sat down for a while and people-watched. It was quite relaxing.

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The weirdest thing in the park was watching this Asian woman walk between groups of college kids with her kids. They would walk up to groups separately (sometimes the woman approached a group, sometimes her seven year old son) and then steal any empty beer cans or bottles and put them in a bag. I guess it's how they made money, but the way they were moving between groups you'd think they were up to something, not cleaning up after people taking their recyclables. We watched her operate for a bit then left when we saw another Asian woman enter her area for fear of getting involved in a recycling turf war. As we left the park, we noticed how beautifully laid out it was with it's tree-lined paths and other flora.

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We made it back to downtown near our hostel and got some European ice cream. Annie had a dark chocolate cone with cake/cookie pieces mixed in and a chocolate swirl. I had a green apple ice with a chocolate shell. Quite nice. Since it was still early and we weren't tired, we decided to go watch a movie. We opted for 'Observe and Report', the Seth Rogan movie that was out at the time. We bought our tickets and then got a bag of popcorn to share. While waiting for the movie to start, I was sampling the popcorn, which was deliciously buttered and salted. Annie took the bag from me and told me to stop eating it or we wouldn't have any for the movie. When we got into the theatre, we had assigned seats. There were only five other people in the theatre, and we were all assigned to the same row. Annie continued to keep the bag as she was scared I would eat more before the movie started. She then wanted to get situated since she had just let the last person walk by her to get to their seat in the row. She put the popcorn on the space in between our seats and reminded me not to eat any and be careful so I don't waste any popcorn. Four seconds go by. All of a sudden I hear Annie say, "Oh shit, Doug, I spilled the popcorn". I wasn't angry as it was such a hilarious thing to happen at that moment, considering her worry about the popcorn getting wasted. While trying to control my tears, I helped her pick up all the popcorn and we settled in for the movie. It was alright. Lots of good one liners, but not a good movie overall.

Following the movie we went back to the hostel. We spent our last few coins in the local currency to buy some bottles of Carlsburg, the local brew, and reviewed the pictures we took that day. We didn't mind getting rid of the money as the next day we'd finally be hitting countries that used the Euro and we would be able to stop getting new money every country. Then it was off to shower and sleep.

May 26:
We got up, packed, and left the hostel by 10. We walked to the train station and caught the 11:26 train to Hamburg.
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They Are Us [Jul. 9th, 2009|12:43 pm]
[Current Location |School]
[Current Mood | hungry]
[Current Music |Let my love open the door]

May 23:
Woke up, got dressed, and went to look for our shoes. At this hostel you have to take your footwear off before entering the living quarters. That worked out to our advantage, as walking a lot made my sneakers not smell the best. So instead of having them in the room, I got to leave them in a shoe cubicle with other people's shoes. Take that Swedes.

We stopped in the main lobby of the hostel and enjoyed the breakfast they offered (sandwiches and o.j.) We talked about what we were going to do that day and about our train ride to Stockholm the previous night. We took advantage of the train rides to write notes, Annie kept a journal, eat sandwiches, and to review pictures from each country on our laptop. To remember these rides and what we did I took a picture of Annie. Unfortunately, stalker-lady ruined every one of them. (Note how bright the night train is!)

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Our first stop was the train station near the hostel so we could reserve seats for the following day's train to Copenhagen. The guy who did our reservation seemed a bit off, but we weren't bothered at the time and chalked it up to the fact we were communicating in his second language. From there we wandered down the main streets of the city heading for the piers. There was a giant street fair going on of different foods from around the world. Tons of tents were set up with different culinary delights for you to sample. I enjoyed this tent with the HUMAN-SIZE WOK of paella.

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We made it down to the docks and got to see all the different islands that made up the municipality of Stockholm. There were many beautiful buildings along the waterfront, this being a typical example of how pretty they were.

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We crossed a bridge from the piers that led to an island most of the city's touristy attractions were on. The first place we visited was the Vasa Museum. In the 1600's Stockholm built a huge merchant ship, but rushed it through production too quickly. It made it about a mile from town and then sank. In the 1950's a guy finally found it again and proceeded to raise it, intact, over a period of three years. They finally got it on the surface and actually sailed it back to Stockholm, supported between two boats. The museum is basically built around this ship. Annie was reminded of the ship from the Pirates of the Caribbean when she saw it. I took one look at it and immediately knew it belonged to "One-Eyed" Willie.

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The exhibits around the ship were quite interesting. I particularly liked the one display that showed the different parts of a cannon and how it functioned.

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Annie took this knowledge and put it to practical use.

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One of Annie's favorite displays was a giant model of the ship cut in half to show you how the ship functioned, where its crew worked, and what the different levels of the ship were used for. I never really thought about how many decks an older ship like this could have.

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Lastly, just how big of an anchor would a ship like this carry?

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The final display in the building showed you how they had tried to get to the ship over the years. There was a great display explaining the process in the 1950's, but Annie's favorite was the diving bell they used in the 1600-1700's to try and access the ships cargo. Here's me demonstrating how it was used. Would you go hundreds of feet under the ocean in this sucker to try and grab stuff from a sunken ship's hold?

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Following Vasa, we headed over to the Swedish cultural museum. It was pretty big and had lots of different displays from different eras of Swedish history. The first exhibit we went into was a kind of Swedish "woodstock". There was a park where bands played with similar style music, there were peaceful protests, hippies, etc. Videos played throughout the exhibit so you could see and hear what it was like. On the next level there was a photography exhibit from the past hundred years, comparing modern day photos to old family ones that was fairly interesting.

Annie really liked the next room because it was full of about a dozen displays of eating through the ages. Each table was set to look like a dinner was being served from different eras. It started a long time ago when the table was quite sparse with just a hunk of meat on it. As people became richer, and more pretentious, things became a tad more glamorous. Like, if you're going to serve fowl, why not kill a whole other bird to serve the cooked bird in?

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Or why use one plate for many different things? Let's get plate-specific. Guess what was the only thing they served on this guy (Alton Brown would be furious).

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There were further displays about holidays in Sweden, where eggs are apparently important. I'd have more information, but this room was only presented in Swedish.

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In the cultural arts display room I saw the most inappropriate spoon I'd ever seen.

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There were further exhibits on weddings, 'fair' clothing (on how recycling and trade policies regarding clothes mess over third world countries), and living spaces (where they showed you different homes throughout Sweden and then a number of people's faces. Your job was to guess who lived in which space, which was interesting).

Having had enough culture through the wonder of museums, we headed over to Skansen, a gigantic outdoor culture/theme park/zoo/aquarium. It was gigantic and had all kinds of displays, restaurants, rides, and exhibits. We grabbed some lunch and had some Swedish beer, which was amazing. After one big glass of it we were each a little bit giggly. We proceeded to head deeper into the park after lunch when we ran into our hostel-mate from Oslo, Piedro. We had a quick talk and remarked how amusing it was that we ran into him, considering Stockholm itself is a pretty big city and Skansen was a big attraction. We swapped e-mails and wished him well on his trip.

Skansen was on top of a hill, which gave you a decent view of the city. We could see the new stadium that had been built recently, which was touted as the LARGEST SPHERICAL BUILDING IN THE WORLD or something. It looked like a mini-deathstar prototype.

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Walking through Skansen was fun as it was similar to the culture park we had walked through in Oslo, only more-so. There were a number of different structures that had been moved from all over the country to be presented here. Our favorite parts though were the animals that were native to Sweden. For example, I had seen reindeer in movies and such, but couldn't remember ever seeing one live.

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Moose!

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And this owl which stared me down.

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Since this was such a friendly touristy area, even the animals that weren't in cages were unafraid of the humans and would come right up to you looking for food. Annie made friends with this cheeky squirrel that I liked because of the coloring of his fur.

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The last cool animals we saw were the bears. They weren't cubs, but weren't quite adults yet either. They were just at that age where brotherly love turns to wrestling. That's right, we got to see some live-action bear wrestling from fifteen feet away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWndD7FTUuk

After a few hours walking around, we decided to head off museum and check out other parts of the city. Walking past the piers again, I saw what was probably the best named boat ever.

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We crossed two bridges and found ourselves in the middle of old town, so-named because it was one of the oldest sections of Stockholm. Unlike most other countries in Europe, Sweden was pretty much untouched during WWII and so retained most of its original architecture. This island was a maze of close-knit buildings, all surrounding the palace on the south side of the island. Annie!

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We stopped in a small little grocery, got some pasta sauce and pepsi, and then headed for home. We crossed the wrong bridge from old town and ended up on the wrong island from our hostel, but quickly figured out our mistake and headed in the right direction. The reason we had bought sauce when walking through the city was because our hostel gave our free pasta every night. There was a giant container in the kitchen full of the stuff and you could help yourself, using their utensils to cook with. We ate dinner in a room full of Germans who were quite nice about sharing the extra stuff they had. We offered some of our pepsi in exchange which created a pretty good vibe during dinner.

In our room we met the guy from Eritrea whose name was Jhonen. He had been traveling for about a month, taking a break from his education in an NYU grad program. We also met Sebastian, a German (who had been raised in East Germany before the wall came down) who was quite nice and gave us tips (and his number!) about exploring Berlin once he found out that we would be heading there in a few days.

We showered, planned our travels for the next day, and went to bed.

May 24:
The next morning we toasted some of our bread, threw some jam on it for breakfast, and were checked out by 10. We had time before our train, so we headed back to old town for some souvenir shopping. There was a store that had beautiful slippers in the window Annie wanted, but when we got there saw it didn't open until 12, which would cut it close trying to make our 12:30 train. Annie gave up the dream so we just walked around a little bit more and headed to the station. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to stop in here for a drink.

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We made it to our train and found that a woman was sitting in our seats. We checked the tickets and saw the 'off' guy had made a mistake. We had only checked our seat numbers and the train time, but never checked the actual date of the train, figuring telling the guy 'tomorrow' enough times would let him know the date we wanted to leave. We got off the train and went to the ticket office, where thankfully a different guy was working. He saw the error and printed us two new tickets for 2 o'clock, no charge. He was super-nice and really helpful. We love him.

The good part of this was it gave us time to head back to old town. We went to the store that was finally open and Annie got her slippers, which she loves. While walking down to the palace, we got a chance to see the scariest bee-keepers in all of Europe.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_4440.jpg

No, I don't know what their actual job is, I'm just guessing. But aren't they scary?

We had a bit more time to kill, so we went down to the palace and took some timed shots. People sitting around the river were watching us and smiling, which made acting goofy a bit easier.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_4432.jpg

We sat down at a nearby monument for some PB and J's for lunch and got a chance to see a military processional with full band accompaniment walk by the palace.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_4452.jpg

So all in all, catching a later train cost us nothing and we got to do a few extra things in Stockholm, which was great. We then made it back to the station and caught the 2 PM to Copenhagen, Denmark.
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It fuels his rock [Jun. 28th, 2009|05:50 pm]
[Current Location |Cafe.....]
[Current Mood | accomplished]
[Current Music |Techno-House]

May 20:
We woke up rather early and headed out of the hostel by 8. We wanted to have plenty of time to get to Heathrow and catch our flight. We took the tube all the way out to the airport and made it with two hours to spare. We sat down for some breakfast after passing through security and waited for our gate. The flight was quick with no interesting anecdotes, as it was so short. We landed in Oslo and were questioned quite briefly by customs. Anyone with an EU passport flew through the line, but they stopped us just to ask a few simple things (where are you from, going, why, etc.) After we got our bag (I checked the giant traveling backpack for the flight), we hit the railroad station that connects the airport to the center of town. We gave the lady at the counter our Eurail pass and she stamped it with no problems. The only concern I had was that she did the math wrong. Our pass was good for 21 days, but she put the expiration date of our pass at 42 days. It never came up while we were traveling, I was just amused that if we wanted to, we might have been able to get an extra 3 weeks of train rides. We caught the 4:28 train and were on our way.

The train itself was beautiful. It was very large, with lots of space for passengers and bags. The scenery on the way from the airport to the city was gorgeous as well. Lots of fields and trees, no ugly urban sprawl (like catching a train from Newark airport to Edison). We got out at the city-center and immediately went to the tourist office outside the train station. There we picked up a map and had a nice lady point out where our hostel was on it. We left the train station and headed down the main street of town that connects the station to the palace. The first thing we took a picture of was of an amazing thing they have in their Burger King's that we should totally bring to the US.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_4211.jpg

That's right, if you're in the mood for fast food AND mexican, they've got you covered. After a walk of about ten minutes we were at the Anker Hostel checking in.

The room we got had two sets of bunks and then two twin beds next to each other in a walled off corner of the room. Annie and I pushed the twins together and dropped our stuff off on them to claim our space. The room was nice as, besides beds, it also had its own kitchenette and bathroom, so we didn't have to share with a whole floor. We unpacked a few things and then headed out into the city.

The hostel was in an area of town that had a HUGE immigrant population. Norway has an excellent immigration policy and is currently trying to boost its population. As such, certain areas of the city aren't Norwegian at all as so many different cultures are moving in. Our area was predominantly Middle-Eastern, with halal meat stores and various clothing stores from that area in effect. It also had a bit more graffiti than other areas of town, but I kind of liked their style.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_4203.jpg

The only store that really stuck out for us was a skate shop, as it had an interesting name.

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We stopped at a Thai restaurant for dinner, then headed back to the hostel for some internet time (we got to Skype with the whole Peters family) and our first showers in two days. We also met some of our roommates. One was Ed, a writer from Seattle who was traveling for stories for his book. He was going to spend a month in Norway and Sweden. We also met Pedro, a Brazilian who was touring Europe following his graduation from university. We planned our sights to see the next day and then went to sleep.

May 21:
We got up early and headed downstairs. We bought an 'Oslo card' from the hostel that allowed you to use any mass transit in the city for free and provided you with free entrance to most of the museums in the city. We then headed down to the piers in order to catch a ferry to the island Oslo keeps most of its museums on. From the water we had a great view of the downtown harbor, with the imposing-looking city hall in the background.

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After disembarking, it was a short two block walk to the museums. On the way, we noticed that it smiled of lilac's EVERYWHERE! Annie loved the smell and continually pointed out the floor that was blooming in front of every house. The first museum we entered was a viking ship museum. They had found three ships that were hundreds of years old, excavated, and were then able to display them intact in the museum.

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It was small, but very interesting as there were tons of associated artifacts and human remains from the three ships. Following that, we headed over to the folk and culture museum. It consisted of an indoor museum with exhibits and then a gigantic outdoor area with buildings representing the history of Norway. Be careful though, as you are not allowed to bring dogs, cigarettes, or ice cream into the museum.

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We checked out the indoor exhibits first, this one being our favorite.

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It was an entire exhibit on the 80's, but from the perspective of Norway. Needless to say, American culture dominated the exhibit, but through the lens of popular culture and interest in Norway at the time. Our favorite display was Norwegian playboy.

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We headed into the giant outdoor area next to see some old Norwegian structures. It started with a reconstructed Norwegian town from the 1700's, which Annie said looked a lot like colonial Williamsburg. This led to a giant open area with single buildings from different eras represented. I loved the old structures that were such a part of their environment, they actually cultivated greenery on top of the house.

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They also had an amazing old church which I think they transported as a whole from one area of the country to this outdoor museum.

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We left after that and headed to the last museum on the island, the Norwegian holocaust museum. We got a bit turned around and ended up in a park close to the museum, which turned out to be good since the park was so absolutely beautiful. Annie loved the scenery, particularly the children playing in the water.

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The museum was very informative on Norway's part during WWII. We had a headset that walked us through the exhibits, translating everything. I took this shot for people who are familiar with the movie 'Falling Down'.

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We walked back to the piers after this and had some cheeseburgers while waiting for the ferry. It was 3:30 and that was our first meal of the day, so we were hungry! We found this weird sculpture on the water, which turned out to be a gift from Canada. Not the best present in my opinion, although Annie enjoyed trying to mimic the statue.

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The ferry came and dropped us off in the town square, close to the Nobel Peace Prize museum.

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It was the most technological of the museums we'd seen, with a number of interactive exhibits. Very interesting and informative. My favorite exhibit was in an empty room with a giant book in the middle. The book was empty, but every time you turned a page a projector would fill in words and pictures which you could interact with using your shadow. Our last sight was the palace which we passed on the way back to the hostel. It wasn't very majestic, just looked like a big building. Similar to Buckingham palace, but less regal. It started to rain around this time, so we ducked into a supermarket. We purchased some bananas and components to make PB and J's, figuring we could save money while traveling on trains and stuff by making our own lunches. When we got back to the hostel we had two new roommates from Holland. They were young and had come to Norway because it was the cheapest flight they could find for their holiday from school. They were lots of fun though since they were so young and full of energy. Here they are, with Ed on the left.

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They had met four other Dutch people on the same flight and invited them up to the room for drinks. They shared with us, which was quite nice. The drinks were VERY alcoholic Schnapps. We talked about our trips and how we'd be heading to their country soon. They gave us some snacks they brought with them and wrote down the names of other things to buy while in the Netherlands. The best thing was Stroopwafel. These were basically little waffle-type snacks drenched in caramel. Amazing. We exchanged e-mail addresses and then they all headed out for drinks. We stayed in to wash, pack, and get some sleep as we were heading out again the next day.

May 22:
We got up and left the room around 9:45, saying goodbye to all the new people we had met. It was a fun room with good energy, so we were going to miss our roommates. Pedro was cooking pasta for breakfast since he had some leftover and the Dutch guys were getting ready to go walk off their hangover. They gave us some more candy for the road and we headed out. We stopped at the grocery store again for some apples and some more bread and then headed to a park to check out some waterfalls and eat lunch. Our train wasn't for a few hours, so we wanted to see some more of the city before we had to leave. After that we cut right through the heart of town and came upon one of the scariest things I had ever seen. Apparently the evening before there had been a party in one of the town squares and this is what it looked like the next day. I'm glad I didn't see it at night. (See Annie on its bottom left for an idea of scale).

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We were also intrigued by some of the wall art we saw on the buildings on the way back to the train station.

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We made it to the train station and saw we still had lots of time to spare, so we headed to the Opera House which was close by. It had won many international awards for its architecture. It's supposed to resemble a ship from the distance. It rises right out of the water.

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And you can walk along the water all the way up the inclines to the roof of the structure. We thought it might be a nice place for a couple shot.

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Walking along the water, Annie put the traveling backpack on for the first time because my back was starting to get tired. She enjoyed it immensely.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_4319.jpg

Our last sight in Oslo was the fortress/military base they have by the piers. It was a series of barracks and general purpose buildings the army uses. The most interesting thing was the statue of the giant naked lady with the little naked man.

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Outside of the base was my favorite thing we saw that day. It was a street full of poles with outlets in them. You could use these for free to charge your electric car, if you had one.

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As we hit the train station, we decided to get some fast food since we still had time to kill. This is where the worst part of Norway really hit home. Norway has tons of social problems to help its citizens (health care, unemployment, etc.). They get tons of benefits just by living in the country, which explains why immigration is on the rise. The flipside to this coin is that they have very high taxes. It doesn't bother them, since they get all the benefits of paying the taxes, but it kind of hits the tourist pretty hard in the wallet. For example, our lunch from McDonald's cost $20.

Another annoyance was the restroom in the train station. It cost money to be able to use it. Annie really had to go, but we had purposely just spent the last of our money so we wouldn't have it with us in any other country where we couldn't use it (Norway doesn't use the Euro). I watched our bags while Annie went back to the Opera House to pee. I found it very amusing we couldn't use a restroom in a train station without money but for free Annie could use the bathroom in the multi-million dollar award winning building which turned out to be very nice.

Our train to Stockholm had been canceled due to construction on the tracks. Instead, we were put on a bus which took us to Karlstad and from there we were able to board the train for the rest of the way. On the train we had sandwiches and wrote in our journals. There was also free internet on the train, so we could use my laptop to see what we wanted to do the next day. The last thing to mention is that we were so far north that even past nine in the evening the sun was still shining strong. This would continue throughout most of our trip, making it seem all the more surreal as the sun would be out when we woke up, while we were out all day, and when we went to bed at night.

We arrived in Stockholm and after a quick map check walked to our hostel, which was very close to the train station. We had a full room at this one, sharing our space with a guy from Eritrea, two Japanese girls, and three other people who were sleeping when we got there. After a quick shower we hit the hay to rest up for the next day.
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Foggy in the bathroom [Jun. 26th, 2009|12:15 pm]
[Current Location |Cafe....]
[Current Mood | productive]
[Current Music |Modern pop]

May 18:
We slept in a bit since we had no real plans this day other than get to London and check in to our hostel. We looked at pics from the past week, had some tea, packed slowly, and showered. We hit the road by about noon. We had to get back to Hemel Hempstead to pack our bags (since we would be leaving a majority of our stuff with Jess while backpacking the mainland) before heading into London. Along the way, we stopped at the "Comfort Cafe" outside of Cambridge for a traditional English breakfast.

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We made it to Jess' house by the early afternoon and packed our bags over another cup of tea. Her family wished as well as Thom and Jess gave us a ride to the train station. They gave us one of their cell-phones so they could meet us the following day in the city. We boarded a train in Hemel and went directly to Euston Station in the middle of London. I was ecstatic, as this was about two blocks from where I used to live. As soon as we stepped out of the station and I smelled the air my brain immediately reverted back a decade. Without using a map I managed to find the way to our hostel, pointing out things to Annie along the way (Russel Square, the hotel my parents used when they visited me, etc.)

The hostel was located in a very central area, close to the train stations, main tourist sites, and the theatre district. We checked in and found out we were in a room with ten bunks. This was Annie's first time in London AND her first time sharing a room in a hostel with people we didn't know. Only one of the bunks was occupied when we got there by a nice guy from Egypt who was looking for work. He was quite polite, so we made introductions as we dropped our stuff off and then went out for dinner.

It was rather late at this point, so we were worried about restaurants being open. As we were walking within the space of ten minutes two different sets of people stopped to ask us directions. Annie and I must look so nice. :)
We eventually chose an Italian restaurant for dinner since it was open and I was in a pasta mood. The food was great and it was fun to sit down with just Annie for a meal since we had been road-tripping with friends the whole previous week. After dinner, I took Annie down to the river so she could see the major tourist sights lit up at night. When we got to Parliament there was a huge protest rally going down. The leader of the Tamil Tigers (a separatist group in Sri Lanka) was killed that day and hundreds of Sri Lankans and others were congregated in the area with signs, drums, chants, etc. There was a huge police presence there, with some roads closed and paddy wagons everywhere. It was a bit intimidating, so we avoided that crowd and approached Parliament from the other direction, as to avoid any possible conflicts (needless to say, the people were less than happy during this protest). So instead of a group of angry people, we took pictures like this instead.

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And of course the London Eye(sore).

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It was around eleven at this time, so we took a slow walk back along the river to our hostel, excited to get some sleep and then spend a full day in London.

May 19:
We got up and ready by 9 since we wanted to have a full day of sightseeing. We had breakfast in the hostel, which consisted of cereal, but since it was included I didn't really complain. After that, we dove right into the touristy areas of London so Annie could see the major sights. First up was Picadilly Circus.

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I also wanted to take a picture of this for my mom since she loves them.

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Buckingham Palace was next. (Annie isn't saluting, it was just bright where we were).

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From there we walked along the park and down to Trafalgar Square, in front of the National Museum. Big Ben is in the background. Can you see us?

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We were waiting for a call from Thom and Jess. We knew they didn't want to do all the touristy stuff we did, but we didn't want to do to much in case there was something they wanted to see. After discussing our plans with them on the phone, we decided they would meet us to go up in the London Eye since they had never done it before, but we should hit Westminster Abbey to kill some time before they showed up since they weren't as interested in that. On the way, Annie almost got attacked by a royal horse.

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The Abbey was beautiful of course. I'd been there before, but Annie was enjoying looking at all the sculptures and graves inside, explaining their relevance in "The Da Vinci Code" to me". It was around this time that the sky opened up and there was a downpour, but it only happened while we were inside the Abbey. After we left, it stopped and didn't rain anymore the rest of the day. Me and an Abbey!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_2278.jpg

There were more protests going on in front of Parliament when we left the Abbey. This was a combination of the Sri Lankan rally from last night and a continued hunger strike going on against the war in Iraq. Don't worry though, Churchill was keeping an eye on it.

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We walked over the bridge in front of Parliament, taking pics of the river, Big Ben, etc. Bought a bunch of postcards from a stall (15 for a pound!) and then waited under the London Eye for Thom and Jess to show up. When they arrived, we grabbed a cheap, buffet lunch from the building next to the eye and then bought our tickets to go up. We took tons of pics of the skyline and each other. Only classy pics though.

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Following that we walked along the river past the Tate gallery and stopped at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. I was excited because following this we crossed the Millenium Bridge that connected the Tate to the area where St. Paul's Cathedral is. I'd never done that before, as it was still under construction when I was there. I really liked it, since it's the only footbridge that crosses the Thames, so you can get clear views from both sides without having to cross traffic or anything. Once at St. Paul's, we took a breather from walking and had a bit of a rest while waiting for Jess' brother Tom to catch up with us.

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Tom showed up with his friend, Jake, and we continued our journey. St. Paul's was closed by the time we got there, but we weren't bothered since it was expensive to get in and Annie and I had already paid to go in Westminster Abbey. Instead, we went to a pub for drinks and to talk to Tom's friend. The reason he came is he heard we were Harry Potter fans, and he just happened to have been in the fourth movie! We stayed for a while and he told us tons of stories from the set. He played Seamus Finnigan's double. His experiences were that most of the actors were really nice and humble, no real big ego's (with the exception of Crabbe, who was kind of a tool, letting celebrity get to his head). He had some interesting anecdotes, like the girls who play the Patil twins aren't actually twins and don't like each other in real life. The guy who plays Malfoy enjoys remote control cars, so you'd see them zoom by the set sometimes with him after them. Of all the stars, he talked the most to the guy who played ROn, so they were kind of chums. After all of this he pulled out a bag and started showing us all his cool swag from his time on set. Unless you are Dana Peters, you probably won't be interested in all these pictures.

A signed, first edition of the Goblet of Fire form the principal cast members:

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Signed publicity shot of Hagrid:

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Annie with Jake and the picture:

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Jake and publicity shot of Hermione Granger:

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Annie and Daniel Radcliffe shot:

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Publicity shot from the movie, signed:

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The bad kids from the movie shot, with Goyle's signature:

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Script:

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Holiday card given to the cast from the underwater scene of the movie:

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Finally, his ticket to the premier in London.

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After having a wonderful chat with Jake, he went on his way and the rest of us (me, Annie, Thom, Tom, and Jess) finished our drinks and then went to another pub to meet up with more of their friends. We had pub food for dinner (fish and chips) and spent the night drinking and talking with their friends. Conversations ranged from music, to movies, to Mongolia (one of his friends was moving there with his girlfriend, so we told him we'd been there), philosophy, religion, etc. A normal night out drinking with a bunch of people who were easy to get along with. The girls were having an especially good time.

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Following that, we took the tube back to the train station to say goodbye to Thom and Jess for a few weeks. They left the subway and we stayed on one extra stop to get to our hostel. We then had to climb a 200-step, curving stairway to leave the station. It was fun having a bit of exhaustion at the end of the day like that, since it helped us get to sleep in preparation for hitting the continent proper.
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Multiplication of the flies [Jun. 25th, 2009|03:23 pm]
[Current Location |Still in the cafe...]
[Current Mood | cheerful]
[Current Music |Modern pop]

May 17:
Woke up quite refreshed at Thom's house since we got a comfy bed for the night. Thom brought us tea in the morning like at Jess' house which was incredibly nice of him. We definitely wouldn't be doing that for guests who came to visit us. The best they would get is if I could guilt Dana into cooking everyone breakfast. :)

We had originally planned to go to Cambridge to go punting, but the weather was rather spotty, raining on and off, and we didn't want to drive that far only to get rained out. Thom's parents had the idea of just renting a boat from the town of Wrexham close by and puttering down the Norwich broads. Since it was basically the same idea as we wanted to do but closer, we went for it. We showered, piled in the car, and were off.
Our first stop was the beach near Thom's house. He lives on the easternmost part of the island close to Norwich overlooking the North Sea. Annie got out of the car to enjoy the beach and the lovely breeze coming off the water.

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Our next stop was their local grocery mart. We wanted to buy some sandwiches and snacks, figuring we would have lunch on the boat. Annie and I enjoyed this part of the day because it was such a small, local business. Over the last week we had gone to big cities or tourist spots where being an American wasn't anything special as they were coming out of the woodwork. Going to a small shop in the middle of nowhere England brings smiles to the faces of people who might not have ever heard an American accent in person. It was cute being a novelty.

It was around this time we entertained Annie's desire to see what driving in England would be like. Thom pulled into an empty parking lot and let Annie go to town.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AFK8Ndfm_s

We then headed to the Broads, the waterways we would be motoring through. When we stepped out of the car, it started to downpour. However, by the time we hit the bathroom and booked our boat, it had stopped and the sun had come out. I was amazed that they would let you take a boat out with no previous experience. All you needed was an address (which we could have faked since they didn't match it to anyones ID) and about twenty pounds (Not each, TOTAL!) A man came to the boat with us, gave us a twenty-second "this is how you operate a boat" lesson, and we were tooling down the river.

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And now in motion!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=108EBw82-Lc

On the boat we had our lunch. It consisted of normal sandwiches, weird English candies, and some interesting drinks. We made Thom and Jess try root beer for the first time. They made us try a drink that was a combination of beer and soda. I liked it, but Annie didn't.

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While heading down the waterways, we saw many boats, but this guy was definitely our favorite. Instead of having ice cream trucks, they had these.

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The river itself was beautiful. We took turns driving the boat and enjoying the scenery. Also, every twenty feet we would throw potato chips out to the ducks on the river, who would then follow us for awhile. All along the river there were beautiful little English, thatched-roof cottages.

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Annie and I took a nice couple shot (thanks Jess!)

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And we were all thoroughly confused as to why this even exists.

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After a lovely afternoon, we headed back to Thom's house for the evening. We watched an episode of Band of Brothers with Thom's mom and dad. We discussed the war from their perspective a bit and how all of the actors in the series are English. Afterwards, his mom prepared a beautiful family tradition for us, the Sunday roast.

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It consisted of tons of meat (with horseradish sauce), veggies, and my first time ever trying Yorkshire pudding.

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Probably the best part of the meal was the jug of gravy on the table. You could just pour as much as you wanted over everything, and it was amazing. After that we spent the rest of the evening playing board games and drinking. We didn't want to go out and get too tired, as Annie and I were leaving the next day to begin our backpacking trip, starting with two days in London.
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Invisible texture [Jun. 24th, 2009|05:35 pm]
[Current Location |Cafe....]
[Current Mood | accomplished]
[Current Music |Modern rock]

May 16:
We woke up, packed, and headed out of Edinburgh. We woke up pretty early and hit the road as we wanted to drive pretty far that day, with a few stops. First up was the border between England and Scotland. About as exciting as it sounds. Only Jess and I got out of the car to check it out. Basically it's a big rock that says England on one side, Scotland on the other. Whereas they technically ARE two different countries, come on. You share the same culture, language, government, money, etc. How different are you? If Scotland is that different from England, Canada is a different planet compared to America.

Next up we checked out a section of Hadrian's wall. Built by the Romans, it basically cut off the south of the island from the savages in the north. It is rebuilt in the movie "Doomsday" to keep a plague contained within Scotland to save the rest of the island. Don't see this movie.

SInce the wall extended across the entire island, we just saw a small section of it as it connected with a Roman garrison (Fort Chester I believe). We walked around a bit, but it was pretty much a broken down wall in a field. Excellent for history buffs to see, but not quite interesting to talk about or post pictures of.

To save time, we bought some sandwiches and ate them in the car on the way to our next destination, York. This is the city invaded in "Braveheart" for those who need a movie reference. Also, there are peppermint patties that share the same name.

We parked at the train station since it's pretty centralized in the town. We crossed the river through a beautiful bridge/archway and then entered the first place the girls were interested in, the cosmetic/soap store "Lush". Afterwards, we headed down to the Jorvik Viking exhibition. It was touted as an experience taking you back in time to the time of the vikings when they sacked York and named it Jorvick (pronounced Yor-vick, thus eventually becoming York). Basically, you sat in a cart and went through a Pirates of the Caribbean-type ride, only about one-third as fast and far less interesting. Quite a tourist trap, which was annoying as it was recommended in the book we had. It was the last time we used that book.

Following that, we headed downtown and checked out the shops on the oldest street in York, which looked like an English street from a few hundred years ago. We stopped in a "chintzy" tea shop for afternoon tea. This consists of tea (I had the Irish blend Lapsang) and scones that have butter, jam, and clotted cream on them. It was absolutely delicious. Clotted cream is my new favorite topping. Here's Annie enjoying it (wearing the wrist warmers she loved and got in Edinburgh).

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On the way out of the street, I noticed this sign on a low-hanging door and thought it was funny.

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It was a nice afternoon, so we just took a slow pace through town, without paying to go into anymore tourist traps. We ended up at the tower castle, which was caught pretty sitting on a green hill.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3876.jpg

We then took a slow stroll down the river in town which was lovely and headed back to the car park to continue our journey. It was our last big drive. To save money, we had decided to push on to Thom's house where we could crash for free as opposed to spending another night in an overpriced hostel (since they were kind of posh in this area of England). It took a while, as we had to go down the entire Western coast of the island down to the point that juts out to the side, as that's where Thom lives. The one weird sight we saw was the "Angel of the North". It's a gigantic stone angel in the middle of absolutely nowhere that you can see for miles from the highway. It was kind of surreal. We stopped at a pub for dinner outside of the city of Norwich, and then finished the drive to the coast on the bottom-right side of the island. We made it to Thom's house kind of late, but his parents were still up. They were amazingly polite and talked to us for a bit over tea. Since Thom's sister was still at university at the time, both couples got their own bedroom which was nice since we'd been hosteling it for a bit and enjoyed the real beds and privacy.
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Gigilo for us [Jun. 23rd, 2009|04:00 pm]
[Current Location |Cafe.........]
[Current Mood | complacent]
[Current Music |Reggae]

May 15:
Woke up and had to check out of the Castle Rock hostel. Since we were getting to the beginning of the busy season, and we were there on a weekend, they were booked up for the second night we wanted to stay there. I was sad to leave the hostel since I liked it so much, but was very excited to check in to our next place.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3662.jpg

Yes, it used to be a church, and is now a place where foreigners come to pass out drunk for very little money. We dropped our stuff off and headed out. It was within walking distance of the main sights in Edinburgh, so we weren't very bothered. We stopped on the way for some breakfast. I had an amazing dish of toast, covered in scrambled eggs, with smoked salmon on top. It was AMAZING.

We left and walked through a shopping district, followed by a graveyard. Finally, we made it up to the castle area.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3675.jpg

We walked up to the entrance of the castle, but didn't go in as it cost about twelve pounds each. For the four of us to enter, that would've been forty-eight pounds, which is something like five hundred dollars. As much as I'm sure the building is historically important, let's face it, it's an antiquated structure made out of rocks. In addition, since we're living in Europe, I think we'll see a castle or two while we're here. We walked into the front entrance, looked around at what we could, and headed out.

We DID however drop some money to go into the camera obscura exhibit close to where the castle was. A camera obscura is basically an optical trick using light, mirrors, and lenses that can project images from around a tower onto a blank slate. When you dim the lights, the blank slate looks like a movie screen, showing you IN MOTION whatever you point the mirrors at. It looked exactly like a TV, which was amazing since these things are hundreds of years old. We thought it must have freaked people out back in the day, and we were pretty impressed ourselves! In addition to this, the entrance fee included rooftop access to the tower so we could see all around Edinburgh, as far as the sea. We then spent the next hour or so working our way down the tower, as each floor had its own exhibit focusing on different aspects of optics and light. There were too many things to talk about, so I'll just mention three. The rooms that had multiple reflections.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3716.jpg

Mad-scientist room.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3721.jpg

And Predator room. (Infra-red camera, notice how cold Annie's eyes are!)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3727.jpg

On the way out, there was a machine that could take your picture and then you could morph your image into different shapes. Here's Annie videoing me becoming a number of things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCUYnI9tKjs

Afterwards we started walking down the Royal Mile and shopping in some of the stores. In one, Annie fell in love with a pair of wrist warmers (picture later in journal). While talking to the shopkeep, he learned we were TEFL teachers and started a conversation about his desire to become one. Annie started putting tammy hats on me while we were all talking to amuse herself. I didn't want to get one as I already have one from Edinburgh. To try and spur me on, Annie said she liked it because it was poofy. Unbeknownst to Annie, this is slang where we were (offensive term for a homosexual man) and the shopkeep started laughing and arguing that it looked manly.

We went outside and stepped into a trend that would follow us during the first half of our European trek, clouds and rain. They would only come on days we were walking around cities, but days we were traveling the weather would be gorgeous. To escape it for a bit we went into Deacon Brodie's cafe (across from the Deacon Brodie pub). Deacon Brodie was a man who was nice cabinet maker during the day, but was eventually hanged for being a thief at night. He would become the inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We had some tea and hot chocolate in the rooms where he used to have his shop.

We continued walking down the mile and made an impromptu decision to join a tour that was about to leave exploring the underground of Edinburgh. Our tourguide was very good, if dressed a bit like Pinhead (he joked about it, referring to himself as the "S & M Willy Wonka" and then asked if we wanted some candy). He was amusing, kept your attention, and was extremely knowledgeable. During the tour he described various horrors throughout the history of Edinburgh, including the treatment of prisoners and torturing. Guess who got picked to be his model when he demonstrated some of the tortures?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3780.jpg

The tour ended by taking us down some side streets and then into a building which led under the streets. This was coupled with ghost stories and the origin of the underground caves. Excellent time overall. On the way back up to the tourist area, I saw this and had to take a picture.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3787.jpg

We followed this with a movie about the Loch Ness monster, IN 3D!!!!!!!!!! It was incredibly cheezy overall, but worth it because it was so cheap (the lady gave us all discounts since it was a slow day and she had no one to talk to.) The movie starred a "scientist" with a ridiculous beard who did some cheap 3D tricks and explained how he explored the loch over the past few decades. It didn't give you any hard evidence and wasn't compelling in any way, but it was fun.

It started to rain a bit harder at this point, so Ann and Jess hit a pub while Thom and I finished walking the mile down to the palace. We took some pics and then headed back to meet the girls. We ate dinner at the pub (I had chicken haggis) and just talked over a couple of pints. We walked back to the hostel after that to settle in and plan the next day's drive. It was the first chance we had to appreciate our accommodations. They turned the entire chamber where the pews used to be into a series of cubicle-like rooms, but didn't put a roof on the rooms so you could see the whole expanse of the chuch as you slept.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3801.jpg
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A symphony of bananas [Jun. 22nd, 2009|01:21 pm]
[Current Location |Friggin' internet cafe again]
[Current Mood | tired]
[Current Music |Techno-house]

On May 14th we got up and packed and headed downstairs for the complimentary hostel breakfast. This would be the single best included breakfast we would have for the remainder of our European travels. It was a cafeteria style kitchen with anything you could want breakfast wise (eggs, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, pancakes, etc.) including all the British breakfastisms (baked beans for example). The chef behind the counter was an amazingly cheerful Scot who chatted anyone up that came down the line. Quite a lovely meal to start the day.

We headed back to the carpark and plugged in our Sat-Nav (or GPS). I loved what its name was (upper-left corner).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3549.jpg

We left Bristol and began our long-haul north. To break up such a long drive from the south of England to Edinburgh, we had a few stops planned. First up, we went to a rest area. This was necessary for a bathroom break, some petrol, and the requisite trashy mags. ANnie noted that I apparently become very concerned about the stories I read in my trashy mags.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3554.jpg

The thing that caught my attention about the mags was that, unlike in the US, nudity seems to be a selling factor. Not posing-for-Playboy nudity, but more like Kate-Moss-caught-on-the-beach-topless nudity. Still, rather surprising.

After that, we headed towards where Jess went to college. Not to visit her old alma mater, but rather the Monkey Forest that was nearby. In the middle of England, not near anything and for no apparent reason, there's a large reserve with hundreds of monkeys from two species you can go visit. There ARE some rules though.

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And how close can you get to the monkeys? Excited Annie can show you.

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After hanging with the monkeys for a while, we moved on. After driving for a few more hours, we pulled over for lunch in the town of Preston. Thom and Jess said it was a run-down town, and in our heads we compared it to New Brunswick or Camden. When we got there, it looked like a perfectly normal little English town. It was a bit bigger than Hemel Hempstead and had a few closed up businesses, but other than that it was fine. We stopped at a small restaurant for a cheap lunch of fish and chips with mushy peas.

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Following lunch we hunkered down and prepared to knock out the rest of the drive. It was a GORGEOUS day for driving. Lots of sun, no traffic, and good roads made the trip seem to fly by. Driving was pretty fun because we were still amazed at how different it was, in addition to the fact that our hosts had severely different driving styles (Jess had been driving awhile, whereas Thom had only gotten his license in the past month). We were quite excited when we got to Scotland (Annie and Jess both had never been there), as leading up to Edinburgh the scenery would change between beautiful hills and countryside, small villages, beautiful cottages/houses standing alone, and back again. We didn't see a proper town or city until we finally hit the outskirts of Edinburgh, and even then it only increased in population and size gradually. We drove to the Royal Mile on the tourist side of town and checked into the Castle Rock Hostel. I was excited as this was the place I'd stayed twice before when I was in Scotland. It has a nice, young atmosphere and is quite cheap. All the rooms have different themes and all the beds are labeled to help you find them (i.e. - In the "Matrix" room you would sleep in bed "Neo"). When we checked in, I was pleased to note that we were assigned to the "Winnie-the-Pooh-" room, because I thought my mom would get a kick out of it.

We dropped off all of our stuff and headed out to catch what daylight we had left. The first thing we did was to take Annie's picture in a pretty standard tourist shot, as this was the first time she had ever seen one of these.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3617.jpg

We headed down the mile and stopped at the pub I ate at last time I was in Edinburgh for dinner, Deacon Brodie's. I knew it had an upstairs dining room and served the local cuisine, haggis. Thom ordered us an amazing pear cider, Kopparberg. If you can find some where you live, drink it, it's amazing. I considered smashing the bottle on the table to get the remaining drops stuck to the inside of the glass. For dinner Annie went with salmon, since it's excellent there, while I convinced Thom to join me in the traditional main course.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3625.jpg

We ate and drank so much we were quite tired after a while, and since the sun had gone down we moseyed on back to the hostel. I went to the lobby to try and get us on the internet so we could plan the next few days driving while the rest of the gang walked around taking pictures. I love the signs they have in the hostel, like walking through this low hallway.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3643.jpg

We went to the room and each claimed a bed.

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Europe%20trip/IMG_3649.jpg

Although Annie and I crammed into one, using the other one to lay our stuff out on. We were tired, but weren't quit sleepy yet, so we stayed up for a bit with the lights out, telling ghost stories and swapping anecdotes about our families.
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Stop with the dong [Jun. 21st, 2009|04:50 pm]
[Current Location |In a friggen internet cafe]
[Current Mood | awake]
[Current Music |Techno-house]

May 11:
After some last minute packing and saying goodbye to family members, we finally embarked upon our next quest, the conquering of Europe.

Dave picked us up and after figuring out his car, as economical and environmentally friendly as it is, is not cut out for transporting people and suitcases to airports. We felt bad as we moved everything into my parents car which he would then have to return that evening before getting his car back and heading home. If it was Newark airport we were leaving from it wouldn't have been a big deal, but since our flights were coming out of JFK, we realized how annoying it would be. Thanks Dave!

We got there hours early, as airport security always suggests you do, and were checked in within twenty minutes. Since we had nothing else to do and were hungry, rather than grabbing a quick MickeyD's meal, we sat down in one of the restaurant airports and had a proper pasta dinner for our last night in America.

Afterwards we headed down to the gate and plugged in the laptop to watch some Band of Brothers before the flight. I went up to the hit the bathroom before taking off and when I returned found Annie in a conversation with some strange Irish woman. Now, by conversation I mean the lady was talking about herself continually expecting Annie to fill in the appropriate follow-up questions so she could talk more. Anytime Annie tried to change the topic, the lady kindly would plow right on through discussing her time in Houston. This is why I can't leave Annie alone in an airport. :)

We got on the flight and were mentally prepared for a very long journey with no in-flight entertainment since our tickets were so cheap. We were happy to discover that they had the normal tv screen in the back of the chair in front of you from which you could select movies. Of course, the movies were terrible, but beggars can't be choosers. My favorite part of the flight was that since it was on Aer Lingus, every announcement was made in English and Gaelic.

May 12:
We landed in Dublin and had a pretty easy transfer to our connecting flight. It was only an hour layover, so it wasn't a long wait, nor was it too short a time to cause anxiety getting to our next gate. We were concerned when we got there though since our flight was basically a puddle jumper to London and we would be sharing it with a German class trip, most of whom had bought giant, green, Irish Leprachan hats and had the personalities to match jack-asses who would buy hats like that. On the plus side, they didn't speak English, so their conversations were much less annoying than they would have been otherwise.

We landed in London, got our bags, and headed out the gate. Thom and Jess were right there when we got out and we were all excited to see each other. We went down to the parking deck and got into their cars. They brought two since English cars are tiny and we each had two giant suitcases. Jess took Annie while Thom and I rode together.

Getting to their house was interesting. I sat in the front with Thom where, in America, the driver would sit. I wasn't used to this at all, and spent the entire car ride wondering where my steering wheel was and why we were on the wrong side of the road. Since you're sitting in what would normally be the drivers seat, you instinctively have "drivers reactions" to things happening in front of you. For example, when Thom would make a left turn on red, I would expect to die.

Our destination was Jess' house in the lovely town of Hemel Hempstead.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3407.jpg

We dropped off our suitcases and met her family, all perfectly wonderful English people. There was the dad, Brian, her mother, Noelle, and her brother, Tom. Since it was the mid-afternoon and we hadn't really eaten anything yet that day, Thom, Tom, Jess, Annie, and I popped into their car and headed to the next town (St. Alban's) for lunch. We ate at one of Jess' favorite restaurants (and one of my favorites from back when I lived in England), Wagamamas. It's an excellent noodle house that serves all its food fresh. With wooden spoons.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3354.jpg

After lunch we headed into the town proper. It was Annie's first time walking through an English town, and she was very excited. We started on main street and just walked along the stores, stopping in a chocolate shoppe for some dessert. The cashier was very friendly and after figuring out (quite quickly due to accents) that we were Americans started to give us tips on how to use British pounds and get rid of change. I thought that was kind of weird, but the sentiment was nice.

We ended our sojourn in St. Alban's by hitting up their Abbey. How excited was Annie to see her first sight in England?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3361.jpg

We walked around a bit, looking at chairs and chests that were older than our country, and getting a nice photo-op at a place that people who are serious about religion come to do pilgrimages. We just wanted a picture.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3380.jpg

After all our traveling, we were kind of tired, and headed back to Jess'. Driving in England is different, wrong-side of the road aside. They use traffic circles (which we got yelled at for saying since they only call them "roundabouts") much more than we do. Check out this little nightmare.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3405-1.jpg

That's one giant circle, and every little circle inside of it is it's own roundabout. Every time we entered it, I didn't think we would ever get out, alive or otherwise. My other favorite thing about this sign is the picture of the elephant. They love using pictures to represent destinations. Whenever you see an elephant on a sign, it means "zoo". I thought having elephants being a destination in town would have been much cooler.

After a brief bit of tea and talking with Jess' parents, we were rested up enough to hit the local pub to meet some of Thom and Jess' friends. It was Annie's first pub experience, and it was quite a nice, quiet place.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3413.jpg

The backyard was on a canal, and after it got too cold we went inside and had our own corner in the pub with multiple sofas to sit on. One of the pub's claims to fame was that Shakespeare drank there back in the day. While talking to Thom and Jess' friends, I played a trivia game standing in the corner and won three pounds. You have to love a country that has machines set up that will pay for your next round if you're smart enough.

We headed home after picking up some KFC takeout for dinner. It was then we started divvying up rest areas. Jess was wonderful and gave Annie and I her room. Thom and Jess slept in the the living room. Harry Potter was stuck with to the cupboard under the stairs.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3429.jpg

May 13:
We got up in the morning and were all super-excited to begin traveling. For our first week in Europe, we were going to take a road trip through England and up to Scotland, driving with Thom and Jess. Thom got up early and started cooking us bacon (which was amazing)and tea for breakfast while Annie and I poured over travel books. Annie was very happy to begin.

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We were showered, dressed, packed, and on the road by 9:30. We had a glove box full of cds, an iPod full of tunes, and Annie energized enough to power a plane. Not a large plane necessarily, but definitely a vehicle capable of flight for at least a small group of people. We headed west from Hemel Hempstead on the way to our first stop, Stonehenge.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3455.jpg

Not much to say about it really. What you see is what you get. That's us. That's a bunch of rocks behind us. Moving on!

We continued heading west from Stonehenge and stopped for lunch in the town of Bath. This was a beautiful city that Thom and Jess will be moving to in July to teach some summer school. It was named after the Roman Baths that you can see in the town if you spend a lot of money, which we were not willing to spend. Instead, we walked into the town centre, past the church with an incredibly frightening outside art exhibit going on.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3476.jpg

Annie and Jess became interested in a man they thought was dressed up like a Roman, until they figured out it was a mannequin.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3478.jpg

We stopped for lunch at a pub in the touristy part of town, because that's where all the restaurants are. When we ordered, the waitress was super nice and complimented Annie for her menu skills. They had a nice chat about being waitresses and comparing American restaurants with ENglish pubs. Annie had soup and a sandwich. It was her first introduction to the English use of butter on sandwiches instead of mayonnaise or the like. She did not like it, though for the rest of the trip and into Greece that's how I've taken my sandwiches. I had a jacket potato which was amazing, and since Annie had never seen one wanted a picture.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3484.jpg

Before leaving the pub, I hit the loo, and had to take a picture of the vending machine in there.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3488.jpg

Now, condoms I understand, but would you buy a pill in a vending machine in a bar?

We got back to the car and continued our journey. It was during this leg of the trip that we hit our biggest snag of the whole week. The car broke down.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3503.jpg

This was quite worrying as not only was it day one, tomorrow we would be making the longest drive of the week, up the west coast of England to Scotland. However, it wasn't a very big deal. The English equivalent of AAA got to us and told us what to do. The radiator had a slight leak. He filled us up and told us what to get to fix it. We drove down the road a short ways and bought K-Seal, a liquid you pour into the radiator that closes up the gap. After we did that, there were no more worries the whole time with the car.

We finally made it to that day's destination, the city of Bristol, to meet up with Jess' friend Donna. She is an event coordinator and had lived in the city a while. She showed us how to get to our accommodations for the evening, the YHA hostel near the town center. After we checked in, we headed into town for some pics and dinner. Here's us in front of a giant, mirrored globe for some reason.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/IMG_3531-1.jpg

Afterwards we had dinner in a Latin restaurant where the waiters kept pronouncing paella with the two l's. It was amusing for Annie and I, as no one else noticed the problem. After a few drinks there, we headed back to the hostel, grabbed a shower, and went to sleep.
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Is this going to go on all night? [Mar. 13th, 2009|07:45 am]
[Current Location |Our room]
[Current Mood | excited]
[Current Music |Nick Drake - Fly]

Last entry from Corinth/Vrahati. Here's the crazy elevator in the building where we went to school. When you step into the elevator, the floor goes down a few inches, as if it were on springs (which then pops you up when the elevator stops moving). The rest you can see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pB9elehId4

And here we are at the graduation ceremony. We passed!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Greece/IMG_2682.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Greece/IMG_2684.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/douglaspeters/Greece/IMG_2688.jpg

Annie and I both scored VERY COMPETENT on all components of the class, thus earning us a Merit attached to our Certificates. We rule.

Home tomorrow. Taking the bus to Athens with Peter and then hitting the airport. Next journal entry will be in a foreign country, as I don't write while I'm home.
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Is that your face? [Mar. 10th, 2009|02:28 am]
[Current Location |School]
[Current Mood | calm]
[Current Music |Annie teaching]

Nothing much going on here in Corinth. Just sitting at the main study desk in school while Annie teaches, waiting for her to finish so we can go home and eat tuna sandwiches. :)
No pics or vids this time, just going to ramble about some various day-to-day stuff and observations about our past month here.

As I've mentioned, the bathroom in our house can be legally considered a torture chamber in some countries. The hot water (once you've had the boiler on for thirty minutes) lasts a good fifteen minutes before turning cold and never back to hot again. The delightful part about the hot water is that if while you're taking a shower and someone in the village happens to use water in any other way during the fifteen minutes before your water turns cold, that person will suck all the cold water out of the pipes making your shower scaldingly hot.

In addition to the cockroach I mentioned in a previous entry (which is the only one I've seen since I've been here although the other roommates said they saw one in their bathroom) our bathroom has a plethora of little winged flying guys. They're especially good at hiding until you least expect them, such as right when you sit on the toilet. The times that they are the most annoying are when you get in the shower, turn the water on, and then three come out of the woodwork to fly around you. You then find yourself hunting them down while in the shower without realizing that every second you spend doing this is another second that your precious little hot water trickles away down the drain.

On to other matters, the laundry machine sucks. It's the same as in Korea, where it's a front loader that spin-dries afterwards. We all have to share it, so there's no time for drying cycles, which means everything is hang dry. Nothing happened to any of our laundry, but one of our roommates lost her black underwear after she had hung them up to drive. Selective wind, crazy cats, or a creepy neighbor have all been discussed as popular culprits, but an answer has not been found. And she is still without her undies. (Don't worry, she has others).

As far as food goes, Annie and I have been very good about eating three meals a day. Breakfast consists of yogurt, cereal, or a gingerbread like doughnut we bought at a local place. For lunch, I consistently eat two pitas. Every day. They're awesome and I don't know when I'm going to get something like them again. Annie goes back and forth from salads to pita's to chicken platters, etc. Dinnertime is always the most fun as pretty much everyone cooks every night. We all have different foods we are used to and hang out in the kitchen cooking and commenting on each other's culinary choices. Our specialties usually involve pasta and fresh veggies, but we've done stews and soups and other things. Just recently, Annie stole a curry chicken recipe from one of our roommates and it was amazing. Dinners are great because they're fun to prepare with the roommates and they mean the day is over.

Public transportation here is easy if not weird. Peter used to drive us to and from school in his mini-bus but due to his recent illness we've been stuck with catching a car ride in the morning (which only seats three) while the rest take the public bus. At night, we basically all take the public bus together whenever we get out of work. The workers are very helpful on the bus, the passengers tell us if we're in the right place, and the busses all follow easy routes so you know where you are. The only weird thing is that there is no smoking on the bus, unless you're the driver.

This is an interesting anomaly in many places here. No smoking signs are posted in lots of places, but seem only to apply to the people visiting the places, but not the employees. The bus drivers almost all have makeshift ashtrays next to them and smoke continuously. Sit near the front and you can't avoid the smell, but sit near the back and there's no problem. The other example I saw of this was in the train station. No smoking signs everywhere. I looked over at the information booth and the employee was sitting in there with a depressed look on his face chain smoking. Everyone is very good at following these rules, but there is some unwritten law about them not applying to workers.

Tomorrow is our last day of morning classes and afternoon teaching sessions. Then on Thursday we've got our final exam and Friday is our graduation ceremony with champagne and cake I believe. Saturday we are headed to Athens on a bus to get to the airport and then are headed home until we land a job somewhere. The job market is very open for us at the moment and we are looking at many locations. We could have jobs right now if we wanted (Indonesia, Korea again, Greece, etc.), but we're giving it some time and being very selective about some locations. We want to know our options before we're off again for a year or more.

Possibly one more entry before the end of the week with celebratory pictures and a video of the deathtrap that serves as an elevator in our building. Otherwise, we'll be back in the US in about four days.
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