Bulldawg Travels

Home

2009-06-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

My Journey through most of Eastern and Central Europe came to an end at about 1:15 EDT yesterday as flight KLM8164 landed on the sweltering tarmac of Hartsfleid-Jackson International Airport. After a 2-hour flight from Paris, a brutal 12-hour layover in Amsterdam, and a 10-hour flight to Atlanta both Jonathan and I arrived safely. My backpack full of dirt clothing did not though. I am still waiting on that pack of some of my favorite smelly clothing and there is a great chance it could be quite some time until I see any of them ever again.

It is nice to be a back on American soil and certainly enjoyed my bed last night, as I was the only person in the room, for the first time in 35 days. What a great feeling. Our stay in Paris was solid and consisted of several stops by the Eiffel tower, which never ceases to blow me away with its enormous size and atypical design, a never-ending stroll through the Louvre, and a nice trek down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triumph. I got a picture of the Mona Lisa. I was only the 100- millionth person to take its picture, but I still felt special as I heard the click of the shutter.

On Sunday there was a music festival throughout the entire city of Paris, so we walked all around the city with Jordan, a friend of ours from Athens who was interning there. We stumbled upon some interesting bands; the band that rocked out to Britney Spears’ “Hit Me Baby One More Time” I will probably never forget. The best show was the French speaking Metallica cover band that dominated a square near our hostel. We ended the night at the Eiffel tower again and watched it turn off its plain white lights and turn on its Sparkling lights, which make the tower look like it was created out of stars from a galaxy far far away.

My experience has been amazing and I am incredibly happy that I was able to share it with so many of my friends and family. I hope that it gave everyone the urge to see the world, because there is a lot to experience and not a whole lot of time.

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this trip of a lifetime transpire.

-Brendan

Normandy

2009-06-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

Over the past 5 weeks Jonathan and I have seen countless memorials for WW2 and have managed to read the quick excerpt engraved next to them, take a quick picture, and moved on to the next site. We were short on time and had to be efficient with our time. Despite a severe lack of sleep and some holes in our directions, we decided to take a day-trip to Normandy. We hopped on a 9:11 train to Caen, a city just to the south of the Beaches at Normandy and the wrong stop for us. Luckily, the correct stop was only 20 minutes from the Caen train station, so we were able to jump onto the next train to Bayeux, the right stop, and catch a bus that took us to Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery.

Before heading to the Cemetery I wanted to walk to the beach and see exactly what it’s terrain was like. The memorial for the beach was incredible and had a trail that led down the steep Cliffside to the beach. After hiking down to the water, we were able to see what faced the American troops as they climbed off their boots on June 6th, 1944, D-Day. After looking at the water, which could not be anymore picturesque, I turned around and looked at the hillside and tried to envision what exactly it would have looked like for the young American soldiers as they were trudging through the water with their 70 lb. packs and rifles. There is no real way to recreate that situation, but being there really gave me a sense of the adversity that the troops faced on their mission for freedom. We were able to walk down the beach and climb up some of the steep rocky coastline, to get a better glimpse of Juno beach, about 10 miles to the east. Cut up legs and muddy shoes were the result, but a phenomenal view that I would take the dirt and blood for any day.

With wet shoes and itchy legs, we headed back to Omaha Beach and found an old bunker that housed the Nazi soldiers, who were positioned there to protect the Atlantic Wall and their lives. The bunkers were very beat up, as they were bombed heavily, but it gave me a sense of what a German Soldier would have been experiencing as he felt the ground tremble with 32,000 American soldiers storming his bunker. Knowing what had probably happened to the people stationed in these bunkers made the experience stunning and unforgettable. The next part of the trip was the American Cemetery.

The first sight of the American Cemetery and memorial is one of extreme beauty, which is usually not the word one would usually use when describing a cemetery. The sparkling white crosses and Stars of David of the fallen soldiers are aligned with extreme precision and are situated right on a field that looks over Omaha Beach and the English Channel. Over 9,800 headstones, that symbolize the lives of the lost that gave up everything they had for their country and the right to freedom. As we walked through the headstones, we noticed the countless unknown soldiers and the soldier’s that died on June 6th and probably died on their first day of combat. A memorial for all of the soldiers and the unknown is situated directly in front of the headstones and overlooks them to give them the respect they all deserve.

Throughout school, we always here the numbers of the dead soldiers, but that number did not really hit me until I was standing their reading the names of the lost and realizing that every individual digit resulted in countless distraught families, fatherless children, and lives completely altered.

I was completely thrilled with the trip to Normandy and I think, although I due have a couple days left, it gave me a good sense of closure on my trip and I feel as though I accomplished the goals I had for the trip.

-Brendan

I Love to Eat

2009-06-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

As we were standing at an intersection in Brussels, we hear “Jonathan, Brendan”, from across the road. This was completely unexpected, being that we don’t know anyone from Brussels, so we were a little startled. We gave that look of who in the (insert word) would be calling our names and sure enough across the street is Ethan, one of the guys we met in Barcelona and were on several trains with during a 14-hour day of traveling. Ethan and his friends had arrived the day before and were heading to Amsterdam the next day, so we met up with them later that night and had dinner and a couple of beers. It was really nice to run into them again; we are so used to meeting people and then leaving, usually knowing that we would never see or talk to these people ever again in our lives.

Brussels has several amazing things that are not good for the body. The first being their French fries. We walked out of our way to find this little shop that was well known for its fries. They were exceptional, with the perfect combination of salt, some sweetness, and the perfect crunch that I will not even try to describe in words, because they would not do the crunch justice. After some rest, we headed over to this bizarre statue of a baby boy peeing into water, called the Mannekin Pis. The best part of this statue was its premium location right next to the Belgian Waffle shop. They do not play around with their waffles in Belgium. This waffle I consumed was incredibly simple with just a minimal amount of powdered sugar sprinkled on top; the waffle literally melted in my mouth.

I also consumed some Belgian chocolate, which might be better than the Swiss chocolate. The Swiss are very proud of their chocolate as well as pretty much everything of their own, but they may have lost the battle of the Chocolate as far as I am concerned. Being that my pants don’t fit anymore and my belt broke, I came to the conclusion that I mine as well just keep on eating crazy amounts for the last couple of days. I needed to wash all of these delicious treats down and since Belgian beer is world famous, I had to sample several different types.

I am now sitting in our Paris Hostel, the Young and Happy Hostel, feeling pretty disgusting from the brewed chocolate covered waffle and fries that are still destroying my stomach. After some rest we will attempt to climb up the Eiffel tower, it could be ugly.

Not watching the U.S. Open is killing me and I would love to just be sitting on a couch right now watching Tiger dominate Bethpage and the rest of the field.

-Brendan

The Durty Nelly

2009-06-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

After taking a quick right out of our hostel, the Durty Nelly, and another 90 degree turn to the right we found ourselves in the middle of the Red-light District. This is obviously a strange topic, but I am here to tell my stories of our adventure through Europe, so I will write about the things I experienced. We are all aware of what the red lights mean, but the area known for such promiscuity, is not what one would think. Amsterdam is a beautiful city and it does not let one or two of its streets determine its identity.

The first thing we noticed once we got off the train from Berlin was the copious amount of “coffee shops”, which offer not only your favorite concoction of coffee beans and cream, but some other type of all natural substance that the likes of Bob Marley and Cheech were known to enjoy. These shops surrounded our hostel and were pretty much everywhere. After checking into the Durty we rented some bikes and trucked it through the city to Anne Frank’s house, which had transformed into some modern building that did not match the diaries description; the line was long so we decided to not go in. From there we peddled over countless brick arched bridges, past some churches, and headed for the Heineken Brewery.

The Brewery was great and we learned a lot about the history of Heineken; they even let us get a little taste. After dodging more cars, and more bikes (there are more bikes than people who live in Amsterdam and it makes for a peculiar site), we turned our bikes in, and headed back to the hostel for some grub. We met some people from Canada, Australia, Florida, and Sweden, and chilled at the hostel. From there we walked around the streets and saw some things that would most certainly not be viewed on the city streets of Atlanta. This was a learning experience and we were trying to make sure we completely understand the atmosphere of the city.

After crashing at about 12:30, I woke up at 7:30 and decided to sneak out of our 10-bed room and walk around the city. The morning in Amsterdam may be it’s most amazing time; the streets are not filled with obnoxiously high or drunk people, but it was just as any city functions with businessmen walking to catch their trains, store’s opening their doors, people just going on with their everyday lives and pursuing their dreams. I walked as far as I could from the Red light district and walked along the streets near the rivers and discovered some of the cleanest, most picturesque neighborhoods that even Norman Rockwell would be proud to paint. Our free breakfast was served at 9:00, so I reversed and headed back to the hostel, while attempting to soak in the moment before packing, once again, and finding our train for Belgium.

Honestly, I was not really looking forward to going to Amsterdam, for several reason, but in the end it was one of the nicest places we have visited and the stay managed to completely reverse my view of the city as a whole, which is not what is usually depicted in Movies and TV Shows. We are on a train to get Waffles in Belgium; other than that we have know clue what to expect from Brussels. Not knowing what is to come is all part of the fun.

-Brendan

37 hours in Berlin

2009-06-16T02:55:00.000-07:00

I just woke-up from a solid nights sleep in the six-person sleeping room of the train that is leisurely transporting us from Berlin to Amsterdam. This would have been fine if the train was actually moving, but it was not and we were briefly stuck at a station called Emmerich, which could be located anywhere in either Germany or the Netherlands. So, before we arrive into the city that is synonymous with excess, but holds a storied past that is much greater than its district of red lights, I decided to give a little recap of our 37 hours in Berlin, which were rather eventful.

We arrived into Berlin on Sunday, checked into our hostel, met some fellow travelers, got our laundry done, and crashed by about 12:30, which provided us with the energy we would need for our crash course of Berlin and it’s hectic past. In order to see as much as possible in the shortest amount of time, we rented bikes for 7.50 Euro and peddled our way north to the Berlin Wall Memorial. The memorial provided us with a lot of quality information about the creation of the wall in 1961 through its eventual destruction in 1989. When I say destruction, I mean it; there is not much left of the wall and the sections that are still up are scattered through out the city. Berlin was vastly different from every city we have visited, in that, most of it’s architecture is very modern, as it’s most beautiful and meaningful pieces of man’s creation had been either torn apart from the cold-war or destroyed through the Air-Raids of WW2.

From the memorial we weaved through the traffic of Berlin and headed for the Brandenderg gate and the park that encompasses its west side. There was some sort of rally by the taxi driver’s of Berlin in the park and as a result there were probably two thousand bright yellow Mercedes taxi’s and one Toyota Prius taxi lining the street that flows directly through the middle of the park. The end of the park landed us near a Dunkin Donuts and I decided that I wanted an Iced Coffee( it had been over a month and it was exceptional), this would be the turning point of the day. I order my savory treat and Jonathan went to order and realized that his wallet was missing. With only week left, one second of either lack of attention to a by-passing stranger or one peddle that dislodged the leather wallet, which holds the keys to our lives; the wallet was no longer in Jonathan’s possession. We peddled to every spot we had been over the past 3 hours and the end result was the cancellation of some credit cards, a call to his mom, and the inevitable wiring of money.

The over two hours of anguish, from 2:08-4:22 was not going to slow us down; we hopped right back on the bikes and continued our explorations. We picked up Jonathan’s money at a train station (This was only possible, due to Mrs. Moore, whom I am sure was not expecting to wake up on her Monday morning and wire money to her son backpacking through Europe.), ate some German food, and peddled to an outdoor memorial called the “Topography of Terror”, which is the former site of the SS and Gestapo Headquarters’ of the third Reich. The site itself was not much to see, but the information it provided was pretty heavy stuff. We were literally standing right where Adolf Hitler and Henrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, planned and executed their master plans of evil. The end of the memorial gave us a view of underground cells, which held hundreds of mentally challenged men and women that were experimented on, tortured, and murdered from 1933-1945.

The memorial was truly a landscape of horror and it will and did make a lost wallet seem very minuscule and irrelevant.

-Brendan

Lost

2009-06-14T10:02:00.001-07:00

The Underground, the Metro, the Tram, line 12, line 54,the T line, and the Jubilee line have all been minor sources of frustration during the past three and a half weeks. We have managed to get lost in every single city, whether it be by getting on the wrong line or getting on the right line and heading the wrong direction to only climb up the stairs out of the station to find ourselves in the wrong place…again. Directions have never been really an issue with me, but then again I am not used to reading signs in Czech or German. This morning we made the genius move of going to the wrong train station in Prague. Who would of thought that there would have been another main train station in Prague, situated within a rock’s throw away from our hotel? Not Jonathan and certainly not I.

We had fifteen minutes to catch the metro, ride it north for three stops, run through the other train station, skip up some stairs, and hop onto our 12:40 train to Berlin. Well, after 12 minutes, a couple of falls, and the embarrassing task of running through the train station with a thirty-pound pack on my back and a twelve-pound backpack on my chest, we made it. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and collapsed into my seat, my refuge for the next 4 hours.

Our stay in Prague, began on Friday night when we rolled into the train station with no Koruna, the Czech currency, and a pocket full of Euro’s, which were worthless at that time. After 30 minutes of calculating exchange rates and directions we were on our way to the Extol Inn, our hotel for two nights, located about ten minutes via tram from the City Center. An hour and ten minutes walking, we would find that out the next day.

On Saturday, we went for an epic journey throughout the rustic city streets, bridges, and parks of Prague. The most amazing thing about the city is the Vltava river which cuts through the outer banks of the old city and provides breathtaking views of the city from it’s many bridges, which act more as viewpoints than they are bridges. After fighting through the numerous street vendors, who all sell the same thing, photographers, and pick-pocketers of the Charles Bridge, Prague’s most well known bridge, we hiked up a severally inclined cobble-stoned walkway up to the Prague Castle and it’s church, which is conveniently situated in the middle of the castle. This hike put us close to the Petrin tower, which is this eifel-esque tower that sits upon a mountain on the eastern end of the city, that provides it’s visitors with the most incredible 360 degree view of Prague. We climbed the stairs and thanked ourselves for going to the tower; it might have been one of the best sites we had seen in our 25 days of travel.

The final night in Prague came with an incredibly well organized and crowded Pub Crawl through the Old-Town area. We met a Russian-born, U.S. army Veteran, working on his Master’s in Mathematics at UCLA; his build was more Babe Ruth than Ivan Drago. He informed both Jonathan and I that he could kill a man in three moves: an elbow to the skull, a knee to the face, and a quick snap of the neck. This was an odd, but interesting conversation that held my attention. The night culminated in a wrong train back to the hotel, but we both eventually made it back and enjoyed the night out in Prague. The best part of the Crawl was that it met at this bagel shop/bar called the Bohemian Bagel. We went there this morning and I treated myself to an Onion and an Everything Bagel. Incredible. The wonderful tire-shaped treat made me feel like I was back at home with the family on a Sunday morning after being in Athens for a long period of time. I wish there were a Bohemian Bagel shop in every city we have visited.

-Brendan

Piano Man

2009-06-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

“Sing us a song you’re the piano man, sing us a song tonight!” exclaimed the 45 or so random travelers that found themselves at the bar of hostel Ruthenstein. Of course, I was right in the middle of the shenanigans holding my mug of beer and shouting at the top my lungs. The great part about a song like “Piano Man” is that almost every person, no matter where they are from, knows the song and is willing to face some minor embarrassment for the sake of creating some brief moment of cohesiveness among the fragmented group of strangers. It made for a great moment and for those 4 minutes and 37 seconds we all seemed to know each other, but the truth being, that we of course, did not know each others names and would most certainly not remember them the next morning. Last night was a solid night, capped with an excellent hotdog from an Austrian street vendor at 2 in the morning.

During the day yesterday, we decided to bring our sightseeing to a more efficient level; my legs could not handle another day of continuous walking through parks and churches. Rather than wasting our energy, we decided to rent some bikes. This was a little bit of a risk. I tend to focus on other things while riding, and as a result almost got hit by a train and several cars. Jonathan saved my life several times and for that I am forever grateful. Despite my bike riding issues, we did some work! We booked it around the city and saw pretty much every touristy site imaginable; eventually we ran into a beer garden and had lunch, which was phenomenal. From there we rode through a massive park and made fun of the roller-bladers as they blew past us. The Europeans may be about 15 years behind the U.S. when it comes to recreational activities; the roller-blading fad has just hit, they are everywhere.

After a nap and some pizza, we chilled-out in the hostel and met 2 Americans, 2 Englishmen, and an Australian. This meeting would eventually lead to Billy Joel. This morning, Jonathan and I went to the grocery store and bought bread, Swiss cheese, and turkey. Sandwiches were then made. The reason I am even mentioning this is because that was the first time in 24 days that we did not go to a restaurant or street vendor. This was a big step and I felt like I had accomplished something.

From there we headed to Schonbrunn Palace, which is an insanely huge, yes you guessed it, Palace with some rather large gardens and Labyrinths. The last thing I wanted to do this morning was to pay someone for the pleasure of being lost in a maze of bushes. I think that the creator of this place had to have some sort of inferiority complex; this place was entirely too large for one family or even the population of Montana. The palace was nice to see, but one can only look at so many statues, fountains, and gardens.

We are about to jump on the train to Prague and will have 4 hours of rest before our night in the Czech Republic.

-Brendan

Munich!

2009-06-10T13:34:00.001-07:00

Growing up, one listens or falls asleep in numerous history lessons throughout the years of school we all endure. The two things that put all of the classes together are the dates and locations of the historical events that we study. These are two things that are easy to read about, but until you can realize the true scope of the place in time or the location itself, a historical event is not completely conceptualized in one’s mind. These are the thoughts that have been reoccurring throughout this trip, but really hit me hard today.

After a couple of fun nights at the beer gardens and a free bike tour around the city, we decided that we would like to get a little more out of our stay in Munich other than a full stomach of Beer and mammoth sized pretzels. Late in the afternoon yesterday, we took a train to the Olympic Village and stadium of the 1972 Olympics. The stadium was like nothing I had ever seen in my life and the thought of it being created 37 years ago was even more amazing. It could have been created yesterday and people would still be in awe of its design. We stumbled-upon a plaque that had all the names of the gold-medal winners of the 72’ games inscribed in it. Seeing Mark Spitz’ name seven times was a sight to remember. One of the more incredible sights was walking right past the Olympic dorms where 11 Israeli Athletes were murdered during the games. Pretty surreal.

This morning we decided to take a tour of Dachau, one of Nazi Germany’s first and largest concentration camps. My anticipation for the tour was growing as our bus was heading to the entrance; I did not really know what to expect at that point. We arrived to Dachau, received a quick history lesson from our Texan tour guide, Kevin, and headed for the gates of the concentration camp. Walking through the same gates that over 206,000 prisoners entered through is a pretty awakening experience. The feeling only intensified as we walked through the area of the camp where the prisoners were forced to give up all of their rights, their names, and their material possessions. In return, they were given numbers. From there we headed to a reconstructed barrack where the prisoner’s suffered. The old barracks were knocked down, due to sanitary reasons, but one was recreated and we were able to see how these innocent people were forced to live in captivity. These conditions were something I would not wish upon anyone.

Although Dachau was not an extermination camp, over 30,000 people died within its walls during its 12 years of operation. At the end of the tour, we viewed the furnaces where the dead bodies were incinerated. From there, we walked through a gas chamber, which had not been fully operational at the time of the camps liberation in 1945, but had housed the bodies of thousands of people who had died from the camps terrible conditions. By far, this was the most significant thing I have ever experienced. In only the length of my grandparent’s lives had malnourished, tortured, and murdered bodies been housed in that exact place.

The thing that makes the visits to Dachau and the Olympic village so moving was that it hit me that these events in time were really not that long ago. 65 or 37 years ago, does seem like a long time when I have only been living for 22 of them, but being in these places made it feel like these events happened just the other day. Knowing that people my age were put through such demanding situations is implausible; I get worked up about being late for class or missing a three-foot putt. Maybe I shouldn’t.

This was the greatest history lesson of my life.

-Brendan

The Funny Farm

2009-06-08T08:01:00.000-07:00

Is this the Funny Farm Hostel? “Oh, yeah, this is it!” yelled the stumbling American girl, who had obviously been enjoying here brief stay at the Farm. This was all after about a 30-minute walk and our 5th train of the day, which had brought us to Interlaken, Switzerland. A Swiss man with a rather unusual looking Mohawk checked us into our six-person room and we rushed up the stairs to drop off our bags. After about a second and a half in the room, we quickly realized that we might of chosen the wrong hostel. Our room was more of a pigpen than could have been imagined by a farmer. So, we headed down the rickety stairs of the Farm and told home slice with the Mohawk that it looked as though six people were already staying in our room and that it was a mess. The manager of the Farm overheard this and emerged from his office and told us that there is another open room on the hotel side of the building. He gave us our own clean room, which came with an incredible view of the snow-covered Swiss Alps. At that point, I could not have been much happier.

We hung out in the lobby and met some people from Florida State and unfortunately, Georgia Tech. From there we went to some club/Bar under the Funny Farm. These are my only thoughts of this “club”: Inhale, Puff, Cough, Eyes severely burning. Every Swiss person and traveler in this place was smoking a cigarette. In Athens, GA there is no smoking allowed in the bars; this Swiss smoke-factory was like torture to me. After 14 minutes, we left and bought a Twix.

The next day we had our reservation for Canyoning up in the hills that surround Interlaken. Both Jonathan and I had very vague idea as to what we were getting ourselves into, but we had heard good reviews by multiple sources, so we signed on the line, which is dotted and prepared ourselves for our adventure. Our New Zealender tour-guide/Canyoning God picked us up and headed to Outdoor Interlaken’s main site. Tim, the tour-guide, had not traveled much. He had only lived in Scotland and Japan in the past two-years. Yeah, he may have been slightly insane, but no problem, we were only trusting him with our lives. We got to the site and put on our wetsuit, Life Jacket, bright yellow helmet, climbing belt, and special water shoes.

Along with some girls from Alaska and another tour-guide, Marko, we hopped in the van and headed up the side of a mountain. We jump-out of the van and embarked on a ten-minute hike to the entrance of the canyon, which is basically a river that is full of large boulders, pools of water, and numerous waterfalls. So, we got into the water and got accustomed to the freezing water that had recently melted off the snow-covered mountains to the north. Then, Tim tells us to walk through the water to a ledge. The ice-cold water was rushing through our legs and falling over the side of the ledge that was about six feet high. He told us that we are going to jump off feet first and land our backs. My first thoughts were that there could be any number of things under the water and that I was really not in the mood to backpack for the next two weeks in crutches. “These guys are professionals” I thought to myself and stepped up and on a count to three, jumped off the ledge. Tim held onto a strap on my back, so that I became horizontal to the water and fell into the water safely. Tim’s plan was perfect and everyone completed the jump successfully.

Over the next two hours, we repelled off of a waterfall, rode some rapids down the rocks, and reluctantly jumped head first into a pool of water that was surrounded by rocks. The whole day was awesome and I wish we had a couple of more days in Interlaken. The whole town is pretty much an Adventure sports Mecca, full of bungee jumpers, skydivers, and climbers. It was a very refreshing place and you could just tell that everyone living there loved it and would not have chosen any other place to live in the world. All the locals seemed very fit and stress free. Those are two good things to be.

We are heading to Munich right now and getting mentally prepared for the Beer Gardens and Bratwursts.

-Brendan

The Train Station

2009-06-07T00:40:00.001-07:00

We may have made a poor decision in Verona, but we survived and that is what is important. On Thursday, after our six-hour stint in Venice, we headed to Verona. The trained rolled into Verona around 7:30 and at this point I was starving, so we went and got some pizza. Exciting! Good pizza, but now what? Verona seemed pretty much closed by 8 o’clock. A little disappointing, but we figured there must be somewhere around the city that has some pubs. We strapped on the backpacks and embarked on a hunt for a pub. One would think that would be an easy task in Europe. After a mile and a half of frustration, we found the main center of the town. There were some pubs there, so we chilled out and had a couple refreshing pints. After about two hours of relaxation, we decided that we should head back to the train station and just hangout there.

As we were heading back we ran into some Americans from Bradley University, a relatively small school in Illinois, I think. It was their last night in Verona after studying abroad and they were going to head to some other pubs. Being that we had no place to sleep for the night, we stayed with them for a while and hung-out at another bar. At about 1 a.m. they had to go back home and we had a train at 5:22 train to Bolzano to catch; we decided to hike back to the train station and stay there until our train arrives in 4 hours.

Well, we found ourselves back at the station at about 2 and we quickly realized that we were not the only people who were going to stay at the train station tonight. Every homeless person, drug-dealer, and downright sketchy person in Verona was going to be spending the night at Porto Nuevo, the train station. It sounds like some sort of beach side resort. For a homeless person, maybe, but for two recent college graduates from the states, a nightmare. We headed up to the terminal and found a bench to sit on. Once we sat down, it hit us that we had been up for about 20 hours and visited three cities today and that we were both exhausted. As a result, we decided that one of us would sleep and the other would stay awake and watch our lives-possessions. Good idea, right? Absolutely not! After locking my backpack to my arm, I fell asleep and Jonathan crashed right after me.

I woke up about thirty minutes later and found Jonathan sleeping. I pretty much freaked out; I figured someone would have at least stolen something from me. Maybe my laptop, iPod, shoes, or maybe my trusty Titleist Visor. I guess I don’t trust people enough, but nothing was stolen and at this point I decided that there would be no more sleeping until I got onto the train on two hours. It is funny how I thought everyone else sleeping in the train station was going to steal my stuff. They were doing the exact same thing as Jonathan and I, all we all wanted was a place to stay for a couple of hours. The homeless man may have thought I was going to steal his jar of spare change or his loaf of bread that he saved up days for. Despite being scared during our stay in the train I think we both experienced something that people all around the world go through everyday and realized that we take even our 12-person hostel room for granted.

From 3:30 onward I stayed up and read my book as Jonathan got some rest. The train eventually arrived and we hopped on it 30 minutes before we were going to depart and fell asleep until we arrived in Bolzano at 7:22 in the morning. We went to directly to our hotel. Our hotel stay was all setup by a business partner of my dad’s, Stefan Pan, and it was one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. In a matter of two hours we went from sleeping in a train station to sleeping in the nicest hotel in Bolzano, Italy. Luckily, the trilingual Sweetheart at the front desk let us check in and we headed to the room for some much needed sleep.

Later in the day, we met up with Mr. Pan and got a tour of their apple strudel factory by his brother, Peter Pan, who in 50 years has mastered the arts of Kendo, Cycling, and Apple picking. Surprisingly, the tour was very interesting and it gave me a sense of how much work it takes for a food product to be produced in mass quantities. Following the tour, we had dinner with Stefan and his children at a restaurant that was situated up in the mountains and looked over Bolzano. The food was exceptional and I felt like I was going to explode after eating entirely too much. It was a good feeling.

We are heading to Interlaken, Switzerland were we have a hostel to stay in, so Mom and Mrs. Moore, don’t worry. We will not endanger our lives for the sake of saving 25 Euros at least for another two nights.

-Brendan

Gelato

2009-06-04T11:19:00.000-07:00

I have consumed Gelato three separate times in the past 22 hours. This may be a problem. There is something about it that makes it more attractive to me than regular ice cream. It may be the way it is stacked in the window of the local shops in all of the cities we visit or the fact that the cookie flavor has actual cookies in it. My favorite so far might be the café latte, which is some wonderful combination of coffee and milk that results in an explosion of flavor in the mouth.

In our final night in Florence we hung out on the oldest bridge in Florence, the Ponte Vecchio. The bridge has houses and shops built on top of it; I have not seen a bridge like this before, so I was excited by it. It is the only bridge in Florence that survived World War 2 and as a result, it is one of Florence’s most recognizable landmarks.

This morning we woke up at 7 for our 8:37 train to Venice. Okay, I had some high expectation for Venice. After all, how could a city of gondolas and zero cars not be cool? After about ten minutes of crossing numerous bridges and squeezing through walkways designed for mice, we both realized that Venice may not be everything we had expected. I knew what would make me happy, pizza. So we stopped and grabbed some excellent pizza. After killing the wonderful combination of dough, cheese, and tomatoes, we moved onto St. Marks Square.

St. Mark’s square makes Venice. It encompasses all that is Italy in the space of about two football fields. There are several café’s surrounding the square and they setup little tables for their clients. The restaurants have live classical music being played on stages outside of the restaurants. The music flows through the square and bounces off the squares walls to encompass the area entirely. The music really added to the square’s mystic. On the north end of the square is the main Basilica(who could have guessed? Another church) and a 100-meter bell tower that is home to an 8 Euro panoramic view of Venice. Priceless view of one of the most picturesque cities in the world or three delicious cones of gelato? I think we know the answer to that one.

After the gelato, Jonathan and I decided that we should leave Venice and head to Verona and get back to a city that wasn’t designed for dolphins. We are now on the train to Verona and will be taking a 5:25 train to Bolzano in the morning. We have no idea where we are going to stay or what is in Verona, but I think everything is going to be all right.
-Brendan

Peroni

2009-06-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

We arrived late into Firenze, Italy (That is Florence, but they call it Firenze over here) on Monday at about 9:35 and had the pleasure of walking for 30 minutes through the rain to get to our hostel. To our surprise, this hostel was phenomenal and made me not want to leave it for the night. So, I didn’t and fell asleep. I did not know what to expect from Florence and was just looking forward to relaxing. After the hustle and Bustle of Rome, Florence has been exactly what I needed.

First thing Tuesday morning we packed up or stuff and headed across town to another other hostel, which was more centrally located and equally as nice as the first nights hostel. We then hit up a Laundromat and did our laundry. I wanted to wear a clean shirt; it had been a couple of days. Okay, so finally we got down to business, pulled out the foldable map, threw on the kicks, and headed out to see the sights. On the map were numbers with stars on them; we decided to visit these numbers. Before we could visit fifteen churches, we had to go take a visit to see Michelangelo’s David. We paid our ten Euro and walked into the museum the held the famous sculpture. Well Done, Michelangelo. It was impressive and worth the ten Euro.

The day got exponentially better from there as we stumbled-upon a 1 Euro store. Everything in there was 1 Euro; including Coca-Cola light that varied in sizes and 66 Centiliter tall bottles of Peroni, my favorite Italian beer and the only one I am familiar with. I am learning the metric system. We were walking along the rustic streets of Florence with our clanging bottles of Peroni and were heading back to the hostel to put them on a fridge when we ran into a friend of Jonathan’s, Ashley, and two of her friends she is studying abroad with. They were heading over to the Piazza Michelangelo, which is situated just on the south side of the city and came with an unobstructed view of Florence. We hung out there, drank the Peroni, and watched the sunset. The night was a solid one and resulted in quite a few pictures of the sun dropping over the mountains that surround Florence and heading towards the Mediterranean.

Today, we took it pretty easy. The highlights included a great pizza for dinner and a visit to the Basilica di Santa Maria del flore, which is home to the largest brick dome ever constructed.

There has been a change in our itinerary worth noting. We are no longer heading to Innsbruck after Bolzano; we will now be heading to Interlaken, Switzerland. We have heard a lot of good things about Interlaken and nothing spectacular about Innsbruck. Should be a good time.

-Brendan

Roma

2009-06-01T13:25:00.000-07:00

On the final Sunday of every month there is free entrance into the Vatican City Museum and the Sistine Chapel. We heard about this incredible deal on Saturday night, right after we arrived into Rome. A couple other people in our hostel were going to wake-up early, 7:30, so not really that early, and head over to the Vatican. I went to bed at 10:30 on a Saturday to prepare myself for the big day ahead. The alarm went off and we met up with four other people, two Canadians and two Australians, and headed off to the train station. We got to the outer walls of the Vatican City at about 8:50 and got in line with 7,000 other tourists, who all wanted to experience the Sistine Chapel.

Well, after an hour we had moved about 53 feet and it was looking like we were not going to get in, since the door to the museum closes at 12:30 on Sundays. I was stressing out at this point and would not have been happy if I had not gotten in. It was time to improvise. So, this Australian guy, Dave, walks by us and says in his accent from down-under that for 25 euro each we can get to the front of the line and get a tour by one of their professional and well-qualified tour guides. This guy could not have been anymore sketchy and the whole getting in front of the line idea made pretty much zero sense, but as I mentioned before I was going to get in to the Vatican no matter what. I found some other people as nervous as myself about not getting in and negotiated with Dave to get a group deal. He said he could get us in for 20 euro each. We reluctantly accepted.

At this point, I was happy that we are going to get into the museum, but still a little skeptical about this “tour”. So, we go to the main tour office and meet up with some hectic middle-aged women who are going to get us into the museum. This is where it all got a little weird. Some Irish guy comes up to our group and says that all of us should just follow him and we are going to walk up to the front of the line, hop over a small barricade, and jump in line. My initial reaction is that there is probably going to be a riot outside of the Vatican, because we have about 15 people who are all going to cut in line and who doesn’t despise a line-cutter? Well, Dave and his crew were professional line-cutters and they had it down to a science. Sure enough, 15 of us walked up close to the front of the line and hopped right in front of 4,000 severely frustrated tourists. My life was in danger! Did anyone yell? Nope. Did anyone walk back in front of us? No one at all. Were these people out of their mind? Absolutely, in fact, they would have not let me into the Vatican if 15 people had cut if front of me, because some things would have been said that would not have been holy by any means,

There is a part of me that felt a little bad about this, I mean we just did a pretty unethical thing about a couple of hundred feet away from the Pope. Unethical or not, we got into the museum and the Sistine Chapel, while some people did not. Winner! We saw a lot of paintings by artists I have never heard of, tapestries of biblical stories that I was not completely familiar with, and statues of men who needed more clothing. Other than my lack of knowledge in Art History, I did enjoy the experience quite a bit and learned a ton from our Vatican City tour guide who happened to be from Buffalo, New York. The Sistine Chapel was unreal and it is hard to believe that someone could create such a work of art.

We also saw Lance Armstrong racing in the Gyro d’italia later that same day. I think I was more excited to see a 7-time tour de France winner than I was to see the Sistine Chapel. The strange thing is that I don’t think I was the only person in Rome yesterday that felt the same way.

Today consisted of visiting the Coliseum, the Roman Ruins, and the Pantheon, which were all much greater than expected. Rome treated me well and amazed me with its rich history and refined architecture. I would go into more detail, but six paragraphs about my thoughts are probably enough for one day. We are riding the train to Florence right now. David is there. We will visit him tomorrow.

-Brendan

Cinque Terre

2009-05-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

At about 3:30 in the afternoon on Thursday our train rolled into Monterosso, the northernmost city of a region off the coast of Northwestern, Italy called Cinque Terre (I am pretty sure it translates to five towns). Should we get off? I don’t know, it did not look like the pictures and the spelling of the town was different from Google maps, which as we all know is always correct. Lets just see where the next stop takes us. Okay… the wrong town, that’s where. We traveled thirty extra scenic minutes on the train to get off at a train station, eat a McFlurry, and jump onto a train going right back to the place we had just come from. The McFlurry almost made the wasted time worth it.

Okay, so we finally arrive in Monterossa at about 4:45 and we walk down to some shops to find a hostel or a hotel. Out of a bar stumbles a slightly intoxicated twenty something American guy wearing a bright pink bathing suit. As he walks down the sidewalk he notices Jonathan’s Broncos hat and asks him about Jay Cutler, the Broncos ex-quarterback who had just been traded. They converse about the NFL and somewhere along the line we mention to the guy that we are from Georgia and he says, ”I know this is random and there are only 35,000 other people who go to UGA, but do you know anyone with the last name Bower?” Yes, yes I do. I know Matt and Kevin Bower and I played golf in High School with Matt. This guy had known them forever and their families went “way back” as he said. It made the world seem very small.

We eventually found a hotel for 50 Euros a night for the both of us, so we had that going for us, which was nice. Monterosso is an incredibly small town and there was nothing really exciting going on at night besides it’s amazing views. As a result, we took it pretty easy so we could get up early and begin our hike from Monterossa to the other 4 cities of Cinque Terre. Good choice, it was an intense hike and full of hikers who take themselves way to serious. Wearing earth tone colored clothing, curious looking hats, and using walking poles does not make you a better hiker. The trek took about 4 hours to go about 7 miles, up and around numerous cliffs, and through all of the little towns. Being that the towns are located right on the side of the cliffs, it made for a lot of post-cardesque pictures. The other towns: Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Ramagiorre were all similar, lined with pastel colored buildings stacked together and small ports were local fisherman could anchor their boats and distribute their recently acquired goods. We spent a little time at each place and then took a train back to Montarossa, where we could recuperate.

We consumed some local Italian food and went to the beach to hangout. At this point, I could stretch the truth and say we went back to the hotel and went to sleep. There is no place for that in my blog. Since there was not much going on, we went and found a local Bar and chilled there. Bars tend to have interesting people there and this one failed to disappoint. We met a bunch of people, a recent graduate of Emory Medical School and his ex-professional soccer player wife, some different backpackers from all over the world, and some guys from Boston. The bar closed at around 1ish and we went to the beach were a large mixture of locals and backpackers were hanging out playing the guitar and singing. The funny thing about the guitar player was that he could sing almost any classic rock song out there, but could barely speak English. I was feeling the moment and would have stayed out there all night, but the Leaning Tower of Pisa was in store for the next day. We called it a night around 2:30 and went back to the hotel.

We woke up around 8:45 and caught the first train to Pisa. We got to the train station in Pisa at 11:45, walked twenty minutes to the tower, took some pictures, walked back to the train station, and hopped onto the next train to Rome. I feel no shame for being “that guy” and only going to the Leaning Tower while in Pisa. Last time I checked there is nothing else there. I am now on the train to Rome and ready to conquer another city.

-Brendan

The Final Night in Nice

2009-05-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

The train rolls along the steep hills of the Mediterranean and we can see the centuries old harbors getting smaller as we move closer to the border of Italy. There are hundreds of houses placed sporadically along the rugged terrain, looking as though they could tumble into the shallow depths of the sea at any moment. We flow through tunnel after tunnel that cut through the side of the mountainous landscape as though they have been there since the coasts creation. I am thoroughly enjoying the train ride and I am able to get some much-needed rest for the long-hikes we will fight-through once we arrive in Cinque Terre.

Last night, for the first time in my life, I sat and watched an entire soccer game on t.v. I refuse to call it football. I am not qualified to call it football, as I was not born outside of the U.S. and I barely know enough about the game to play a game myself. Well, the game was the UEFA Championship game between FC Barcelona and Manchester United. We went to a pub located on a small side street near the water. This game was huge and as a result it seemed as though everyone else in Nice had the same idea as us and came to the same pub. It was absolutely packed. The crowd made the game a lot more exciting and after about ten minutes into the game I felt as though I had been following soccer my whole life and was personally vested into the outcome of the game. Whenever the smallest thing would occur, the crowd would erupt in cheers and start to chant for their favorite team. It was like nothing I have experienced in the U.S. and I am very happy that I was able to experience watching a game like that with some local fans. In the end, FC Barcelona was victorious and all the Man U fans shuffled out of the pub to drown their sorrows away from the people wearing the Blue and Red jerseys of Barcelona.

We went to the beach one more time and chilled out there for an hour or so and enjoyed our remaining hours in Nice. Several groups of people were hanging out and playing guitar and singing songs in French. They sounded nice, but lyrics usually make a song and being that I do not know any French I did not know the meanings of any of the songs. It was a really unique atmosphere that would be difficult, if not impossible, to recreate at any other location in the world.

I am posting some of my pictures on Facebook, so if you would like to see any of them just ask me to be your friend (there are only two Brendan Wales’ on Facebook, so it should not be difficult to find me). There is about an 82% chance I will confirm the request and you can look at my numerous pictures of random settings that look as though I five year old took them. Enjoy ☺

-Brendan

Nice beach.

2009-05-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

After 4 trains, 3 brief naps, and 17 hours of traveling, we arrived into Nice at about 1 in the morning. Fortunately, our hostel was close to the train station and our room had its own shower and air conditioning unit. In the world of Hostels, this one would be considered five-star. We were able to catch up on some rest and refocused our efforts on seeing all that Nice has to offer.

We had no clue as what was in the city, so we hooked a left out of our hostel and headed to the beach. After about 15 minutes of walking and a stop for food, we came upon the awe-inspiring French Riviera. It is probably the nicest beach I have ever been to in my life. We walked along a path by the water and saw some stone structures located up on a small mountain that overlooked the two main parts of Nice, the beach area and the port. Over the past week, we have become professional walkers, so off we went to go hike to the top of the mountain. After about 45 minutes of quad-destroying steps, we got to the top of the mountain and discovered the ruins of an old church and castle that dated back to the 11th century. The size of the castle was hard to even comprehend; at one time it had been so massive. All that remains of the castle are some of the castle walls and a couple of lookouts. It was hard to believe that a structure of such magnitude could have been built successfully without the aid of modern technology.

After taking some pictures and posing like tourists, we headed down to the port and checked out all the yachts. From there on our conversations revolved around the same three questions: How much do you think that one cost? What does he do for a living? And where I can I apply for that job? The yachts were all amazing and I could just envision the owners of each looking at their neighbors yacht and being frustrated because their boat is only a 120ft, compared to 125ft. Usually the type of person that owns something like that is very competitive, so I could see them wanting the best or longest boat in their respective harbor.

The best part of my day yesterday, was actually getting to due my laundry. It had been a week or so since my clothes had been clean. Let’s just you say would not have wanted to sit next to me on the train ride on Monday. Gross…Absolutely, but there is only so much room in a backpack. Okay, we then went out to eat and then headed down to the beach to see if anything was going on. Nice seems to be more of a relaxed place than say Barcelona or Nice when it comes to the nightlife, so their was not much going on. Once we got to the beach we met some people from Vancouver, probably the 16th and 17th person we have met from Vancouver since we have been here, which is much more than the amount of Americans we have met. A little unexpected, but I guess Canadians like to travel to.

The night ended up being pretty exciting; we walked up to a party on the beach and met some people that were studying abroad from America and some Guys from Dublin, Ireland. All the Irish guys talked about was how much they hated Paris and to never go there, it was the slums of the earth as far as they were concerned. Why was this exactly? Pints of Guiness cost 7 euro there and 5 euro in Dublin. I felt as though their frustration was relatively legitimate, but being that I am not an alcoholic I think I can stomach paying for a Guiness or two and still visit Paris.

Today we took a 35-minute bus ride to Monaco. Great looking buildings, phenomenal looking people, and cars that I never plan on wasting my future income on, is what Monaco is offering these days. It is a great place to visit for about 5 hours, but that is about it. Maybe because I have no money, no, that is exactly why. Either way it was worth the trip.

We are off to Cinque Terre, on the Northwestern coast of Italy tomorrow morning. I am pumped; it is supposed to be one of the most scenic places on the Mediterranean.

-Brendan

Random

2009-05-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

Living in the hostels, has enabled both Jonathan and I to meet numerous people from all different backgrounds. Everyone is completely open and pretty much willing to do anything, at a spur of the moment. My actions are usually very calculated, but the things we have done on the trip thus far are the antithesis.

Being that it was a Sunday yesterday, I did not expect too much for the forthcoming night. As we were walking back to our room, a 21-year-old long-shore man from Canada, who was staying at the hostel, saw us and asked us where we are from. We told him our story and he told us that him and about fifteen other people were going to head to downtown Barcelona, just to see where there night and a new city could take them. Now, just to put this into perspective, this was about 10:30 on a Sunday night and we are talking about going out. I don’t think I have ever left my house that late on a Sunday, in my entire life. Nothing exciting was going on in the hostel, so we went along with a group of people I had never met before in my life.

Off we went to the train station and discovered a Fountain Light Show at an incredible area up near the hills of Barcelona that looked upon the illuminated buildings of downtown. The show was truly amazing and well worth the trek across town. The show ended and everyone decided to head down to the beach area and hangout. We sat at a restaurant and everyone got to know each other a little better. After two hours of conversation we all felt like good friends. At about 12:30 we decided to go to the beach and walk along the shore of the Mediterranean. The beach was fenced off, so we crawled under the fence and found ourselves on the sandy beaches of Spain. All of us just chilled and talked until 3 in the morning and soaked up the moment.

We eventually got back to the hostel at 4 in the morning and tried to figure out how we were going to get to Nice later in the day. A group of travelers from Canada informed us that we were not going to be able to get to Nice until Wednesday if we did not leave with them in an hour and catch the 7 a.m. train. We had a hostel booked for the next night, so we packed up our bags and went along with them.

It is now 12:30 and we are now on a train travelling along the coast of southern France heading to our next destination. If we had not met these people would have been in some trouble.

One thing that struck me last night was a conversation I had with a waiter from the restaurant we ate at. He was from Bangladesh and lived in Barcelona by himself. His family was back in Bangladesh and he sent money back to them to help them survive. He could only visit his family once a year, since it is so expensive to fly home. The ironic part about this is that he was a Microbiologist in Bangladesh and was not making enough money in the town in which he lived. So, here is this guy, who is probably the smartest person in the room, serving people Paella for a living. It puts things in perspective a little bit. I am sure there are tons of people who are in a similar situation.

Our adventure is about to get a bit more exciting; Jonathan is pretty much fluent in Spanish, so we have been able to communicate with everybody in Spain and I am semi-fluent in English, so London was not a problem. From here on out we’ll be stepping even further out of our comfort-zones and we’ll be giving it our best shot to communicate with the French people.

-Brendan

The Gaudi Experience

2009-05-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

5/24/09 6:28 p.m.

We arrived in Barcelona at about 4 p.m. yesterday and headed straight to our hostel, which was conveniently located an hour outside of downtown the Barcelona. Not only was the hostel forever away from all the fun that is Barcelona, we also were going to be sleeping in a room with six bunk beds. Twelve people who have never met and who all speak different languages, sharing a 20 by 15 foot room, equals loads of fun. Surprisingly, no one was snoring, coughing, yelling, or sneezing, all night, so I was able to get some sleep.

After checking into the resort we went into downtown Barcelona and went to La Rambla, which is the main street in Barcelona, full of Street Vendors, Bars, and Street Performers. The street performers in Spain are intense, to say the least. They are all dressed in crazy costumes and make their money by having people take pictures with them. I don’t now how they can actually survive off of spare change, but I guess they can or they wouldn’t be doing it anymore. Well, we hung out at a restaurant right on the street and watched all the different people walk by. Most of who were getting ready to go to the discos or clubs. Glow Sticks, strobe lights, and multiple floors of people I don’t know, are things I do not enjoy. I don’t do Clubs.

We went back to our place fairly early so we could really hit the sites hard today. Oh, how did we ever! I can barely move right now. I think we walked about ten miles throughout Barcelona today, but it was well worth it. The architecture in Barcelona is incredible. An Architect named Antoni Gaudi designed several buildings throughout the city that are truly unbelievable. Check out the Sagrada Familia on Google Image search. He alone, made the trip to Barcelona well worth it. The city is also nice since it is located right on the Mediterranean Sea. Anything by the water is usually pretty enjoyable. I think everyone will agree with that.

Tomorrow we will see a little more of Barcelona and then take a 14 hour night train to Nice, in the south of France. We should be able to catch up on some rest and prepare ourselves for France.

Oh and I rode another lion today, so far I have tamed two lions in three cities. People like to put lions near things to make them look important. I think it works.

-Brendan

No Big Deal

2009-05-23T08:11:00.001-07:00

5/23/09, 12:10 p.m.

After my long night on Thursday and trying to figure out how I was going to survive without my wallet I decided that I was going to take it easy and go to bed early for the trip to Barcelona the next morning. During the day we walked around the city and took it pretty easy, but then around 9:45 we decided to go get some gelato near the hostel. We sat at a corner and ate our gelato, while doing some people watching. That was going to be the most exciting part of the night, but then Jonathan suggested going to a pub for one pint and then call it a night. I thought that was a good idea, so off we went.

We walked to a busy area in Madrid and found an Irish Pub. As we were entering the pub, two insanely loud Americans ran into the bar and ordered some beer. We started talking to them and sure enough one of them was from Rhode Island. He really did not have to tell me because you could tell from the moment he walked into the door. What are the chances of two people from Rhode Island meeting in a pub in Madrid? So, we hung out with them and told them that we were going to take it easy tonight, since we had such a long night the night before. They immediately started pulling out the whole you only live once card and tried to convince us to go with them to a pub-crawl. Well, their persuasion techniques were successful and off we went to see some more of Madrid’s nightlife.

The guy from Rhode Island was probably the loudest human being I have ever met, but he was quite entertaining and after every sentence he would yell, “No big deal!” No offense to all my Rhode Island family members out there, but he fit the stereotype to the tee. It was strange by the end of the night I was saying “No big deal” with a Rhode Islanders accent after everything I said.
Last night turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than the night before; we met tons of different people from all over the world and listened to their travel plans. One girl we met, had her passport, wallet, ID, and cell phone stolen while visiting Cambodia a couple of years ago. I immediately felt better about my situation and realized that this type of thing happens quite a bit in foreign countries.

We got back to the hostel around 1:45 and went to sleep. The sleep did not last very long, due to the loudest snorer in Madrid. It felt like there was an elephant sleeping in my room. As a result, I got about 2 hours of sleep and now I am on a speed train to Barcelona typing this. I am going to try to get in a little nap before we arrive so I can be ready to walk around a new city with barely any sleep. Hey! No Big Deal.

-Brendan

You don't judge a man by the size of his wallet! Wait, where is my wallet?

2009-05-22T12:03:00.000-07:00

5/22/09. 5:15 p.m.
My wallet was stolen last night. That is right, it happened and I had been in Europe for just over 3 days. I am not the happiest camper (backpacker), to say the least. The worst part about the whole thing is that I do not even know when the thievery occurred. It would have been nice to at least feel the guy grab my wallet and see him face-to-face. The story would have been a lot better if I had chased him through the ancient streets of Madrid only to fail in my attempt at chasing a professional due to his escape through a hidden doorway, that only a true local of Madrid would know about. This was certainly not the case and now I am stuck in a dare I say challenging predicament.

From the onset, my first night in Madrid was a nice one, and it had the potential to be an epic one. You know the kind of night that is always remembered, mainly due to a certain set of circumstances such as a friend’s 21st birthday or a gameday. We started the night off by hanging out in the hostel and meeting some of our fellow college-age nomads. We met a couple of guys from LSU, including two brothers traveling together, and hung-out and discussed numerous things, but mainly college football, which is what would have been expected from a couple of guys from SEC schools.

At 10:45 we joined a pub-crawl for 10 euro and met a bunch of other people and began walking to some local drinking establishments. We had a couple of beers at the pubs and met some locals, but mostly travelers. The travelers always seem to have good stories from all the various places they have experienced. At about 1:30 in the morning I got separated from Jonathan and decided to go home, poor decision. For one I had drank probably more than I should have and I did not know the area very well. Whatever, I certainly learned my lesson. I got to about a block from our hostel and ran into a couple of locals and began talking with them. I spoke with them for quite some time and then decided to go back to the hostel. The moment I stood up from the bench I realized there was something missing from my pockets. Phone, check. Wallet, nope. At that point I pretty much freaked out, called Jonathan and went back to the hostel to cancel my cards and try to figure everything out.

I woke up this morning incredibly mad about last nights events and realized I had to take care of a lot of things before I could get back to being a tourist. As a result, we had to go to the airport, which was about an hour and a half away. I got some money from Western Union and received my new credit card. My dad took care of all of that by the time I had woken up this morning. He is the man!

We just got back from walking around the city and it is unreal how nice Madrid is. The parks are massive and there are fountains and statues all over the city. All I could think about was how much planning it took to create all of these things all over the city. Well, it has been fun in Madrid, but we are heading to Barcelona early tomorrow morning and will have a whole new city to walk through.

Good Night

-Brendan

Madrid

2009-05-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

5/21/09, 6:22 p.m.
Well, we arrived into Madrid earlier this afternoon and it quickly hit me that not knowing
Spanish could be a little bit of an issue. I do not like when the people next to me are speaking a different language. It feels like they are talking about me, which is certainly a possibility, because I could not look anymore like a tourist. The big blue bag strapped to my shoulders, full of my life's possesions, certainly does not help.

We took an easyjet flight from London this morning and it was anything but easy! There was an hour and a half wait through baggage claim and the planes do not have designated seats, so the earlier you get on the plane, the better the seat you get. The flight was also delayed by an hour, but that gave me an extra hour to rest, which was much needed from the 3:30 wakeup this morning.

We walked around Madrid for a bit and then came back to the hostel to rest. I think we may hit up some bars or clubs or whatever the spanish people do for fun. Should be a good time.

-Brendan

London, Cheers!

2009-05-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

5/19/09, 3:30 p.m.
The plane ride is finally over and now I am sitting in a train at the airport. This has been a really long day and I am looking forward to getting to Youth Hostel #8. Yes, that is the name of the hostel. Jonathan and I have come to the conclusion that is called #8, because it must be the 8th best hostel in London. For $9/night, I am sure we are probably wrong on our estimation. Either way it will be nice to finally have a place to put our stuff, before we go explore the city.

The highlight of the trip so far occurred about two hours into the flight. We noticed that beer, wine, and liquor were all free on the international flight. We gladly accepted a couple of Budweiser’s and went on to participate in a round of trivia that was provided to us through the airlane. About an hour after that I fell asleep. This was probably the most happy I have ever been about falling asleep, because I knew that it would help me out once we arrive in London the next day.

We are going to hit up the hostel for a little bit and then head down to Downtown London to check out the sites. Hopefully, I will have some better things to Blog about later.

5/20/09, 11:00 a.m.
We got to London around 4 p.m. and headed straight to the London Eye. I went on it last summer, but Jonathan had never been, so we had to go, which I was perfectly fine with. I was more than happy to do that, because the Eye is unreal and you can see pretty much see every part of London from its highest point.

From there we went over to Wesminster Abbey and checked that out. When we got to the square, there was a Rally going on for the end of some war in Somalia. That was pretty cool, but we did not feel very safe, we quickly left that and headed over to Trafalger Square. As far as square’s are concerned, this might be the best one I have ever visited. I even rode a lion when I was there, don’t worry mom it was not a real lion, it was made of bronze.

We hit up a couple of Pubs near the square and then went home via the train. There was not much happening in the hostel bar, so we called it a night and went to bed around11:30. I had about 4 hours of sleep in the past 36 hours, so it was definitly bedtime at that pont.

5/20/09, 6:24 p.m.
We just got back to the hostel after walking around London and seeing more sites. My legs feel like they are going to fall off! We went visited Hyde Park, which was incredible. It must be two times the size of Central Park and it is located right in the heart of London. From there we went and checked out the Tower Bridge, London Bridge, and walked around the financial district. On our way back to the Hostel we went and visited Wembley Stadium, which is where the English National Team plays.

I have eaten two baguettes today and I think I may have a third one for dinner. Jonathan has already realized that I think about food entirely too much. I may have a problem, but this trip will cure it, because food is really expensive here.

That is it for now, we are a flying to Madrid tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. I’m ready for some warm weather; it has been like 60 degrees and overcast the whole time we have been here.

As I'm writing this post there is loud technomusic playing in the hostel. Weird.

-Brendan

T-minus 3 days/Itinerary

2009-05-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
I have been convinced by various people to blog about my trip to Europe. I feel like a tool, but I am just going to go along with it and see what happens. Here is my itinerary:
May 19^th:Fly into London

May 21^st:Fly from London to Madrid

May 23^rd:Train from Madrid to Barcelona

May 25^th:Train from Barcelona (overnight) to Nice (4:45pm-8am)

May 26^th:Relax in Nice

May 27^th:Nice → Monaco

Monaco → Nice (for night)

May 28^th:Nice to Cinque Terre (Ostello hostel)

May 30^th (night):Cinque Terre to La Spezia to Pisa to Rome (arrive around 8pm)

June 2^nd:Rome to Florence (9am to 1040)

June 4^th:Florence to Venice (8:40am to 11:20)

June 4^th overnight:Florence to Bolzano (10:50pm to 7:22am)

June 6^th:Bolzano to Innsbruck (4:30-6:30)

June 8^th:Innsbruck to Vienna (930am to 224)

June 10^th:Vienna to Prague (10am to 2:30)

June 12^th:Prague to Berlin (10am to 3)

June 15^th overnight:Berlin to Amsterdam (12:30am to 1030am)

June 17^th:Amsterdam to Brussels (430pm to 7)

June 19^th:Brussels to Paris

June 24th:Paris to ATL

All of this is subject to change. Needless to say, there is not going to be a whole lot of sleep during my trip, but it should be a good time.

-Brendan