Entry by Jack on 8/7/2004 6:30:37 PM
We haven't quite left yet because it's still Saturday.
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Entry by Jack on 8/9/2004 4:31:13 PM
Well were in Rome. Apparently they dont have apostrophes here because I cant find one on the keyboard. Never realized how much I use them. Anyways we were bums and pretty much slept the day away. We were going to take a short nap after we got here but that turned into about 7 hours or so. Oops. Its rather warm here. Pretty much a permasweat sort thing and not a whole lot of airconditioning. We also discovered (about 3 minutes) after we got here that our backpacks are way too frickin heavy. So word to the wise, when you pack a bag that youre going to have to carry around, actually test to see if you can carry it for more that 10 feet without wanting to throw it in the river :) We just kinda walked around tonight. We need to get a better map too because we were obviously walking past "important" stuff but we were having a hard time figuring out what it was. Stupid American tourists. Anyway thats it for now.
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Entry by Christine on 8/9/2004 4:46:17 PM
MONDAY: Rome seems to be quite. Can someone please direct me to the "beverage club". Not the bar which apparently means snack bar or cafe. The flight seemed to take forever. Would have been better if I hadn't got sick inbetween the layover. Ended up crashing once we got here. I wanted to go out, body was just exhausted I guess. Or the super humidity is getting to me. I did like wondering the streets at night. They light up the ruins really beautifully. Everyone is right about Italian fashion. Us Americans stick out not wearing designer names on our sunglasses, and everything else we own. Not to mention the backpack makes me look like a total tourist. Hopefully I will be able to write more about "When in Rome... ???" Ciao
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Entry by Jack on 8/11/2004 3:45:15 AM
Well yesterday we actually did some real sightseeing. We went to the Colosseum (which kinda reminded me of the one in LA from the outside) and the Pantheon, along with a stop at the Forum and Palatine Hill. Bunch of stuff there that we couldn't identify. We need a private guide or something. We also went to the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. Today we're going to go to the Vatican. For those of you who have read Angels & Demons, that's about half the places the guy goes to in that.
There seems to be a bit of anti-Bush sentiment here. Yesterday when we were walking to the Colosseum we saw a lot of "no blood for oil" and "Stop Wars" (in Star Wars font) and "Stop Bush" with his picture graffittied on the walls of buildings.
At some point we might start putting pictures up here but Christine forgot the cable for her camera so we need to get a different one.
Random notes: One of the reasons we were so hot the previous night is because the stupid heater was on. Gas costs $6 a gallon here. I hate navigating old cities because the street names keep changing on you. I figure if I stay out of strip clubs 100 Euro a day is going to be a reasonable budget (including everything). Don't stay in the bathroom too long here. Someone knocked on the stall when I was in McDonald's yesterday and when I walked out two minutes later, there were a couple cops there about to knock on the door. Girls do a very impressive job of walking on cobblestones in high heels here. The waitress at the last bar we went to last night was wearing a Bud apron. And damnit, I already fell asleep at a bar here. But so did Christine.
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Entry by Christine on 8/11/2004 4:04:04 AM
Okay is this humidity thing really necessary. "I'm melting." Not to mention I think it makes me tired. I only say this because I actually took a nap at the 2nd bar last night (Jonathan's Angels). Which I am sure was noticable since the tables are set outside in kinda an alley. But they light it with the little Christmas tree lights and it has greenery so it is really nice. Sloppy Sam's...The first bar was in the Piazza (which one I cannot tell you at this time). Seemed to be a Piazza with all bars. Nice being outdoors and the drinks were good. Being dehydrated from the day really helped them go straight to the head. We walked all over yesterday, Had breakfast at the Colosseum, that would be the gelato (ice cream) Jack got for us while we were in line. Can't believe people use to enjoy bloody battles and called it a sporting event. We enjoyed lunch, Pringles (yes the chips) on our walk to the Pantheon. Which is really neat. Wish it was raining so I could have seen the water go drain throught the tiny hole in the floor. Dinner at Mickey D's was good in that they have a seafood salad. I need to get going. Maybe today we will have more italian cuisine. Would like to do more shopping. Not that I have the money for designer/boutique clothes. I am spending it all on bottled water and other refreshing beverages. Ciao
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Entry by Jack on 8/12/2004 3:34:55 PM
Well, it's been a busy couple of days. Yesterday started off nice and slow, not on purpose. We got up reasonably early so that we could take care of some chores like getting our Eurail pass validated and getting a reservation to go to Pisa today. That took about 2 hours and then we took the bus to the Vatican. It drops you off nowhere near the entrance. Either that or we just didn't know where to get off, which is certainly possible. So we got there about 1:45 instead of noon which kinda sucked. But we went to the museums, which includes the Sistine Chapel. Jack Nicklaus was there at the same time we were. Didn't bother him though because you're not supposed to talk or take pictures when you're in the Sistine Chapel. After that we went to St. Peters Cathedral. We walked up to the top of the dome on top of it which was pretty cool. The inside of it is really awesome. It's really huge and really nice. They sure did know how to build churches back then. After that we went to Castle St. Angelo which was OK. Not as cool as I thought. But while I was there I realized it'd be a pretty good place to have a beer or something with your girlfriend, so when I get around to getting one I'm going to need another six weeks off Scott. But anyways, after that we went and had something to eat and then went out to a few bars. This morning we took the 7:46 train to Pisa so we could go to the leaning tower. Pretty much spent our day there because you have to wait until your specified time to go on the tower. It really leans a lot, like enough that you wonder how the heck it's still standing. They also let you climb up to the very top of it. It was a little creepy for me. The very top is only about 4 feet wide. It has a little railing but when I'm standing on that about 200 feet up on a slant it's a little disconcerting. Once we got done there we went and hopped on a train to Florence, which is where we're at now. We'll be here for a few days and then we'll probably go to Venice.
Random notes: We practically ran to the Diesel store last night so Christine could hopefully get some stuff for cheaper before it closed. Their prices were the same as the US so she didn't get anything. I like the fact that in Europe if you walk into a bar and ask for a beer they don't look at you funny, they just hand you one (meaning you don't have to tell them a brand or anything). I didn't know why I brought my car keys until I had to open a couple bottles of beer with the bottle cap on my keychain. The toilet in the train just opens onto the ground. You're not allowed to use it at the station.
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Entry by Jack on 8/12/2004 3:37:23 PM
Oh yeah, we're trying to get pictures up but we're having more technical difficulties. We tried taking a couple on Christine's phone and they said that they went through to my e-mail but they didn't so we're back to square 1 there.
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Entry by Christine on 8/12/2004 3:40:09 PM
WEDNESDAY...I chose to go Italian. Well for forgetting to put on deodorant it was stereotypically European. This was noticed after our bus ride to Vatican City put us on a trek. But we did check out the Sistine Chapel with dress code and all. Seems they don't like to see skin. So the pants I wore made me a sweat ball. (Reminded me of FRIENDS and Ross's leather pants episode). No need for the stairmaster lately. We climbed the many stairs of Saint Peter's Basilica to the top of the dome and then got a view of Rome from the outside area. After that we headed to Castel Sant'Angelo to check it out and ended up relaxing in their outdoor "bar" area. Then Jack was great to book it to the Diesel store where we found that the prices are the same to the U.S. but I was happy to see for myself. Went to a bar called Trinity College that was cool and I had fettucine which Rome is suppose to be known for. Really I am learning receipes for new drinks. And even though I had plenty we stopped on the walk home for two more at Nag's Head Scottish Pub. Which didn't seem very Scottish but I enjoy the Italian men talking to me
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Entry by Jack on 8/13/2004 12:53:31 PM
When we got to our room yesterday it had a little TV so we watched it for a bit even though we couldn't understand anything except for the videos on MTV. Then we were watching CNN or something and they were showing Rome but I wasn't sure why. I thought it was pretty funny when I looked it up later and it was because they got some terrorism threats or something. But anyways, we did a lot of wandering around last night. We were trying to find a couple bars that our tourist book or whatever mentioned but they were closed for no apparent reason. Then we tried to get something to eat but everybody was closing so we ended up at another Irish Pub (they're popular in Italy for some reason). Then we went to a random other bar we wandered by and then we went to a place that Christine got a flyer for from the hotel or something. She got 5 shots for 5 Euros there. It was a pretty silly place. Kinda meat marketish. They also had some sort of slot machine sorta device that I couldn't figure out. I put in 1 Euro and it actually gave me change because it's only a 50 cent machine and then the reels spun a couple times and then I pressed the button for get money and I got 3 Euros, so I won somehow, I have no idea why. By the way, having a good map makes a huge difference when trying to get around here. We're having a lot easier time getting around here than in Rome just because the map has all the streets labeled.
Today we went to The Duomo which is the main cathedral in town. It's actually a square that has multiple buildings. There's a baptistry which is basically a building with a big dome. Then there's the cathedral itself, a bell tower and a museum associated with everything. The museum actually has a lot of the originals for statues and things that were originally on the other buildings since they've been worn down over time and had problems with acid rain and floods and such. We of course walked to the top of the dome again. Then I bought a book on how they actually built the dome because I think it's interesting that they could lug all that marble and brick and whatever and connect it all together into a dome that has an inner and an outer part with stairs in between and then has a huge thing sitting on top of it, and it's been there for 600 years or whatever. After we went to the baptistry, cathedral and the museum it was starting to get sorta late to do something else so Christine went and did a little shopping and I came here to try and figure out the pictures and stuff because my feet were killing me and I wasn't that exciting about shopping anyway. Not sure what we're going to do tonight. Maybe we'll watch the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics or something. We don't get there until Wednesday.
Still working on the pictures. I've got a few to post now. I just need a way to FTP them since I don't think this Internet Cafe place is going to let me.
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Entry by Christine on 8/13/2004 1:40:53 PM
THURSDAY: Got up way early to go to Pisa...not like I was having a restfull nights sleep anyways. But I was bummed that I slept on the train. I wanted to know if the countryside was pretty. Leaning Tower of Pisa was cool. Cool site to see. Alittle scary that it is not falling completly over or breaking in half. We went to the top. Jack made that entertaining. He gets a bit shaky in the open air heights. Mom must have rubbed off on him in that area. We had to go though, what other stairs were we going to get our excercise in for the day on. Then we headed to Florence (Firenze). Again I slept on the train. I am on Vegas time, or something, I tend to try and nap during the day and I wake up when night is rolling around. But uncontrollable closing of the eyes in the Cathedral in Pisa is bad. Nice hotel room. Even if we do have to climb stairs to get to it. I especially like the Air conditioning, fan (heat is off) The shower is in the bathroom but has doors so the water doesn't get all over the floor. And extra bonus: T.V. (not that I understand anything other than MTV) although the informercials at night are adds for naked chicks not household products. Well off to dinner. Since last night we didn't get that done till 11:30 at a Irish Pub called The Old Stove. Although it was playing american music. After that was more drinks at S.Domingo Bar. Might end up there again with their 5 shots for 5�.
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Entry by Christine on 8/15/2004 2:58:01 PM
Time to catch up on a few days. FRIDAY: Went to The Duomo (Cattedrale Di Santa Maria Del Fiore. And I ask the question why is there never any holy water in the big containers that look like they should be holding some. It amazed me how much graffitti was on the walls. How do people not have respect for a sacred place. Although I don't know how I feel about being charged to go into a church. But really we were paying to climb the STAIRS, yet again, to the dome. Which I really am amazed by. Good thing Jack bought a book so he can tell me how they built these cathedrals.
I tried to shop while Jack spent time at the computer, but seems they close early on Fridays. I like a store called intimissimi. Really I just love to shop. Can't afford it though.
Then we went to an expensive dinner (Ristorante il Bargello), with a no service, cover charge. Basically they didn't add a tip and they charge you for sitting. Jack got this grande beer that was worth the money while I got an "ombra" champagne. Real champagne, smallest glass. And I had to go across the street to have cheescake. Extreme prices. Still love the Cheesecake Factory.
We concluded the evening at the same Irish Bar,(tired of walking and looking for places), Did enjoy a USC shot at the bar...consists of Vodka, Orange juice and Strawberry. Still managed to stay up late even if we had to get up early...
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Entry by Jack on 8/15/2004 3:11:11 PM
Well we made it to Venice. When did I write something last? We discovered Friday night that we actually need to leave for Athens on Tuesday, not Wednesday and that we couldn't really leave from Venice, where we were planning on being. Real good planning on my part. Oh well. So pretty much that meant that we needed to leave for Venice the next day. So Saturday we got up semi-early because we needed to check out of the hotel, go check our bags, reserve a room in Venice and reserve our train ticket to get to Venice before we could do any sightseeing and after the two hour wait to reserve the ticket to Pisa in Rome we were a little concerned about how long it would take. Turned out that the 20 minute wait to check our bags was the longest wait we had to do our chores so that was pretty good.
After that we did the typical American tourist thing where we sped through as much as we could in the time we had. It actually wasn't that bad but it kinda sucked to be that rushed. In the morning we went to the Accademia Museum so we could see the famous David statue so we could say, "Whoa, check out the unit on that dude!". As an aside, I don't know why all the guys in these statues are wrestling naked. There must have been some weird stuff going on back then :) Anyways, supposedly David is the best example of sculpture in the world. I'm not arguing with that, just as a regular person observer I'm not sure what makes it that way. But it was cool. We also got to see a violin and a viola by Stradivari. That was kinda cool since he's probably the only instrument maker I could name and you always here how much his violins are worth.
After that we went to the church where Michelangelo is buried. I figured that would be pretty cool after seeing so much art by the guy. It turns out all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are represented there. Well, at least guys with the same names (Leonardo, Rafael, Donatello and Michelangelo, assuming I remember them correctly). What a dork. Anyways, as a dorky engineer, I also got excited when I saw that Enrico Fermi was also buried there. That's not on any of the literature but I thought it was cool. Galileo and Marconi, along with Machiavelli are also buried there. Anyways, after that we went to the Uffizi which is the main museum there. After waiting in line for an hour to get in (who knew they took reservations) it wasn't really that exciting, lot of paintings of that Jesus guy and his mom. After that we hit the train.
Got to our room about 11 and just wandered around some, had some ice cream and a drink and went to bed. This morning when we got up we went to St. Mark's Square and went to the cathedral there. The Mark from the gospels in the Bible is married there. Then we went up the Bell Tower that is in the square. Didn't even have to climb any stairs. Has a really nice view of the city though. After that, since we were in a 1500 year old city we decided to go to the modern art museum. It actually wasn't as bad as I was expecting but a reasonable amount of it was that sort of modern "art" that you feel like you could have made. At least they didn't have any sculptures made out of cow dung or anything like that. After that we wandered around some so Christine could get lost and then had dinner and here we are. Tonight we're going to try and go to the Venice Casino so Christine can work on her gambling problem and I can check out the world famous Mikohn CasinoLink because I haven't seen it before.
Some other random thoughts: Dave Barry is in Greece right now for the Olympics. Go to the Miami Herald website to check them out. He's pretty funny. I think it's funny that in the US whenever the government is looking for ways to get money they always try and make the tourists pay for it. Here the tourists can ask for tax refunds on the stuff they buy. When we were wandering around today there was a Calendar Roma or something like that that has pictures of priests for all 12 months. I can only assume it's the hot priest calendar or something but they are all in the traditional Catholic priest outfit. When you first get to Venice you kinda wonder what they were thinking, what with all the water that seems like it's going into the buildings and such, then you find out that the city is actually sinking (which I already knew) and there is water in the main square 250 days out of the year now.
OK, I'm tired of typing now.
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Entry by Christine on 8/15/2004 3:12:43 PM
by the way we went tho the Battistero (has Gates of Paradise, bronze doors) & Museo Dell'Opera Del Duomo on Friday. SATURDAY: up early to check out and head to the train station to get things all organized and check out big and heavy backpacks for the day. Then went to see Michelangelo's "David". Popular guy. Wouldn't mind snuggling up to his body type, but preferably not a man as cold as stone. He is in the Accademia along with alot of religious art. NEXT, Jack was nice enough to stand in line at the UFFIZI. I went shopping. One hour and lighter in the pocket, I met back up with him for some sculpture and more Renaissance art.
Then we husted to the train but had time to eat McDonald's...how I am really going to hate Mickey D's after this trip! Still managed to sleep on the train, big shocker. And we have now arrived in VENICE
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Entry by Jack on 8/15/2004 3:15:31 PM
After reading what I just wrote, I realize that I really like the work there, and it rhymes with square and sorta with stairs. Anyways, sorry about that.
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Entry by Christine on 8/15/2004 3:37:23 PM
SUNDAY...SUNDAY...SUNDAY:
So found out last night that Venice tends to close early. We tried to go to a bar but they don't really do the bar thing here. Lots of romantic, sit outdoors, drink and eat expensive, listen to live orchestra, get sad that you are single... places. But it is beautiful at night. Which is why it is driving me nuts that I am currently @ a hole in the wall internet place!
But anyway... Venezia is cool, even if it does flood and the city is sinking. Won't be taking the romantic Gondola ride. Way too expensive! Maybe when I come back in love.
We are staying at Hotel Riva which somehow we are getting a deal at 90 euros a night (ugh, choke, choke). Has bathroom and airconditioning... what a bargain. It is located close to Piazza San Marco, pretty much the lowest point in the city. We went to the Basilicia San Marco today. St. Mark's body is there. And a really beautiful golden/jeweled alter. Then we walked to...
Peggy Guggenheim Collection: which is a highlight for me. I love abstract-surreal-cubism-modern art! Highlights were Man Ray, Picasso, Mir�, and Ren� Magritte. Those are just a few. Quite a change from what we have been seeing. Then we did more walking and wondering and I got separated from Jack for about an hour. We've had a small dinner and I must leave this machine to go enjoy the evening. Hopefully the casino stays open late. Not that I am trying to gamble. Just want to hang out with a lively croud. All my love...from Venice!
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Entry by Christine on 8/17/2004 2:51:37 PM
MONDAY: Venice...Well the last entry cost me like $20 U.S. to post. We did laundry and I window shopped and ate all the fresh fruit I could get for cheap at their farmer's market. Much needed layed back day. Then Happy Hour rolled around at the Jazz Bar, wrote some postcards and 4 champagne cocktails later and I was a bit saucy. We headed over to the Irish Pub and had some sandwiches and got to see my first Olympic events. Have not been around a t.v. It was noticable that the events aren't sold out. I took breaks to wonder the street and get myself what is suppose to be the best gelato in Venice. It all tastes great to me. Since it was getting late, and we had to be up early, we decided to head back to the hotel. But stopped by the Jazz Bar again. Visited with nice traveling Australians and had a salad and tried out the cheesecake. (Still sticking with Cheesecake Factory).
Back at the hotel we had to pack the clothes that even though we had payed extra money to twice dry they were hang drying in the room. I took a shower. Did my no sleep thing and two hours later it was time to get up for the train...
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Entry by Christine on 8/17/2004 3:08:59 PM
TUESDAY: Got up at 6am to walk to the Grand Canal, to take the ferry, to take the train to Milan, to hop on a bus, to catch a plane...and after sitting on the runway for two hours...We are off to Athens!
ATHENS BABY! OLYMPICS BABY!!! get off plane, pick up baggage, take train, and walk to hotel. And hey that's it for the day today.
I will say that the banners and everything they have advertising the Olympics makes me feel like being in Sydney. Wish things were going to be cheap like Australia. Well tomorrow's is the first event. 9am. Got to get up earlier though, to walk to the station, to take the train, to get on a bus, and probably walk some to the Markopoulo Olympic Shooting Centre. Anyway...I want to wander around some tonight so ANTIO (bye in Greek).
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Entry by Jack on 8/17/2004 3:21:06 PM
Well, we made it to Greece. It was good practice for actually getting to the Olympic events because that always takes forever. This morning to get here we walked across part of Venice to get to the vaporetto (water bus) stop. Then we took that to the train station. We took the train to Milan. Took a 45 minute bus ride from Milan Central Station to the Milan airport and then took a ~3 hour flight to Athens. From the Athens airport we took the metro to the stop near our hotel. It's not nearly as hot here as I was expecting so I'm kinda excited about that. I'm sure in the middle of the day it's going to kinda suck but that's OK.
So anyways, back to Venice. When last I wrote, I believe I mentioned that we'd be heading by the casino. That was a pretty interesting experience. While we were at the Internet Cafe I checked to see what the dress code was, their web site said casual. I thought cool, but just to be on the safe side I put on some long pants and a collared shirt before we went. When we got there the guy where you check in told me I had to have a jacket. So much for casual. At least I didn't have to wear a tie. Luckily they rent them for free there so it was no big deal. After he told me I needed a jacket we tried to ask if Christine's clothes were OK since she was in nice jeans and a reasonably nice tank top and his response was that, "Yes, women are allowed." Not, her outfit was OK but that women are allowed, like they might not be. So then I started picturing the casino as a room full of men in suits and some random hookers. Anyways, after paying our $10 admission fee (they give you a $10 play chip for it so it's not too bad) and getting my jacket and checking Christine's camera (no cameras allowed) and then going through the entry thing and climbing 3 flights of stairs we were in. It was mainly a lot of men, some with their wives (who didn't really seem to be playing, just watching) and maybe a couple of questionable girls. We decided to go to the bar so we could wander around and figure out the games before we actually tried to play. Price for my beer: 3 Euros. Price for Christine's champagne: 13 Euros. She only had one glass. I ended up having quite a few because it was really warm with that stupid jacket on. Anyways, it definitely was a little different than the casino's I'm used to. They were playing Chemin de Fer, which is like baccarat but you seem to be mostly playing against the other players instead of the house, but the house takes a commission. They also had roulette but rather than buying specific color chips for each person you just throw your money out there and remember where you put it. We also found the slot machines. No evidence of CasinoLink because they apparently don't have player tracking so that part of the visit was pointless. Finally I decided to sit down at a blackjack table. It was 10 Euro minimum. I won the first 3 hands I think including a double down. Then I started betting 20 Euros and won the next 3 hands and then they closed the table. Not because I was winning, just apparently at 1:30 or something they close the blackjack tables no matter how full they are. I still had the 10 Euro chips they gave us on admission because I hadn't lost yet (Christine went and blew 20 Euro on Roulette) so I played a little Roulette but didn't get crap and ended up losing about 40 Euro there. But I walked out ahead 80 Euro (minus admission, drinks and vaporetto ride) which was cool. We pretty much spent yesterday relaxing, did some laundry, souvenir shopping, making train reservations, things like that. We met some people from Australia in a bar. It reminded me of when we were in Australia four years ago and we kept meeting these Europeans that were on 4 month vacations. Now we're in Europe and the Australians are on 3 month vacations. Must be nice.
Well, I better get going so we can wander around some. We probably need to leave for our events tomorrow about 7:00AM. We're seeing shooting and softball tomorrow. Neither one is anywhere near the hotel. They're both kinda near each other but the way they've set up the transportation system they probably couldn't be any farther away. Oh well.
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Entry by Jack on 8/18/2004 6:40:01 PM
Ok. This is going to be really quick because I had a whole thing typed up and then Christine asked how to make the Greek characters work on the keyboard so I started fiddling around and somehow managed to remove everything I'd written in a way so I can't get it back so now I'm really annoyed.
Anyway, the Olympics went pretty good today. In the random way we seem to have luck at the Olympics, both of the events we went to today featured Americans. At the shooting event an American won the gold medal in the Double Trap, which is where they shoot at the orange clay things. Then when we went to softball the US beat the crap out of Canada 7-0. They had to call the mercy rule. We also got to see Japan beat Greece 6-0. I think we sat behind the same cheering section for Japan as when we were in Sydney. They have a head cheerleader and everything.
The weather here is excellent. I was expecting it to be about 100 degrees and humid but it's not quite that warm and there really isn't any humidity. It actually gets a bit chilly at night. I did manage to get kind of a weird sunburn today though. I'm also excited about the concession prices. It's 0.50 Euro for a water, 1 Euro for a Coke and 2 Euro for a beer. That's way cheaper than the other Olympics I've been to. Maybe if I'm lucky it'll help get my budget back on track, but probably not because the souvenirs are really expensive (like 25 Euro for a T-shirt).
Random thoughts: It's a good thing I learned all those Greek letters from the fraternities and my science/engineering classes when I was in school. I can kind of read things here. Quote from Christine today (sorry Christine): I wonder why those South Africans were speaking English instead of their native language today? I think English is their native language. Then why did they have an accent?
OK, time to go. Tomorrow, Badminton at 9:00AM and Tennis at 5:00PM.
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Entry by Christine on 8/18/2004 6:59:22 PM
WEDNESDAY!:
Athens is and interesting place. Lots of porn at the local news stand. But hey, the bottled water is only .50 euro and the coke 1 euro so it can't be that bad. I was all excited last night that they had a KFC. Corn on the cob and mashed potatoes for me! Until the corn tasted horrible and my two sides cost just as much as jack's meal. It was alittle apparent that the non-meat eating thing will be hard to satisfy here in Greece. Bring on the bread, cheese and lettuce! Wait they don't really have that either. Okay so I can have??? Apparently only ice cream at the olympic venues. And who would guess that I would be so excited to find that they sell Sunflower seeds at the train station and even the little street market. I'm set. No need for a meal. Water and sunflower seeds for me!
Anyway, SHOOTING was our first event. 9am start time made getting up...way too early! (Especially after checking out the local bar last night, I was actually originally looking for something to eat, no luck). SHOOTING was actually pretty interesting. Atleast the skeet part of it. Although it helped that in the finals the USA girl won the GOLD. Great way to start the Olympics! Then it was back on a bus, to take the train, to switch to another train, to take yet another train, to get on a bus, that drove us so close to the beach I could smell it. And then we were at...
SOFTBALL...USA destroying CANADA. We had great seats on home base/ first base line. Right behind Canada player's family section. SOFTBALL chick are hot. That's hot looking. Atleast from the waist up. Alittle too thick in the muscle legs for my taste. But wow, if only I was coordinated! All that free excercise! And after USA beat Canada using the Mercy rule, it was hot Greece chicks against Japan. The Japanese girls all had the same boy cut hair. So not so hot to me. But same enthusiastic cheering section like Australia games.(The family members switch out between the different games). There was some special woman infront of us. A volunteer guy from Germany who was talking to me, was fortunate to get a fan and Japanese headband from her, but she was something special. The journalist was all excited to interview her and take her picture. Not to mention the dance they did when he was bowing to her but bowing lower than her. Easier to explain then write.
As for the German guy talking to me. Nice guy but he had nothing on the concession stand worker who made random comments when I bought water, most notable is the first "You have my heart" He is a charmer. And can I tell you, Canadian boys are good looking. To bad the finest specimen was dating the catcher of the Canada team. Another that stuck out was obviously too imature for me. But great body. Which is something I thought the Greeks were known for. I am keeping my eyes out. I will let you know.
Now here it is again 3am and I have to be up at 7am. Doesn't vacation mean I get to sleep???
by the way love the e-mails and text messages. Keep writing!
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Entry by Jack on 8/19/2004 6:57:07 PM
Another day, another couple Olympic events. This morning we got up sorta bright and early to get to Badminton early. That was interesting to watch since I've never seen championship badminton before. In the Women's Singles Bronze Medal Match, China beat China, in the Men's Doubles Semifinals Korea beat Indonesia and in the Mixed Double's Bronze Medal Match Denmark beat Denmark. After that we went and did some wandering around at the shops and stuff. Christine seems to buy something from every shop we walk by. I've only bought a couple things so far. After that we went and dug up where Holland House is. Holland House is something that Heineken sets up for Dutch people to go during the Olympics. When Rich and I were in Atlanta in 1996 some Dutch people told us about it and we went and it was really cool. All their athletes were there, along with their fans and there was free beer and it was really a good time. But it was sorta secret. So when we went to Sydney we sought it out but by then the secret was out (plus they had a much more obvious location) and it got so busy that they weren't letting non-Dutch people in, at least dorks like us. So we didn't get in. So I asked some people if they had it this year and they said yes, and everyone can get in but you have to get there by 8 or the line gets really long. We went really early just to find it and check it out since it'll probably be a few days before we get there at night since we have events every night. It's a little different now, it isn't free food and drinks anymore but it looks pretty cool. We'll definitely have to get back there. While we were there we made a cheesy little video on the thing we have there. We e-mailed it to a couple people but they only let you send it to a few addresses at once plus we couldn't remember anybody's e-mail addresses off the top of our heads. But here's the link to it. When it comes up it'll have a little box that has a question in Dutch. You have to choose Ja or Nee. Choose Ja to indicate that you are at least 18. Then you can watch it. It's pretty stupid but oh well.
Jack and Christine at Holland House
We had a couple drinks there just to cool off and bought a couple of T-shirts and this silly charger so Christine can charge her cell phone by hand. Then we went off to tennis. The first match we missed most of because we were late. Plus, they only let people in during the breaks between games and there was only one skinny little entrance to get in so it took a couple breaks before we got in. Anyways, then we saw Taylor Dent from the US beat Tomas Berdych from the Czech Republic. So that was pretty cool. Then we got to see Martina Navaratilova playing with Lisa Raymond in the Women's Doubles quarterfinals vs. Japan. It was really cool to see such a legendary player play in person even if she is kinda getting along in years (as far as athletes go). Plus she is playing for the USA which is a bit weird I thought. It also sucked because they lost. You can tell she's really good just by the way she places the ball around but I don't think she moves as well as she used to. Very competitive though. After that, it was pretty close to midnight so we came back to the hotel, went to dinner and came to the Internet Cafe to see if we could get the silly video to work. Tomorrow we've got Table Tennis and Handball (I think). Bye for now.
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Entry by Christine on 8/19/2004 7:06:18 PM
THURSDAY:
Well the evening isn't going quite as I planned. We went to the Swiss House but got there after midnight so it was closed. So we headed to one of the local sit and eat/drink outside places. Decided to order a real meal, Linguine with Salmon, and some wine. Wine was okay. Splurged for the $1.50 bread and butter. But I was disapointed they were rolls. and then the meal. Tastes like Bacon. But I am hungry so I have to take some bites of pasta, right? Too bad it had parmagian. Now I get to sit and have a worse stomach ache than when I originally sat down. I know Whine, Whine, Whine...
Since I am on the food subject. I never thought I would be so happy to have McDonald's for lunch. I was even adventurous and ordered the veggie burger. Hmm, salsa on a burger...strange rice, peas and carrots, rolled in breadcrumbs and fried.l Not quite for me.
And in OLYMPIC NEWS: Had Badminton this morning. Only had to take a couple of trains there, so travel wasn't that bad. But boy did I have trouble concentrating, or really staying awake. Good thing it was freezing cold in the enclosed building. Jack and I wondered the streets alittle between our events. Went to Holland House. Which if you paste this link in and be sure to double click on JA you will see one of the video messages we made.
Another video of Jack and Christine at Holland House
Then we went to tennis. Which was fun. Got to see Taylor Dent win his match and the American woman doubles play a close, but losing, match against Japan. Too bad the Swiss girl, from tennis crou wd, that asked Jack for a favor (picture in program-hopefully he writes about her) wasn't at the Swiss House tonight.
and look it here it is past 3am again. I am headed back to the room. Sorry I couldn't be more exciting but I am not feeling all that great. ANDIO
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Entry by Christine on 8/21/2004 5:09:11 AM
FRIDAY: Woke up a bit sick. So was slow moving. Headed to Table Tennis. Medal Matches. China really has a cheering section. By the way don't go playing for money against anyone from there, they really know how to play. Taking Bronze and Gold. Korea is not bad either (Silver for them).
Went to the Acropolis. Saw all the things I learned about in that one Art History class I took twice. I think the teacher got her lectures from the wall signs they have posted telling you about the things.
Took a hike to see Handball. Cheered for Croatia. Was amusing. They had quite a cheering section also. We had very good seats. 3rd row. We didn't stick around to watch France and Egypt, instead...
went to Holland House. Was having a great time until I lost my Heather Pooh Bear. Hopefully he is returned. People there could tell he meant something to me. So if they see him around...but that's just hoping.
Met another person who won his trip to the Olympics. I apparently need to be looking out for more contests. Sander (a popular dutch boy's name)won his through his work and Bausch and Laumb(you know that contact solution) sent him on a 4 day trip. Would have liked to talk to him longer but Holland House actually closes and I can't get over losing Pooh.
By the way, we found out the train station closes, probably at like 2:30 since we got there right after that. So we had to walk back to the hotel. Jack was nice enough to let me stop by McDonald's so I could eat a salad on the walk back. Got a Happy Meal too. But pretty much threw most of it away. But it comes with an Olympic souvenir stuffed animal. But he's no Pooh.
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Entry by Jack on 8/21/2004 5:11:26 AM
Well, another day gone by. We've only got 4 weeks left. Yesterday we started out with Table Tennis. There was hardly anybody there. We watched China beat Denmark and Hong Kong beat Russia in the men's doubles semifinals and then China beat Korea for the Bronze medal and then China beat Korea for the gold medal. Apparently they know how to play some Table Tennis in China. After that we had some spare time so we went to the Acropolis. It was interesting how many restorations they were doing because early restorations had been bad. Then we ran off to handball. That particular venue reminded me a lot of when we were in Sydney and they would drop us off and make us walk a million miles to get to the actual venue for no apparent reason. It was kind of annoying. Anyways, handball was a bit different than I was originally expecting. I always thought handball was like racquetball except played with a little bit smaller ball and no racquet obviously. Turns out it's a team sport that's a bit like a combination of basketball without any of that annoying stuff like dribbling or out of bounds and soccer with a smaller net. And instead of the players not being able to use their hands they can't use their feet (except for the goalie of course). So I don't know what I was thinking. We watched Croatia beat Russia. It was pretty fun to watch but we thought watching France play Egypt would be a little much so we bailed and went to Holland House instead since we weren't sure when we were going to get a chance again. That was pretty fun. We got there early enough that there wasn't a line to get in which is why we were in a bit of a rush to get there. By the end of the night there were a ton of people there, and a line to get in. The one bad thing is that Pooh got lost and we couldn't find him. I guess he really likes Dutch people or something. For those of you that don't know what I'm talking about I'll explain it later. By the time we left it was about 2:30 in the morning and they were just closing the subway station so we had to walk back to our hotel. That kinda sucked. At least I had the street map with me or we might have been wandering around for days since I had no idea which way to go otherwise.
Other various things: The over/under on how many pairs of sunglasses that Christine is going to break on this trip is 4 1/2. She's currently broken 2 pairs and has 2 more in reserve. Good things about the Olympics so far: Transport has been really good without any lines (probably because there isn't as many people as they were expecting). The venues and the areas around them have been really nice for the most part. They've made some nice parks and fountains for people to hang out in. The events have been fun. The cheering sections for the various participating countries are pretty cool. Most other countries are much more excitable than the Americans. Bad things about the Olympics so far: It kinda sucks that there aren't more people. They made all those nice parks and hang out areas and there's hardly anyone there. The food sucks. They apparently had plans to have all sorts of salads and gyros and shishkabobs and stuff, but pretty much the only choices are ham and turkey sandwiches and sometimes hot dogs or weird pizza. And yogurt. I also feel a weird sort of detachment from these Olympics compared to when I've been in the past. Part of it is because of the lack of people and I also think part of it is because I can't find any English language newspapers to read about the previous days results and things like that. In Atlanta and Sydney they would always sell the paper outside the venues. Here they don't even sell the Greek paper outside the venues. Couple things I miss about home: Big American shower with standard nozzle and squeezably soft Charmin. I think the toilet paper here is made out of recycled sandpaper. You only have to be 18 to drink inside Holland House.
Since there seems to be plenty of seats available does anyone have suggestions on events they think we should go see?
Bye for now.
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Entry by Jack on 8/22/2004 6:42:30 PM
OK, our seat assignments better get a little better soon. Yesterday, our seats for weightlifting were pretty much the worst ones you could get. They were so far over to the side that you couldn't see the results board and since it was very difficult to hear the announcers it made it really hard to know how everyone was doing. Then today for track & field I probably had the second worst seat in the stadium (the first was right behind me). It was situated such that we were as far as possible from the finish line, it was under an awning so we couldn't see the TV monitor or result board and it was right up against a giant support wall so we had to lean forward to see the whole track. Also had the same problem with not being able to hear the announcers. So the whole night we were stuck wondering who actually won. Kinda crappy for a ticket that I paid $140 for. That being said they were a couple of cool events. For the weightlifting a Greek guy was trying for his 4th straight gold medal and weightlifting is a really big sport in Greece so this was the first event we saw that the stadium was packed. They cheered really loud the whole time for him. He ended up only getting the bronze but when they announced him when there were doing the medal ceremony he got a 6 minute standing ovation so that they weren't able to give the silver medalist his medal. We ran into a guy that's a coach for the US weightlifting team that night and he said he's never seen anything like that before and it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen because he doesn't think that'll ever happen again. So it was cool to be around for that. At athletics (track & field) we got to see the 100m finals which was a pretty good event to be at although I felt like we would have seen more if we were watching it on TV. The US got 1st, 3rd and 4th though. Somehow someone from Portugal snuck in and got 2nd :) We also got to see the men's high jump, men's triple jump, men's hammer throw, men's 1500m wheelchair and women's 800m wheelchair finals.
In between those two events me and Christine had to change hotels. This one is more like a hostel where we have to share a room with 5 other people but it also has air conditioning so it's a pretty reasonable tradeoff I think. We'll see once we actually sleep there. We also went and saw the cycling at the Velodrome. What a cool ass stadium they built for that. The roof is a real piece of artwork. It was the first time I've ever seen cycling like that live. I thought the Sprint events were pretty lame but the Pursuit events are really cool (sprint they're just trying to cross the finish line before the person they're competing against but they can go as slow or fast as they want, pursuit they start on opposite ends of the track and try and catch each other). It was also the busiest I've seen at the Olympics today. The Velodrome was packed as well as the Olympic Stadium for track and field. When we got out of that the whole area was just packed with people, more so even than I think we saw in Sydney.
I guess that's all for today. Tomorrow we're just supposed to see beach volleyball and the day after that equestrian and women's field hockey. We might ditch that though because Jed's sister happens to be in Athens too because the cruise ship she works on is docked here so we're going to try and go hang out with her.
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Entry by Christine on 8/22/2004 7:05:45 PM
SATURDAY:
Super sad about Pooh...
We woke up in the very hot room after only a couple hours of sleep and went to the Archeological museum. The place was huge. And I am officially convinced that the Art teacher walked through and wrote down what was written on the descriptions. I didn't pay for the audio tour but wouldn't be surprised if she had tape recorded that and used it as her own for the lectures. That no sleep thing got to me about an hour into the museum and my body tried to fall asleep standing up. The bottled water fell out of my hand and made enough noise to wake up anyone else tired in the place.
After the museum we took our tired selves and our aching feet to an air-conditioned bar. I attempted to order something off the menu, but was denied. This seems to be typical of the bars here in Greece. They have this big huge menu and then when your order, they point out the three things they actually do serve. I took the time to write postcards instead. Then we walked to train station and off to...
WEIGHTLIFTING!:
Okay, so this was my favorite sport to watch when we went to Sydney. But I got to say it helps to have good seats. Our seats at this venue were the worst. Couldn't see the screen to see how much they were lifting and if they were successful. Could not see the screen to see the replays. Really only had a side view. Oh and did I mention, these were the higher priced seats. Would have been better in the upper balcony. The Greek took Bronze and the place chanted for six minutes, it stopped the whole medal ceremony. Finally the Silver place winner just stepped up. The all cheered again after the anthem of the Gold was played. Great spirit but I really had conflicts with some sort of respect for the other medalists. But who am I kidding, if it had been Americans cheering like that, I would have been right there with them.
After that we went to dinner. MY FIRST REAL MEAL! Fried Eggplant that I put in my spagetti and a salad. Other than the salad I normally would not order these things. But it was great to not be denied. We talked with the table next to us for a long while after. The husband was with the Sychronized Swim Team. Keep meeting people who are staying on cruise ships. Sounds almost like staying in our hotel. Small, expensive, hotbox room with strange showers.
Anyway we tried to go to the nightclubs but after lots of train riding and the lack of bus and cabbies who didn't want to drive that far we headed back to a square we had had drinks at previously. The outside cafe seemed to be the Brazil House. Some fans (possibly an athlete) were playing bongo drums and singing and having a great time. Would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't so tired and frustrated with the clubbing journey. And the walk back to the hotel was my first experience with why the travel books have the "not good for women by themselves" notations. Good thing I got my big brother to take care of me. We managed to get to bed by 5:00. AM of course.
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Entry by Christine on 8/22/2004 7:25:29 PM
SUNDAY...SUNDAY...SUNDAY...(again already?)
Moved rooms this morning. Threw out my first thing. Bye Bye Tiva's. Not really excited about the sharing a room with six others for 70 euro a night. Tonight I am in an all girls room. Bathrooms in the room, which means it will probably get loud at 6am, with my luck.
Went to Cycling. Was interesting. Didn't understand a whole lot. Wish the program guide would offer rules and information of the individual events.
It seems the venues were originally going to have a large menu. I have seen it. It says salad. NO SALAD. But it seems they ran out of cheese pizza. I was going to test it out at wrestling but it was sold out. The cycling was in Olympic Stadium and there was no pizza to be found. All sold out. Curious how they are going to make it another week. Hot dogs are bound to sell out next from the look of things.
Enjoyed Athletics. Or atleast the parts I could see. Triple jump...from a strange angle and high jump even hammer throw. But I am just ignoring that I could not hear anything from the announcements, see the screen for results, or playbacks, or what else was happening on the other half of the stadium. Really we had the absolutly worst seats possible. But I am just going to ignore that. Because at 90 euro a seat. I just get frustrated with the whole thing if I think too much. We sat and watched the big screen after in the dirt part of the Stadium (they swear it is suppose to look that way). I enjoyed that. Got to see the men play volleyball! They looked hot. They just turn off the T.V. when they decide it is time to kick you out, so we took the crowded train to get a drink
And since it seems to be a theme to eat at the bar...I did have another good meal. Tomato salad. Green Salad. Bread and Butter. And a half bottle of wine. Which I brought to the computer with me. But not doing a good job of finishing it since I am typing and now it is 3:30 and we still have to catch a train or walk back to our new place. So ANDIO for now.
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Entry by Jack on 8/26/2004 6:21:07 AM
Man, it's been 3 or 4 days since I wrote something last so I barely remember what we did. First off, a little tip. It's good and all to go on a trip without having a set plan but if you're planning on trying to fly out of the Olympic host city on one of the last days of the Olympics you should probably set that up a little more then 2 days in advance. We're going to be doing a lot of traveling on Saturday because the best flight we could get was to Rome so then we're going to take a 9 hour train ride to Nice and stay there for a couple of days. We're done with our Olympic events now. We have tickets to the women's basketball final on Saturday but we're going to skip that because we really need to get out of here.
So a recap of the last couple of days. On Monday our only event was beach volleyball. It was the semifinals for the men and women. In the women, we got to see USA vs. USA. USA won. Later they would get the gold and the bronze. We also saw Brazil beat Australia. For the men we got to see Spain beat Australia and then we skipped Brazil vs. Switzerland so that we could go meet Jodi at her cruise ship, well the bar outside the cruise ship. We rode in our first car on our trip since we took a cab from the beach volleyball venue to where her ship is anchored. It's a really nice one, although it's dwarfed in size by the Queen Mary 2 which is right next to it. Anyways, we hung out at the bar for a bit and met a few of her shipmates and then we went and checked out the ship since our security request had gone through. The security for the cruise ships is pretty silly. To get in you first go through a gate where you show your passport and they make sure you're on the list. Once through there you go through the normal security screening with the metal detectors and X-rays and they check your passport and make sure you're on the list. Then when you get to the door of the ship they check your passport and make sure you're on the list. Then they trade you your passport for a visitor's badge. They almost didn't let us on the first night because it was nighttime and apparently they have some sort of policy against visitor's during the night in the passenger areas so we pretty much had to stay in the crew areas. We got to take the "back alley" tour of the ship which was pretty cool but I was completely lost. It's a lot of similar looking decks with stairs to crew berths alpha, bravo, delta, etc. Jodi's in the Golf area. By the way, if you go to work on the cruise ship the job you want is golf pro. Jodi's room is about 15 feet by 10 feet and 3 people have to share it. It's basically a bunk bed, a single bed and a desk with a little bit of closet space and a mini bathroom. The golf pro's room has a double bed, a couch, refrigerator, walk in closet, a real size bathroom, a window and he gets it to himself. It apparently is the party room of the ship. He also gets to eat in the officer's mess and is allowed to hang out with the customers. Plus, he's playing golf for a living. There were a lot of signs all over about being quiet. Ping Pong can't be played after 10:30 because of the noise. The treadmills can't be run on at > 2.5 miles per hour because of the noise (apparently they're above the captain's quarters). Eventually we got up to the spa area where I made the mistake of sitting down, so while Christine and Jodi talked for a half hour I took a nap. I hate it when I do that. After that it was about time for us to get back so we left the ship.
The next day we went to equestrian in the morning at 9:00 which kind of sucked since we didn't go to bed until about 5:00 in the morning. We got there about an hour late, which was probably OK. It was pretty interesting to watch (it was jumping, not dressage) but it got a little repetative after a while. A couple horses got hurt during the competition and I was afraid that they were going to whip out the shotgun right there but they took them away on a horse ambulance and it turns out they were OK, just strained tendons or something. I don't really remember what we did after that. I think we might have gone to the Internet cafe to try and figure out flights which wasn't very successful. Couldn't find anything to where we wanted that was even remotely inexpensive and the flights we did find wanted to send the tickets to us but that wasn't going to work out very well since we're in Greece and they could only send to the US. After that we went to women's field hockey. The Netherlands played Argentina and won in a double overtime shootout. There was just a sea of orange shirts there to watch the game. After that it was China vs. Germany, most of the orange shirts cleared out for that one. Germany won that one in a double overtime shootout as well. After that we didn't know what we were going to do so we over by Jodi's ship again and happened to run into her roommates. They've been calling the bar the crew bar, apparently for good reason. We hung out with them for a while and then went and woke Jodi up at about 1:30 in the morning. They almost didn't let me on the ship that night because their paperwork says Jack Nino and my passport says John Nino. Luckily the guy at the door remembered who we were eventually. So Jodi came out for a bit and of course we were giving her crap about going to bed early so I promptly fell asleep at the bar. Missed a bunch of stuff I guess. The waiter was giving them shots of Ouzo, which tastes like black licorice and is a bit strong and apparently Christine kissed the waiter and I was asleep. I hate that. We got home at about 5:00 in the morning again I think.
Yesterday we went slept in a bit and then went to a travel agent and managed to get a decent priced flight to Rome, but like I said before it's going to be followed by a pretty long train ride. Then we went and watched Diving. It's the first time I've seen that at the Olympics. I was really happy it was inside because their outdoor pool doesn't have a cover and the sun would have been a bit much. I have to admit that I have a difficult time figuring out what makes one dive better than the other a lot of the time. We both were having a bit of trouble keeping our eyes open too if you can imagine that. After that we went and uploaded a couple pictures to the Internet and did a bit of souvenir shopping and then hung out in the shade at the food stand for a couple hours. Speaking of pictures, we don't have a lot but you can access a few here at the following link. You can create your own account or we created a fake one with the e-mail address fake@notreal.net and the password is "password" (without the quotes) (sorry Mikohn guys I didn't go with our standard :)
Jack and Christine's photo albumM
So anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, the pictures aren't that exciting because we've been taking most of them on normal film cameras but at least it's something. So after that we went to the Super Heavyweight weigtlifting. It wasn't quite as jumping as the night we saw it before because there wasn't a Greek in the competition but there was a nice crowd of people cheering for the Iranian guy who was way stronger than everyone else. In the second part of the competition (the Clean and Jerk, vs. the Snatch, shut up Beavis) he didn't even start lifting until almost everyone else was done. And then he went out and lifted 263.5 kg to set a new world record even though he had already won the competition. So that was pretty cool. After that we went out and met Jodi yet again. I had to call work for a few minutes (thanks a lot Gandalf), and then we were going to try a new place but we never quite got there. Time flies when you're just sitting around sometimes. I did manage to stay awake though which was pretty cool. Eventually we made a couple silly calls to Jodi's brother and sister-in-law. After that we went back to our room, which by the way is probably the worst room ever. It's hot even though it has air-conditioning and someone has the worst smelling feet ever. I guess that's what we get for getting the hostel style room. OK, that's enough typing for now.
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Entry by Jack on 8/26/2004 6:27:50 AM
OK, somehow I screwed up the picture link. Here it is just as text:
http://www.kmobile.com/I.jsp?c=vv9uo2y.kqx17qi&x=0&y=wl06bm
and here it is as a link (maybe):
Jack and Christine's Photo Album
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Entry by Christine on 8/27/2004 7:17:25 AM
Super Busy week, try to catch up alittle today. MONDAY:
Went to the most expensive e-mail cafe next to the Venice one. The building down the street caught on fire and they closed the street off infront. Lots of sirens. Looked like fire was contained to one apartment. Then went and did some shopping. Which I really got to stop doing. One, because I can't afford it and two, because I can't carry it.
We went back to Holland House before beach volleyball. No sign of Pooh.
Beach Volleyball was fun. U.S. played U.S.,so apparently U.S. woman's volleyball was going to get a medal.(Turned out to be Gold). The men played. I always enjoy that. On the walk into the stadium I decided to try the pizza. And I thought to myself, "tastes like meat". Got in the stands, pulled back the cheese and sure enough, HAM. I am still putting on the pounds with ice cream, bread, sunflower seeds and White Wine. The sunset was pretty cool, but probably won't turn out in pictures. We left and had another great time getting a cab, but atleast he didn't try to rip us off and he got us right where we needed to go.
To meet Jodi. Jodi is our friend from Vegas who we have known for a long time (Jed's sister). She works on a boat that came and docked for the Olympics. Ian Thorpe is staying on her ship. Which she have us a tour of. I especially liked the spa that she works in (and all its samples).
Got home at 5am but couldn't sleep, maybe it had to do with the stench coming from one of the guys in the room. Jack decided he has stinky feet/shoes. It is gross. I managed to get an hour of sleep in and then it was...
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Entry by Jack on 8/27/2004 7:30:56 AM
This'll be quick. We've spent the last couple days just doing chores. Yesterday we went souvenir shopping and pretty much got that taken care of. Jodi was nice enough to say she'd keep some of our stuff on the ship until they get to New York at the end of September and then ship it to us then. So we're going to give her some of our heavy stuff like my 40 year old binoculars. We also carefully packed a box of lighter stuff that we were going to mail home from here but that didn't go so well. We went to the post office with a box we found but they couldn't send it because it has writing on it. The window we went to sent us to Window 16 who sent us to the stamp window who sent us to Window 16 and repeat. Eventually the guy in front of us managed to get a little box and Christine thought the lady was going to get her one but apparently not. It was a pretty frustrating experience, especially after we were all proud of packing our light box. Didn't feel like the post office did a good job of making a good last impression of Greece. Apparently postal workers everywhere have issues. So now we've picked up a tad more stuff to cart around. Oh well, like I said it's light. We were just trying to make more space in our backpacks with that stuff. Anyways, last night we went down to one of the ports where they have a bunch of clubs next to each other on the street because I wanted to go to a Greek club because they're supposedly pretty cool. They were pretty cool but for some reason there was hardly anyone out last night. So we went home early (about 3:00). The place we were at looked like it was about to close which I thought was strange because I thought Greek clubs were supposed to be really busy until about 5. Oh well. We're pretty much packed. We're going to meet Jodi tonight for our last hurrah in Greece and then a day of traveling tomorrow to get to Nice.
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Entry by Christine on 8/27/2004 7:44:36 AM
TUESDAY: Nothing like waking up to ugly naked guy. Yes, that's right, after only my hour long nap, the guy sleeping in the bunk below mine sleeps in the buff. He is no greek god. And I am prude American. Although I never knew it till we came to Greece. And all their porn on the newstands and postcards. So anyway...
took the longest train/bus ride to get to Aquestrian. Which I actually enjoyed. It was Jumping. But my question is, does the horse get the medal? I watched horses get injured and they really seemed to be the athlete. Someone who knows more about "the sport" will have to let me know. Leaving that stadium was bad. They didn't have good lines for the buses, and they tried to say that you could only go if you had a seat, and everyone was pushing. Not my favorite scene.
I chose to sit down for lunch instead of doing any real internet time. The typical tomato salad and white wine. I snagged the bread, that they charge you for anyway, and we headed to
Hockey. Girls Field Hockey that is. And it was very obvious that Netherlands were playing. The stadium was pretty much a sea of orange shirts. Most of them left after the Holland girls won and we were left sitting, in what was actually a cold night, chilly in the stands watching Germany beat China. Both teams actually won in shoot outs. So it comes down to who has a better goalie.
We had to drag Jodi out of bed, she's a good sport and came out to the Crew Bar. Which is the cafe on the corner, that all the partying crew for the three boats in that port are hanging out at. It's fun and it is nice that the hot Greek waiter buys us shots. Too bad they are shots of Ouzo. Which I don't recommend to anyone. It was nice of Jack to fall asleep so I could get my "Kiss a Greek Guy" mission accomplished.
The train ride home was a bit weird. Basically group of young punks that made me nervous. But I got Jack sleeping next to me to keep me safe. I was just happy we had to get off two stops after they got on. Think we almost managed to see the sunrise.
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Entry by Christine on 8/28/2004 7:39:47 AM
WEDNESDAY: Went to diving. Which I was all excited about, even though Jack made sure it was girls, too bad I couldn't keep my eyes open. Then we hung out in the Olympic Stadium for a while before we headed out to Weightlifting. which is like my favorite spectator sport. But no good injuries like Sydney. The gold medal winner did manage to break all his previous set records. He really took the lead from the start. The mom of another medal winner was infront of us during the medal ceremony. So if anyone sees Jack on T.V. that's him. But U.S. didn't win so chances of anyone we know seeing anything is slim. That was our last event. Because I am more than ready to leave the hostel we are in and Greece got crowded in the past couple of days. Plus I am really hungry. Even though I have had plenty of Cool and Slim ice cream bars at the stadiuma, bread & tomato salads late at night. And happy meals without the meat for breakfast.
We went to meet Jodi at the crew bar again and we were suppose to relocate but Panayodis (Greek waiter) kept buying our rounds. Guess he didn't want us to leave. Still managed to get back to stinky hostel room at like 5am.
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Entry by Christine on 8/28/2004 7:55:46 AM
THURSDAY:
Well you would think we got to sleep in today. Not having any events and all. Not so in the hostel life. Could ugly naked guy please just wear his speedo like underwear to bed for me. It isn't like I don't see them on the floor there when I am climbing up into the bunk. And is "stinky feet" the same guy? Jack and I can't be the only one noticeing these odors!
So we went to the interntet place and I about wanted to throw the thing on the floor. Was randomly deleating my stuff and I couldn't find a hotel room for Nice, France. Finally just called the hostel near the train station in the Let's Go book. We'll see how that turns out.
Jack had some souveniers to buy so we went to Montestraki Square. Tons of people. I hate bargaining for stuff too. We had dinner there also. I was amazed by the kids begging. Don't parents teach them to work for what they want. It seems like the People here are getting really rude too. Guess they are tired of all us foreign people taking over their town. Also I have noticed that they are predjudice against the people that have moved into their country. And they have attitudes that true Greeks are superior and not responsible for any of the crime. Just conversations and things observed while eating my pasta and drinking my wine. Did I mention that I really don't like pasta. Oh well. Only a couple more days here in Greece.
We went out to a club called the "?" That's the name, just the symbol, like Prince tried to do. I was pretty tired and not all full of pep. Plus it isn't like clubs I am used to. Hard for me to get at real drink. It was a huge place and I wonder if they ever filled up all the three floors and the front lounge area. We still get home till 4:30. Really why break a tradition? Falling asleep in random places, uncontrollably is working out fine.
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Entry by Christine on 9/1/2004 5:21:49 AM
FRIDAY: as best as I can recall. I am behind on journal entries.
Woke up and tried to mail a light package home from Athens post office. But our box had writing on it and they were very difficult in selling us one that they would like. So instead I bought a backpack and have more baggage. Hopefully making some muscles along the way.
Met up with Jodi,lucky her, she massaged Ian Thorpe! We wnet out for drinks and dinner (which my vegetarian self of course made difficult). Stole my huge wine from the restraunt (hey, I paid for it) & returned to meet people at the crew bar. Most of them were worn out from the ?bar the night before. That�s okay Jodi and one of her shipmates, Rachel, were ready for Operation Dawn at the Flying Pig. Which hopefully Jack is able to write more about. But I can say Operation Dawn was a success!
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Entry by Christine on 9/3/2004 9:14:47 AM
SATURDAY:
So I mentioned that we were successful at Operation Dawn, and with that we managed to pay the most expensive baggage check ever. 70 euros for that stinky hostel room and we didn�t even go sleep or shower in it in that time. But the bags were comfy. Anyways, Saturday was a long travel day. We took a flight back to Rome, which I think we both slept through, except for snack time (pretty excited about the fruit cup). Then we had to catch the train to NICE which again I slept through. And the hostel was fortunatly right next to the train station because it was 12:30 and the hostel guy was trying to say we missed check in. That room was so much better than the last, even though the toilet was not in the room and showers cost money. Fortunatly the bar across the street was just getting going. So we had a drink at the Red Devil before heading to bed. Met some people on a contiki tour. might be the way to go if going on this type of trip because they plan the rooms and travel between cities so less hassle. Pretty sure we made it an early night and were in bed by 4am.
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Entry by Jack on 9/3/2004 9:26:38 AM
Sorry we haven�t been updating much lately. I know everyone plans their day around reading our journal entries :-) We haven�t been near the Internet much. Right now we just have a quick half hour before we have to go catch the train again. More on that later.
Last Friday we did meet up with Jodi. We met her at about 5:30 and while her and Christine did their makeup I attempted to take a nap since our plan was pretty much to stay up until we had to leave for the airport at about 6:00 in the morning. I don�t think I really got much sleep though. Then we went to dinner down near where we had gone the night before. After that the plan was to go meet Jodi�s friends from the ship because in theory they were going to be going to some club in Athens at 11:30. Well we went to meet them at 11:30 but everyone seemed to pretty much have decided to stay close to the ship that night. We wanted to do something a little different than that so at about 1 in the morning the 3 of us and Jodi�s friend Rachel walked to try and meet up with some other people from the ship who had supposedly gone to a kareoke (sp?) bar. We couldn�t find that so after Jodi tried to take us to a strip club we ended up going to a British pub just to have a beer since it had been a bit of a long walk. We ended up staying there until about 5:15 in the morning dancing and actually had a really good time. We stayed until they kicked us out but it was just about time for us to go anyways. So we said our goodbyes and then went and walked to the metro station and caught it back to our room, grabbed our bags and took the long ride to the airport. We got into Rome and had to sit around for a while and then eventually we took our train to Nice. We got there about 12:30 in the morning. Oh and we had to eat our 2 tickets to the women�s basketball final because we forgot to sell them Friday night.
When we got to Nice we went out and walked around for about 3 minutes and then decided to just go back to the bar that was on the corner next to our room because it seemed really shady. There didn�t seem to be anything open and there were all sorts of random guys just hanging out in the street. The random bar was actully pretty fun though. There were a lot of girls there that were on some sort of tour from Australia. Eventually we went to bed. The next day we went to the "beach" in Nice. I put beach in quotes because the sand in Nice is river rocks. So it�s not totally comfortable but on the plus side you don�t have to deal with getting sand everywhere. We pretty much just hung out on the beach all day. It was nice. That night we went and wandered around some and had dinner and stayed out for a bit but not too late because we were both pretty tired. We did stop by the casino on the way home so I could win a whopping 1.50. Better than losing though. Sunday we went to the beach again, but this time we took the short train ride to get to Cannes. They have really nice beaches there. I forgot to mention the topless thing. The girls are allowed to go topless at the beaches in France or at least in that area. In Nice, it was basically these crusty old ladies that reminded me of the old lady from There�s Something About Mary. In Cannes, there were more normal girls. Not that it�s anything exciting I just thought I�d mention it. The beaches in Cannes were more normal with real sand. There�s also a lot of rich people there. There were a lot of really nice boats in the harbor. After we were done there we had to go back to the train station so we could catch the overnight train to Barcelona.
The train was OK except for I tried to read some before I went to bed and they kicked me out of the compartment with just regular chairs and told me I had to go to my bed in the sleeper car. So I just sat on the floor in the hallway for a little bit and then went to bed. We got in at about 9:00 in the morning and went and checked into the hostel. Lot of people there. Then we did the tourist bit. We went up a tower with a statue of Columbus who apparently doesn�t have anything to do with Barcelona but they wanted to take credit or something. Then we went to the Aquarium, which was OK except for we could never seem to find the fish that they had signs for in the tanks we were looking at. After that we went to the Picasso museum and to a famous church right next to it. After that we went back to the hostel and while I took a nap Christine decided to sign us up for the pub crawl. Five bars starting at 9:30, free drinks for the first hour and a free drink at each place. I didn�t really have the free drinks because they were always shots and I don�t think I would have handled that too well. It was pretty fun though. There was a lot of people on that "tour" so it was fun to talk to them and stuff. And I even stayed awake. We got to the last place, which was a dance club about 2:30 in the morning I think. We stayed until about 4:00 and then went back and went to bed.
Well that�s all I�ve got time for right now. I�ll write more later about our time in Ibiza over the last couple of days.
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Entry by Christine on 9/3/2004 9:30:55 AM
SUNDAY:
After all that time in Greece it is hopeful that I might get to flush the paper, unfortunatly it is questionable.
time for a day at the BEACH! Well a day at the ocean on what Nice calls a beach, which is actually stones. Didn�t matter much anyways because I was feeling pretty aweful. I think I am dehydrated or something. Trying to drink lots of water just isn�t enough. So I spent the time on the rocks sleeping. As the day went on I eventually went and floated in the beautiful French Riviera. Love it!
when we returned to the room we took some time to talk to our roomates. They are true backpackers, get up for the free breakfast(1/4 of a baguette) and don�t eat out very often. I think they don�t make it into alot of the buildings either. Just observe them from the outside...Man they don�t know what they are missing out on, all that stair excercise. They also don�t eat out that much. Not like Jack and I, who enjoyed a nice three course meal which I enjoyed a white wine and a glass of champagne(real France champagne!) Which probably didn�t help my head because after we went to the THOR BAR (big surprise it�s an Irish Pub) and I fell asleep. I am good about leaving the camera home on these nights, I wouldn�t want there to be official evidence. Did I mention that girls really check Jack out over here. I don�t know if he has some American guy thing going or what. We left Thor bar and went to "Irish Pub" where we both managed to take a nap. Nice of everyone not to wake us up. Jack still was not content and we stopped at the Casino on the way back. I didn�t want to pay the 13euro cover charge so I found myself a couch while he went in to check it out.
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Entry by Jack on 9/4/2004 7:53:26 PM
Couple random notes that I forgot last time: We were able to send our package finally. We saw a Mailboxes etc so we went there and bought a box but when he told us it was going to be 100 Euros or something to send it we decided it would be best to go to the Post Office. So we did that, where they of course made us buy another box but at least it got sent. Here's to hoping it at least makes it home someday. When I went to the casino in Nice I was glad I was playing blackjack because all I needed to know was that a facecard was worth 10. The Queens had a D on them, and I think the Jacks had a V and the Kings had an R but I'm not positive about that. I wonder if they had a year 1900 problem. Picasso signed a bunch of his painting with stuff like 04-Oct-95, meaning 1895.
So anyways, we decided at some point Tuesday night that we should go to Ibiza the next evening if we were going to go because we did a little schedule since we're running out of time and we kinda needed to keep moving. So the next day we went and discovered that the only boat to Ibiza left at 3:00 in the afternoon and we ended up pretty much having time to go get the tickets, reserve a room, get our bags and get on the boat (we didn't exactly get up early but all that ended up taking about 3.5 hours, don't ask me why). We didn't have time to make our train reservations to Paris. More on that later. So we got on the 4.5 hour boat ride and got in to our hotel about 8:00. We'd read that the clubs there open about midnight and go until about 7:00 but luckily if that isn't enough there's places that open about then and stay open until about 5 in the afternoon. So since we had a bit of time we went and had some dinner and then went and wandered around. During that time we discovered that the way the clubs work there is very strange. Basically all the bars sell tickets and you haggle with them for how much your admission for the club you want to go to is going to cost, which usually inludes some number of drinks at the bar you're at. Keep in mind that admission to these clubs is somewhere in the range of 30-60 Euros. After we figured that out we discovered that they don't really get active until about 3 in the morning. Right about then I started drinking Red Bull because I really didn't want to go through all this silliness just to fall asleep at the stupid club. Christine finally found a couple of people from Slovenia that knew what a good price was and who knew that the club that was one of the ones to go to that night (called Pacha) had a 2 for 1 girls admission special. So my entry was 43 Euros and Christine's was 25. So Christine came to find me and told me about this and I said sweet and then I went and sat down with them and the first thing they said was they just discovered they had enough money for the tickets but not the cab fare and the ticket we got said it wasn't valid after 2:30 and by this time it was 2:15 and there was no way we were getting there by 2:30. So I started thinking, uh oh, it's some kind of scam but they actually turned out to be really nice. The people selling the tickets said that the tickets always say that and it doesn't mean anything. The Slovenians discovered they did have enough for the cab so we rode with them (necessary because of the 2 for 1 girl thing) and got in. We never saw the Slovenians again although we were supposed to meet them at 5:30 so we could pay for the cab ride back. Now that we were there we actually spent most of the time just checking the place out. It was absolutely huge and every time we thought we'd figured out all of it we'd discover another room. Oh and a vodka/Red Bull was 15 Euros. A water was 8. So Ibiza is ridiculously expensive. And this place was absolutely packed, probably with about 3000 people although I have no way of actually knowing. As you might expect there was a lot of drugs around there. I never actually saw any but Christine said that every time she went into the bathroom there were pairs of girls going into the stalls together and she could hear them sniffing something. Anyways, after all that I did manage to stay awake, mostly by not letting myself sit down and we left at about 5:45 in the morning.
The next day we wanted to go to the beach. We didn't know exactly where it was but the lady at the desk said there were a couple we could take the bus to. The bus was about 1.10. While walking to the bus stop we saw a ferry for a beach that I had heard was OK for 3 Euros. But then we saw a sign for a ferry to an island that I forget the name of right this second that was supposed to be the best for 12 Euros. Each way. So of course we took that one. When we got there of course there wasn't a beach in sight. We were getting pretty frustrated but then we saw an Australian guy leading a group of about 12 people and he had a map so we asked him if he knew where he was going and since he did we followed him. It was a bit of a hike but the beach was nice. I don't know about 24 Euros round trip nice but it was pretty quiet and the water was good. We left there about 5:30 I think and got back to the room about 7 or 7:30. I attempted to take a nap since we'd been out late the night before and our plan was to stay out all night since the ferry left at 8 in the morning and the 1 hour sleep we'd probably get wouldn't have been worth it. I sorta slept until about 10. Then we went and had dinner and did a quick negotation with some guy to get into another place called Amnesia. There were a couple of world famous DJ's from Holland playing that night. We ended up paying 42 Euros each but we got 2 free drinks and a free shot each, just what I needed to try and stay awake. About 2:30 we went to try and find the stupid "disco bus" that's supposed to come around and take you to the clubs for cheap but we never saw it so we ended up taking a cab which was a lot cheaper than we thought it was going to be. When we got there it was absolutely packed. You could barely move. We found a bar where I ordered 1 vodka, 2 red bulls (you get the vodka and red bull separate) and a water and it was 53 Euros. I was about ready to leave then. The place was a lot less interesting than the one the night before too. It only had one other room and the music in it was pretty similar to what was playing in the main room but really sucked for some reason. I was pretty frustrated for the first hour or two and seriously pondered leaving. Side note: No one seems to care if you sleep in these places. Anyways, eventually we discovered that somehow we were way overcharged at the first bar so we were able to get a couple more drinks during the night at the same "cheap" prices as the night before. And beers were only 10 Euros. One thing I forgot to mention was that the outfits that the girls wear to these places can get real ridiculous. A lot of them were wearing skirts that you'd have to shave to wear, and I don't mean their legs. We even watched a couple girls get up and have to check each other to make sure nothing was showing. Back to the club. After a while things started to thin out a bit and me and Christine went and danced some and actually ended up having a really good time. We danced until about 6:45 and were a bit disappointed we needed to leave to go catch the boat. Of course then we saw the disco bus but by then were afraid to take it because we were on a time schedule. So we took a cab. We had to stand in line to get our boarding passes before we got on the boat which is why we got there so early. I slept pretty much the whole way back. Christine says a lot of people were hurling on the way back. It was choppy but you'd kinda figure that a few of them were hungover too. I'm going to save this now so I don't accidently lose it.
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Entry by Jack on 9/4/2004 8:14:46 PM
I forgot to mention that I really couldn't tell which DJ was which but they did do a pretty good job. Hell, I was dancing for about 2 hours straight or something. It's also the first time I've seen people dancing towards the DJ booth and cheering like they were watching a band.
Anyways, we made it back to Barcelona. One of the reasons that I was OK with the trip to Ibiza, even though I wanted to spend more time in Barcelona is that I knew we were going to get back pretty early and the train didn't leave until 9:30 or something like that. Well, the ferry was a tad late because of the choppy water and by the time we made it to the train station the overnight train to Paris from Barcelona was sold out. But the guy did have something through another little town that left at 5:20. So we went for that but it only left us a few hours to do any more sightseeing which kinda sucked. The one thing on my list was an unfinished chapel by Gaudi which was called something like the Sabagado Familia but I don't have the book in front of me right know to say for sure. But as a dorky engineer, I'm down for any sort of random construction stuff. It was pretty cool. Of course we climbed to the top of the towers that were built. It was started 100 years ago or something and still isn't finished (or even close). What is there is really interesting. After that we only had about a half hour till we had to go to the train station so we used that time to update the journal quickly. You're welcome. After that it was on to the train. After a 2.5 hour ride we got to get on the night train to Paris. We started off with the cabin to ourselves which would have been cool but then a lot of people got on at one stop so it wasn't to be. Of course rather than get a couple of hot Dutch girls or something as our cabin mates we got an old guy who didn't speak English and a young guy whose feet smelled like he bought them from that one hostel in Greece and he brought his dog. It was pretty bad. I actually managed to fall asleep but Christine felt a bit noxious so she went to the bathroom and when she came back she could smell it from the hall so she somehow managed to explain to the non-English speaking train attendentants that she wanted to move cabins. They understood why as soon as they got near the cabin. They couldn't understand why I wasn't moving since there was an empty cabin we could have. Well I was a little out of it and was too lazy so I ended up staying in the original place. We got to Paris this morning about 7:45 and after checking into our room we rushed to the Louvre (which is right near our room) so we could get to the Mona Lisa before the line formed. I actually thought it was bigger than I expected, I think because I keep hearing how small it is. I also think it was a fake. You hear all the time about how you're not supposed to use flash photography on pictures and there were a million flashes going off and no one said anything. After that we went and checked out most of the rest of the museum separately so we could see the parts we wanted because it's so ridiculously huge. After about 3.5 hours we were both done. I mostly looked at the statues, while Christine went and looked at the Impressionist art, or at least attempted to, most of those sections were closed for the day. After that we took a bit of a nap and then went to the Notre Dame cathedral. Since we were there I lit a candle for the USC football team. We also climbed up to the top of the towers since that's our thing. We went back to the hostel and took a bit more of a nap and then went to eat and then walked a gazillion miles to get to the Champs Elysses. Paris is a pretty big city. All of the other cities we've been too, a block on the map is about 10 feet. In Paris, it's about half a mile so things aren't as close as they appear. Plus the walk wasn't quite as scenic at night as I was expecting. By the time we got to the Arc de Triomphe (sorry for any spelling errors) it was about 11:30 and we were both beat so we walked back down to the metro station and got a ride back to our room. Had one beer and Christine went to bed. I'm here typing. Soon to be done.
Other random thoughts for the day: Japanese tourists seem to be rather pushy. They just bullied their way in to see the Mona Lisa. Going through museums in foreign countries is like reading the bold print in books. Since the placards our in another language a lot of the time you're stuck listening to the audio guide to figure out stuff about what you're looking at. At least for a moron observer like me. But there isn't commentary for every piece. So you end up mostly looking at those. They seem to build government buildings ridiculously long in Paris, like they just figured they might as well take up the whole block. We saw a guy with the ultimate monobrow at dinner tonight. It was perfectly formed. OK, that's enough for now.
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Entry by Christine on 9/6/2004 5:11:02 AM
Dont know where I got cut off last but let me tell you we have been not near internet so it has been hard to keep up with journal. We can check our email on the cell phone so it has been great to hear from everyone. I also like the text messages. Okay I am on a french keyboard so it is the reason for any typos...
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Entry by Christine on 9/6/2004 5:24:59 AM
MONDAY: We got up and did chores. Finally got our packaged mailed. Hopefully it gets there. Then we headed to Cannes, that luxuries place they hold the film festival at. Apparently Heather's spirit needs to travel farther than I can take her. I lost my Heather bracelet, jack had gotten me at the PH conference, on the way to board the train. This kinda dampered my day. I just want one day to relax with no worries. The beach was pretty, sand and all. Topless girls that actually looked like they should be topless. I felt like I didnt float as easily as I did in the Nice water, maybe it is all that bread and icecream I have been eating. I swam out to some sort of diving dock. There was this incredible looking guy on it. Unfortunatly he did not look of legal age & he was with some young girl, hope she appreciates his beauty. It got overcast and we went for dinner. Salt Salad. Would have been a great salad if it didnt have all that sea salt on it. Thats okay there is always bread to fill up on. When we got back to Nice we went to the Red Devil to kill some time and even played a couple of games of Air Hockey. Jack won. Qnd since my bag is not heavy enough, I bought a bottle of champagne to lug around. Then it was onto the midnight train.
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Entry by Christine on 9/6/2004 5:41:31 AM
TUESDAY:
Arrived in Barcelona bright and early in the morning. It was really nice out. Too bad the room we checked into was hot and humid. But no horrible odor to note. We went up in a monument, cant recall the name right now. Went to an aquarium, that had all these signs of cool sealife, but they were not in the tanks. We had drinks at the Picasso restraunt! Well after we went to the museum. Which was good. I actually remember things I studied in school. So it was good of the mind to be put to work. Especially since we decided to do the Pub Crawl thqt night.
too bad I had trouble staying awake. I should have taken a nap zhen jack did. Instead I had gone to look for something to eat. Happy Meal-threw most of it away, baquette sandwich-ate half, icecream-still ended up with stomach ache. I give up on food. Anyways I wasnt all that social on the pub crawl. I got more lively at the last stop. The night club. Which seemed to have some really scarey staring guys. Along with the gay ones. So we still styed out too late and to really help my lack of sleep, when we got back the bottle of champagne I bought the night before was busted all over the floor. So I had to clean that before it was time for sleep.
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Entry by Christine on 9/6/2004 6:11:25 AM
WEDNESDAY:
Got up tried to charge phone while taking a shower in the most annoying shower ever. You have to keep pressing the nob to get water. So every 20 seconds your hitting the stupid thing. I am such a spoiled American! I forgot to mention how the previous morning I had been totally disgusted with how people were scarfing down their free croussant(breakfast). I am not a very good hostel person. So anyway we checked out and I went to find an internet so that I could get us a room for Ibiza. Which the whole searching for room thing is really a drag. Pretty much hurried to the boat, ate my tortilla sandwich (actually some potato hashbrown thing in a baquette) and slept.
Arrived in Ibiza and was pretty thrilled that the room was not a far walk from the boat. It was nice of the lady to inform us that our "room was over the street. And the street gets loud at night" I took a walk on the street before we went for dinner. Good dinner, expensive, but thats what I get for wanting to eat. We went to this island to party and boy when midnight rolls around that street gets busy (the loud she was talking about). And fortunatly I had been asking around because we knew which club not to go to for the Gay Party(which by the way means male gay night). Apparently you want to buy your club tickets on this street early(midnight) and if you are two girls it is cheaper. I met up with some Germans so the girl and I got our tickets for 25 euros each & the boys �45. Can anyone feel the pocket pain? We shared the cab to PACHA. The club was really cool. Lots of different sections that played different kinds of music in each area. Tons of people! Did I mention it was 3am. Going to the bathroom in this place was curious. The stall was this tiny thing. I had to wait everytime. The curious part is that everytime, I would see two girls come out of this tiny closet. Anyway I danced along the balcony of the main room. Guy really wanted to kiss me(Ren�e was his name),yeah-no thanks, your cute and nice and all but that Ecstacy on your breath is not so good. Anyway this club was quality, too bad drinks are �15. Great time and chance to see the sunrise again! By the way the street was really quite when we returned.
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Entry by Christine on 9/6/2004 6:40:14 AM
THURSDAY:
Well getting in late/early? wasnt going to stop us from hitting up a beach. I guess the absolute gorgeous beaches of Ibiza are like on the other side of the island. Which would be quite an expensive cab ride. I told Jack we would catch them next time (when we come back with our yacht). We were going to take a �3 bus but somehow Jack took us on the �12 ferry ride to Paradise(another island I dont know the name of right now). We had to walk a ways to get to the white sandy beach but the water was great and there was fish swimming at your feet and some really hot nude bathers-girls (some not so hot ones too). We did manage to not spend much money at all this day. Good thing... we needed it for the night.
We had a good 11pm dinner(have I mentioned this seems to be the normal eating hour on this vacation and in these countries) and since I had gone out earlier to find out what the hotspot of the night was going to be we were on our mission to "Have a drink" Which is how these people selling the club tickets ask you. We knew what the going price was so thats helpful. And we got our good deal at �30 each plus a 2for1 drink(�24). We enjoyed our drinks for a long while and enjoyed the Parades(clubs send there dancers down the street to advertise)I was excited to see that the club we were going to was going up in price also. And we tried to take the Party Bus but it didnt seem to arrive, maybe we were trying to early.
INSOMNIA that would be the club name. only two big rooms here and they seemed to be playing the same techno? type music but different DJ's. The drinks here were way pricier(atleast at the first bar). It was definatly the place to be. Everyone seemed to be there and moving around was not really an option. Being a VIP would be great. They seemed to have the balcony and tables and could actually walk. At around 5am Jack and I hit the dance floor and pretty much didnt stop until I was getting nervous that it might be hard to catch a cab and we had a boat to get on. Getting the cab was easy. We returned to our quite street and got our bags from the room. Headed to the ferry and pretty much prepared to sleep the ride back. Another Successful Operation Dawn!
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Entry by Jack on 9/6/2004 6:45:27 AM
One thing I forgot to mention the other day is that I thought our room in Ibiza was probably the best so far. It was about the same price as everything else we've been staying in (cheaper than getting into the clubs), but it had a real shower, a balcony with a great view of the street where all the bars where they sell tickets are and it was right across the street from the port where our ferry came in/left. And it had a big fan, plus the balcony so it wasn't too hot (although Ibiza is quite reasonable at night anyways). Kinda wore myself out yesterday. Woke up sorta early in the morning to go to church. I figured since we keep going to all these cathedrals I ought to at least go to church in one. So I walked down to Notre Dame to go to their mass since I had picked up a flier on when they were the day before. It was supposed to start at 10 and I got there about 9:40 and there were people in there and a priest and singers and all that. It was the mass before which didn't end until about 2 minutes to 10. It was packed for the 10:00 mass. It was pretty much like going to regular catholic mass as far as I could tell where we were at in it, I just couldn't understand it because it was obviously in French. It was pretty cool though. The acoustics were really cool and they had the pipe organ going and there were a couple of girls that were singing but they sounded like a whole choir. Some of the organ music was a little strange. One piece kinda reminded me of Tubular Bells which is the music from The Exorcist. I was also surprised that you couldn't hear the tourists as they walked around the perimeter while mass was going on. When we did that the day before it seemed really loud even though they had signs all over saying to be quiet. They also had a little sheet for the readings so you could follow along. My excellent language skills were obvious by the fact that French pronunciation was nothing like what I would have thought it was. Pretty typical for me. After I left church I walked back to get Christine. On the way I passed one of those open air markets opening. It was the pet store market. That's the first one I've ever seen of those. They had a lot of the normal things, birds, hamsters, ferrets, gerbils, rats, and turtles. But they also had rooster and chickens and ducks and geese. I thought that was kind of cool. When I got back to the room we left for the D'Orsay Museum. It had a lot of the impressionist art that Christine was looking for so hard the day before. I even recognized some of the stuff, like Whistler's mother and one of the self portaits by Van Gogh. It was also free because it was the first Sunday of the month. Apparently all, or at least most of the museums in Paris are free on the first Sunday of the Month, so keep that in mind if you're ever here. After that we went to the Rodin Museum where we could see stuff like The Thinker, all 73 versions of it. I never did quite figure out if there was supposed to be one official version of his stuff or if the copies are considered equals or something. Because we saw a lot of Thinkers along with a lot of the other works. It was kinda strange. Maybe I should have got the audio guide but I was kinda liking the free thing. Then we went to the Eiffel Tower. After all our walking up towers we got denied here because we arrived a tad too late. You can normally walk up to the second level (not the top) but they had just closed that entrance when we got there. So we had to take the elevator. It's a pretty nice view as you might expect although there's a bit of a line to take the second elevator to the top (especially if you stand in the wrong line, we found one later that was way shorter). It's also cool for the dorky engineers in the group just to look at the way it's put together and the way the elevators work. They also had a display on the first level about how the tower moves with the wind and the sun that was kind of cool. After that we were going to go see a movie so we went back to the Champs Elysses and tried to find a theater that was playing something that we hadn't seen. After walking down pretty much the whole street we found one that was playing The Village but Christine didn't want to see that and then we were going to see Hellboy because I never got a chance to see that but I read the sign wrong and thought it started at 10:40 and it was actually 10:00. So we were eating dinner during the start of the movie. And also by then all of the other movies had already started. By then I was in a bad mood and sick of walking so I bought a magazine and Christine bought so postcards and we went back to a bar near the hotel so we could just relax and kick up our feet for a while. Also, not getting started real fast today. For today we're going to go to the Pantheon to see the tombs of a bunch of famous people and they also have a pendulum there, which sounds exciting to me so just shut up. Anyways, after that I think I'm going to try and go play poker at the Aviation Club de France (one of the World Poker Tour venues). We walked by it yesterday and I thought it was a private club but it looks like we'll be able to get in. Unless they require a suit and tie. But it'll be cool to play poker there. Unless I get pummelled.
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Entry by Christine on 9/6/2004 6:56:13 AM
FRIDAY:
The ferry was not the peaceful trip it was suppose to be. Lots of naucious people. We got in late to Barcelona only to find out we had to catch an earlier train so we hurried to the Gaudi Cathedral. Which is really cool. We of course did the tower climb. and that was it for Barcelona. Had to catch the 5:20 train to Paris.
Well kinda to Paris the first 3 hour leg was on a not comfortable train seat. The country side was beautiful through Spain. We had a layover in some small town right inside of French border. Everything was pretty closed so I was almost happy that I had eaten McDonalds and a Baquette sandwich. But I got myself an icecream and overpriced can of coke anyway.
The sleeper train was going really good. Then we picked up a french man at a stop. He was older so you could tell he wasnt going to appreciate Jack and I up with the lights on talking for too much longer. But it was when we picked up stinky guy with his dog that the trip really took a badturn. It was laughable for a bit, but when he returned from having his cigarrette I got really naucious and had to leave the room. I tried to return to the room but the smell just turned my stomach. It was all the way in the hall. Fortunatly with some time and conversation with nonenglish speaking train personal I got moved to a different room. One all to myself (Jack couldnt wake up enough to move, think that stench might have made him pass out).
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Entry by Christine on 9/6/2004 7:06:09 AM
SATURDAY:
Arrived in Paris early. Which was probably good. Once we got to our room we headed to the Louvre. Which I felt like... Remember that one time Christine went to the Louvre and all the exhibits she wanted to see were closed. So not overly excited about my Louvre experience.
after alittle nap we went over to Notre Dame. They really hype up the book. I guess the place wouldnt be there if the book hadnt been written. The tour tour was cool with its ringing bells and great view. I keep wondering if my mom did any of this stuff, her being scared of heights and all.
Another rediculously expensive dinner and then one of our night walking tours. We tend to see lots of "important sights" at night when we are walking somewhere. This particular walk was filled with sights but was way too long and we were both worn out by the time we got to where we were going. We caught the Metro,before it closed, to return to our hotel area and found the Irish Pub for a drink. Think we made it in bed by 2:30. Early night.
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Entry by Christine on 9/7/2004 1:59:29 PM
trying to play catch up. kinda difficult on these expensive internet stops. If only I could type a bit quicker. Todays is written from hostel with really loud music �1 for half hour.
SUNDAY:
Jack woke me up early. He went to church. Which I would have enjoyed but I have been fighting off cold since Athens and I seem to move slowly. Plus he rationed my DayQuil intake since he is getting sick himself. Plus I managed to go through all his Tylenol and mine and the ones I bought in Ibiza. So he is probably right to cut me off, but I feel like I have been beaten up. I also think if I was eating a bit healthier it would help. So anyway I walked to the internet place we had seen on our night venture. Funny everything was closed on Sunday. Including the internet place. Grocery store was open though. I dont think I have mentioned how excited I get when we get to stop at the grocery store. Bottled water is way cheaper and I can pick up a banana. Also lately tend to pick up some sugar item. Bad girl.
Met back up with Jack and went to the Musee D'Orsay. Which was quality for me. Like impressionistic heaven. All the big names and those paintings that you are taught about up close and personal. We didn't spend enough time there. We also went on Free Sunday so it was jammed packed which made it kinda uncomfortable for me. After that we went and saw the Sculptures of Rodin. I am going to have to investigate if we got to see the real "Thinker" since there seems to be the same guy in different sizes all over this town. Following that we went to the Eiffel Tower. That was pretty cool. Great views, but it seems whenever I get high in the sky I love the views. It is just amazing how they put all that steel together and years later you still feel secure going in it.
Tried to go see a movie. But miscomunicated the time so we overextended our dinner. So I bought some postcards and we went to the Irish Pub. Which brings up a couple of things...Have I mentioned that I tend to be losing things way too often. I lost some postcards that we had written in Athens, but they had stamps on them so hopefully they make it into a box. And then in our layover in Rome I lost 3 more, also stamped so same hope there. So the postcards written in Paris made it into the box. Now lets see if they get to everyone. Second: This Irish Pub was the first time I encounterd the whole hole in the ground for a toilet thing. Oddly enough the men's room had a real toilet so I snuck in to hover there.
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Entry by Christine on 9/7/2004 2:21:51 PM
MONDAY: We made it to the internet place after another slow start, think this traveling vacation thing is really tiring. Walked out of the internet after 2 hours and was all excited I was going to get a banana from the market. Sorry, Denied, They close at 2 for mid afternoon break.
Headed to the Crypt. Which was cool and intriguing. I have too many scientifical questions for the entombing process. But lots of familiar names are in the crypt that is under the cathedral. The Cathedral itself is strange, pieces are falling from the ceiling so they have nets up if people walk in areas underneath them. The center they don't let anyone walk in anymore. Then we also got to go on the dome tour. Not as much as a stairmaster workout as we have done previously but a great view again.
Then we headed to the Aviation Club de France. Poker for Jack. Christine got to wander around and enjoy the ego trip of having all the guys say hi to me. See this is not a place where many girls go. I bought myself a little coup de champagne �12. Itty bitty thing that I drank while I read an article about the World Series of Poker. Then I got myself a flute of champagne �15 and just a bit bigger. I wandered outside for a while but the stores were closing at 9pm it seemed. I returned to just suck it up and buy the bottle of champagne �70. I figure atleast I wasn't gambling. Fortunatly I have internet on the cell so I was able to read the personal ones I got for the day. A gentleman named Xavier introduced himself and we talked. He was playing a Omaha tournament and asked if I would be there on his next break so we could talk more. Next break ended up being a long one so he bought me a nice dinner in the Aviation Club restraunt. So that was extra nice for me. Especially since I got to have a tuna steak and fresh peaches! And although the group had to return to their tournament I got to sit in the restraunt and enjoy my champagne and even somehow got a rasberry tart included. Jack was doing pretty well at poker from what I could tell. I stole his France phone card and made some calls. And have to mention that I changed my skort into jeans. And boy did the guys notice. Anyways by the time I finished my calls Xavier had lost in the tournament. So we ended up going across the way to Club Paris for a drink. By the way it wasn't a club at all. Jack met us and he was probably a better conversationalist than me at this point. I was pretty tired and trying to resist the urge to sleep. We said goodnight (Got to say the Aviation Club experience really made my Paris trip nightlife) and Jack decided we should stick around for another overpriced beer. The cab trip back to our hotel block was alot cheaper than we expected. And time in bed 4:30am. Thanks big brother.
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Entry by Christine on 9/7/2004 2:32:04 PM
Tuesday: Had to check out by 10am. Which was too early, but I wasn't sleeping well anyway. Unfortunatly I was moving slow so when we got to the train station the slow moving line made it so we couldn't check in a half hour early for the train to London so we had to hang out for a couple of hours. I tried with frustration to make calls to get a room for us but I was having phone card problems...again. I did manage to buy some Eiffel Tower souveniers. Too bad I have to mark them up on the "things I lost on vacation" list. So that was a bit frustrating. The train ride was uneventful. Some pretty meadow land and a very long tunnel. We got to London and went to work on a room right away. Someone's feeling generous because the first place had beds for us. And after checking in, it looks like it will be okay. No huge odors. We wondered around, I had to restock deodorant, contact saline, and my own stash of dayquil(or something like it). Got dinner at the grocery store because it appears London and paying in pounds is going to be another expensive place. And now I have taken the time to charge my phone in the common room (one of the few places with an outlet) and catch up on the journal. We are off to find somesort of nightlife, I think.
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Entry by Jack on 9/8/2004 5:48:26 AM
Well the trip to the Aviation Club de France was quite a success I think. I didn't have any dress code problems, in fact I have no idea what their dress code was except for it seemed you needed to have long pants. When we got there I immediately went and found the poker area. I was a little concerned that they would only have games that were too high a limit for me but that ended up being only partly true. The only limit hold-em games they had were really high limit like 300-600 or something like that but they did have a 2-2 no limit game with a 30� minimum and 200� maximum buy-in. I bought in for 200� and had a feeling I was in pretty good shape when I sat down and no one had more money than me except for maybe one guy. Everyone else was buying in for smaller amounts. This told me that they were a little scared. I ended up with 390� over 7 hours. I probably could have done a little better but it was still a good time. I think the house rake was really affecting the table because it seemed like no one else was winning and I certainly didn't have all the money they had bought in for. It was cool because I never really felt like my stack was threatened except on one hand. But I ended up winning that one. While I was playing Christine was being entertained by all the men walking by and saying hi to her because she was pretty much the only girl there. She ended up buying a crapload of champagne but some guy bought her a free dinner. We went and had a beer with him after I finally got done playing. It was a little different playing there. They were a lot looser with the rules as far as guys looking at each other's cards, touching the pot, or other player's cards, that sort of thing. There were a couple interesting guys there. There was one really loud guy who got mad at me because he asked me a question and I answered too fast or something and he asked again and so I responded louder because I tend to mumble and my voice is kind of screwed up because I'm getting a cold or something and he got mad because I was talking loud. Whatever. At one point he was asking me if I liked Americans and he leaned over and whispered to me that he likes America because he's Israeli. I thought it was interesting that he didn't seem to want the rest of the table to know that. There was also another guy sitting next to me that wouldn't shut up about how he travels all over the world and stays at 5 star hotels and all this crap and how he's in Paris to see this girl he goes out with or something. Apparently she's pretty young or something and she moved to Paris so he came to visit or something. Then he started telling me about how he was in Las Vegas at the Foundation Room and there was some waitress or something there that he liked and wanted to date but she wasn't into it but then he gave her $2000 in chips or something and then she was OK with it. And he was all proud. It was very strange. It was also strange listening to all this because he was playing at the wimpy limit hold-em game with about 30� in front of him and he seemed really concerned about it and impressed that I seemed to be winning.
So anyways yesterday morning we took the Chunnel train to London. As usual we kinda got screwed by lack of planning. We just showed up at the train station at about 11:00 and there was a train leaving at 11:43 so I figured we were in good shape for that one. However, the line took too damn long so by the time we got to the front it was about 11:20 and you have to check in a half hour early for the Chunnel train so we couldn't take the 11:43. We had to take the 1:04 instead. Lame. We gained an hour with the time change though. We didn't do much else though yesterday. We just walked around a little near our hostel. Felt just like we were in America. Just outside the subway station is all your favorite restaurants: McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, Pizza Hut, KFC, there's even a TGI Friday's. And there's a mall right near there that has a lot of the same shops, like the Gap and Foot Locker and Bath and Body Works. The food court has a lot nicer places though. Only McDonald's for fast food, the rest of them were restaurants. We talked to our roommates for a while when we got back and then went and had a couple beers with them. We got kicked out of our first place at 11:00. Apparently all the pubs close at 11:00. I was really surprised. Luckily there was an Austrian bar down the street that was open until 1:00 or 2:00 or something and they had a really cheesy accordian player for entertainment. I think we stayed out until about 1:30 but by then I was falling asleep. Today if Christine ever gets out of the shower we're going to go do some sightseeing.
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Entry by Jack on 9/8/2004 5:53:41 AM
I wanted to point out that I won 390�. I don't know if that was clear in what I wrote. I think it's my biggest win ever. Also, I was very disappointed by the pendulum at the Pantheon. You couldn't get anywhere near it to watch it and the video they had on it was in French. As were all the nice information boards they had set up next to the crypts. Oh well.
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Entry by Christine on 9/8/2004 1:42:46 PM
Tuesday Night:
ended up going out with our bunk mates. It was fun. Finally had someone to share a bottle of wine with. Which is not really very cheap her in the UK. Bars close early. The first one actually rang a bell for finish your drinks and get out at 11pm. So we headed down the street to some funny little cave and they kicked us out at like 1:30am. So in bed early but still didn't sleep all that well. Maybe it has to do with this stupid head cold thing I have.
WEDNESDAY:
Got our laundry done. Two loads like $24. But hey they fold it for us and we didn't have to spend our time doing it. The hostel has a real shower so that was enjoyable. Just a bit humid since there is no fan or window in the bathroom.
Went to Buckingham Palace. Which was neat. Fortunatly we chose the time of year that they let people go inside. I just can't imagine anyone walking around in their pajamas in there. The chandeliers were massive and they had lots of portrait art. And the whole thing is Gold trimmed. The ballroom wasn't like I imagined, it was smaller, I can't figure how they cram 8,000 people in there at a time. Guess we probably didn't see all the rooms. Then headed to Westminster Abbey. That was sombering. They have grand memorial stones and still weird to think that people are intombed under those stones. Then we pretty much were done with the site seeing since everything closes early here. We'll see what the night brings.
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Entry by Christine on 9/11/2004 4:14:44 PM
We'll see what I can write this rental computer has a carpial tunnel syndrome keyboard.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT:
We went to the ZOO Club. Which might have been pretty cool if the video screens they had going matched the music they were playing. Also I was not feeling all that wonderful(seems to be a bit of a theme) But worst of all is this touchy feely guy that didn't get the hint the first time I threw his hand off my leg and told him to not touch me. The minute Jack went to the bathroom he was back. Like the other leg was going to have more success for him. Yeah, He got the "Don't touch me, get away, I am in no mood to deal with this" not to mention the get away from me before I smack you look. But maybe I was being a little moody. That and he was way too aggressive for me.
Jack thought it would be good to try out Absinthe Shot. They light it on fire. Which I am thinking burns off most of the alcohol, but it still tasted like horrible black licorice and seemed like something went to my head. We left just on time to miss the last train and have to figure out the bus. Which seemed to arrive later than the stop said it would but we were successful in getting back to our place.
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Entry by Christine on 9/11/2004 4:38:12 PM
THURSDAY: Sightseeing Day!
British Museum, again tried to sleep standing up,I got to be careful one day I am going to break something. Anyway the British museum was okay but especially more interesting when it has a bunch of kinda stolen stuff in it and free! Plus it had a visiting exhibit that was impressionist/abstract so I really liked that. ST.Paul's Cathedral, was a bit commercialised to me. Just charging to get in was not good. But it did have a tower (got those stairs in) and this cool whispering gallery up there. So basically you loud whisper against the wall and it travels to the person on the other side. Was cool, wish we could have done it when there wasn't scaffolding in the way(there cleaning up the cathedral) Plus there was a crypt. But I got to say, having a crypt cafe really seem unappropriate to me. But I invite you all to travel to London an judge for yourself. After that we went to the Tower of London, seeing the crown jewels was cool. Anyone want to buy me just one? Went into the White tower (they all seemed like white towers to me) pretty happy I live in modern times. With real toilets and non steel clothes. Got to see a Lucky Raven. They are huge. Walked around the wall. Then hurried across the Tower Bridge to see the HMS BELFAST. Got there with just an hour til closing, could have use a tour guide like my Uncle George. The signs didn't give as much insight as I would have liked but did show some interesting things on how it must be like to live on a ship with a bunch of other people(no thanks). They seemed to kick us out before closing at 6, which was a bummer. There was a photo show on the walk that was interesting. And unfortunatly I didn't write down what book it was from.(Something to work on finding out later). I had planned on taking Karl's advice and having fish and chips on the River Thames there, but there was no obvious spot and I was exhausted. Jack was good with hopping back on the metro(good investment of the day ticket price 4.80euro) and we ended up eating at a Italian place. Pretty good, expensive pasta.
We were trying to figure out how we were going to get to Ireland so we went to the internet cafe and then to the hostel internet after that. Got our expensive flight to Ireland for the next morning and tried to watch a movie in the hostel commom room but I could not keep my eyes open. I pretty much slept there til 2am and Jack said we should relocate to our room. Which was up a bunch of stairs incase I didn't mention. Plus the girl with the bed next to the window liked to shut it. Why I have no idea, it is hot up there on the 5th floor. And new people moved in so there was two guys, both snoring, so you can tell how pleased I was with the amount of quality sleep I got that night.
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Entry by Christine on 9/11/2004 4:38:27 PM
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Entry by Christine on 9/11/2004 4:55:00 PM
FRIDAY:
A really long travel day that made me really hate travelling. We did okay with the train but had to then take a shuttle from the station to the airport. No biggy. Our bags weighed a touch too much so we had to take stuff out so we wouldn't have to pay anything extra. Plane was alittle late. Got to the airport and had to figure out where we were staying. (Really hating the hostel thing). Once we had directions to the hostel we were able to get into we ended up hanging around the rainy outside Dublin airport for a bus that was suppose to come every 20 minutes and didn't show for over an hour. But by the time we saw it Jack had figured out an alternate bus to take with a more expensive ticket. Got to the hostel was bummed that the 27euro per person room did not come with bathroom ensuite. Fortunatly the two other bunks remained empty for the night.
We ended up at the internet place doing business for a long time because we are pretty tired of how expensive things are with our last minute planning, plus it takes time out of a possibly relaxing day. So we are good until Wednesday as far as traveling goes. I think. After the internet, which I obviously did not even get journal time at, we went for dinner...Al's (Italian restraunt) It had a guy playing piano though. And the food was fast, hot and pretty good for pasta with random seafood bits in it.
Headed to an Irish Pub. That was cool with its two levels and different bar areas. All rooms had the same music and you could actually here eachother talk. The dance floor was packed with drunks and the music was still loud enought to enjoy and low enough that shouting was not totally necessary. I was a little surprised at how American the music was. But it still was a good scene.
Returning to the hostel to find it was booked for the following night was a bit of a pain. Since I am kinda in charge of lodgeing I got on there way to exensive internet to search out a place. Sorry all sold out. Turns out there is a Hurling Competition of some sort that is popular. Nothing like going to bed feeling like your going to be homeless the next day.
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Entry by Jack on 9/11/2004 4:58:38 PM
Well, we're in Dublin now. We'll be here until Tuesday. Tomorrow (Sunday) we're going to go on a day tour to the countryside and on Monday we're going to play golf at Royal Dublin, which is one of the places our parents played out when they were here about 20 years ago. I'm looking forward to that. On Tuesday we'll be going to Brussels for a day and then we'll be heading to Holland for the rest of our trip. We fly out next Saturday. Boo. But anyways...
On Wednesday we went to Buckingham Palace. We randomly happened to be in London during the time they have it open. It was pretty cool, although not as exciting as I would have thought. I'd definitely like to have their backyard though. It's like a really nice park with a river and everything. After that we went to Westminster Abbey. It's one of two churches we went to in London where I felt it was a bit too commercialized. When I go to a church I don't want to feel like they're selling me something. But the crypts there are really interesting. Some of them are like huge monuments. I used to think I just wanted to be cremated and have my ashes scattered somewhere but if I could get a big memorial statue that might be cool too. We tried to go to Parliment but they're open in the summer basically all the weeks except for the one we were in London. Got to see the tower that Big Ben is in though and hear Big Ben ring for what that's worth. After that it actually started to get a bit cold and the tourist attractions were pretty much closed so we went back to the hotel. After dorking around there for a while we went out to Picadilly Circus, a stop near Oxford Circus, I don't know why they're called that. We tried to go to the Hard Rock Casino because that seemed like it would be interesting but you have to sign up 24 hours in advance of when you can actually go in there so we were denied. We did sign up though, just in case we happen to be back someday. Instead we ended up going to some bar/dance club. We didn't stay too long, although we did have our first shots of absinthe. I've heard so much about how it's really bad for you but it pretty much just tasted like black licorice. They did light it on fire and mix sugar into it so that may have affected the taste and/or burned off some of the alchohol. Anyways, we were both pretty tired so we ended up going home pretty early because we had a lot of sightseeing planned for the next day.
On Thursday we got up and went to the British Museum. It's an interesting museum because pretty much nothing in it is British. They have stuff from everywhere though. We got to see the Rosetta Stone, which I thought was pretty cool, the Elgin Marbles, which are some carvings/statues from the upper edges of the Parthenon in Greece, a piece of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx in Egypt along with a lot of mummies and things of that nature. That's pretty much all we had time for which was too bad because it was pretty interesting and it was a huge museum. It was also free, which is pretty rare for all these sites. Aftet that we went to St. Paul's cathedral. They've held coronations and things of that nature there, like Chuck and Di's wedding. It wasn't as elaborate as some of the other cathedrals we've been too but it was still pretty cool. Of course we climbed up to the top of the dome like all the other churches we've been too. We also went down to their crypt. There it was definitely too commercialized. They actually spiffied up part of the crypt to put in a cafe. I don't know if they actually dug people up or built over them or what but it was a little weird to have a cafe right next to where Florence Nightingale is buried. Then we went to the Tower of London, which as best as I can tell should be called the Towers of London since there's about 12 of them. They have the Crown Jewels there which was kind of interesting. All those jewels are worth so much but they looked kinda cheesy when you're looking at the crowns and stuff close up. We then had to run to get on the HMS Belfast which is a cruiser from the British Navy that they let you tour. That was pretty cool from the dorky engineer point of view. You get to tour around most of it. We got to move one of the machine gun ports around and go to the engine room and see the boilers and the communication room and all that. By then it was 6:00 so we were looking for something to eat. We ended up back by our hotel and ate something and went back to the hotel. From there you could tell we were pretty much beat, plus we're both getting a bit of a cold. My throats been scratchy for a few days now and I'm starting to get a pretty nice cough. I feel bad for the other 11 people in the room we're staying in tonight. But anyways, we just ended up watching movies (or sleeping through them) in the hostel entertainment room. Oh yeah, except for we had to arrange our travel to Dublin. In typical Jack and Christine last minute fashion we screwed this up too. Because we waited until the night before we were ready to leave the train ended up being rather expensive so instead we got a flight which wasn't too much more and only took an hour instead of 8.
Or so we thought. We got up about 9:00, got ready and headed to the train station. The airport we had to go to was actually about 30 minutes outside of London and after the subway ride and waiting for it and all that we got to the airport around 11:30. Once there we discovered that the airline only allows 15kg per bag. I was about 4kg over and Christine about 1. So we had to transfer a bunch of stuff to our carry-ons, which sucked because we were both happy not to have to carry a bunch of stuff. Oh well. The flight ended up taking off late so we got to Dublin about 3 or so. We got our baggage, then we got our room, and directions to it. Just take the 16A bus. Apparently that's a tourist joke or something because an our later we were still waiting for the 16A bus which is supposed to show up every 20 minutes to appear. So I went and found a bus map and figured out how to get there using a faster bus (and a more expensive ticket of course), and then the 16A finally showed up but because we'd bought tickets for the faster one we went with that. We finally got to the room about 6:00, 8 hours later. So much for the quick flight.
We went out then and figured out what we were going to do for the rest of our trip (as detailed above) so we don't have to deal with any of that crap anymore, and of course that took 3 hours. Then we had dinner and went to a club for a little bit because by then we were both ready to have a couple drinks. I had my first Coors Light for the trip. The place we were at had "Coors Light now on draught" beer mats. They didn't actually have it on draft but they did have it in bottles so of course I had to order one. It was more expensive than getting a pint so that was the end of that. The club was pretty cool. They played a lot of bands from the late 80's/early 90's. If we'd actually gotten there earlier they had live music, which was one of the reasons we went there but oh well. I thought it was funny when they played Hey Ya and everyone got excited since they always play that when we watch the fake Irish band at Fado in Green Valley Ranch. Anyways, eventually I started to fall asleep, as evidenced by one of the employees telling me, "Hey mate, you can't nap upstairs, you have to go downstairs". I've noticed that on most of our trip no one cares if you fall asleep in the bars. I've seen a bunch of people doing it and of course me a couple of times and no one ever says anything. The only reason this guy seemed to care was because I was upstairs. I guess they don't want you to fall over the railing or something.
Today, we didn't do a whole lot. We went and wandered around Dublin some. We went and saw a movie called Andy and Paul, which is an Irish movie. Morale of movie: drugs are bad. It was OK. The theater was pretty nice too. We also bought some golf balls because we already know it's going to cost us a fortune to rent clubs when we play so we don't need to pay them for balls either. We ended up doing that twice. The cheapest ones at the first place we were at were ��17. But then we found another place that had some for ��10. So we returned the other ones. We're going to lose them all anyways I'm sure. We stopped on the way back to get something to eat and have a couple beers. Since this place had the same beer mat and actually had Coors Light on tap I had one of those. I don't think I'll be doing that again. I don't think very many people are ordering it because it tasted kinda stale. After that we wandered through the cold to get back to the hotel. It's actually nice to be someplace where I'm wearing long pants by choice because it's chilly after all the warm weather we've been in lately. It felt good wandering around today.
So that brings us to now. A few random thoughts: I think Christine is addicted to Tylenol. I brought about 15 doses with me on the trip. I didn't have any. She polished them off a week or so ago. That was after she had the stuff she brought. Then she bought some at the pharmacy and polished those off. She was actually hoarding them at times to make sure she'd have some for later. She's bought some more now. Usually when I go to an Irish Pub in the US I order Harp. I haven't seen it yet here. I wonder if it's like Foster's, which we hardly anyone seemed to drink when we were in Australia. That being said they seem to sell a lot of Heineken and Bud here so who knows what they're doing. I'm going to miss the Opening Day of the NFL. That kinda sucks. In the last 3 cities I've seen a lot of signs for places to call to get in the "Green Card Lottery" to come to America and live and work. It's kinda weird since you don't ever really see that sort of thing in the US for other countries. We almost didn't get a room for that night because they're booked up because of the hurling final tomorrow between Kilkenny and Cork. I'll be honest with you. I'm not totally sure what hurling is. The game, not the after drinking activity. I wonder if there's ever been a study done on how much time men gain over women during their lifetimes by not having to wait in line for the bathroom. How come department store mannequins always look like they're cold and/or they're happy to see me? I really wanted to go see a show in London, but we didn't quite get to it. David Hasselhoff was starring in Chicago. I looked at the notes Christine made for our last day in London when we went and saw all that stuff and all she had written down was the drinks she had. She also just noticed a couple days ago that they call the floor at street level in Europe the ground floor and the floor above that the 1st floor. They have a card at the cinemas here where for 15 bucks a month you can see all the movies you want. Seems like a pretty good deal to me. Ok, I think I'm done. Thanks again for your support.
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Entry by Christine on 9/11/2004 5:04:33 PM
SATURDAY: Getting up at 7:30 to go and basically make the front desk think they messed up our reservation so we had a room was not the best way to start out the day. But by 8:20 I was able to crawl back into bed knowing we are going to be sleeping in a room of 12 for the next couple of nights. (This hostel business is quite the money maker for someone).
Pretty relaxing day. We had to lock up our bags because we were going to change rooms but that was no big thing. just a bit of a pain to pack and carry down the stairs.
We went and saw Adam & Paul. Which is about two Irish Heroin Addicts. So they spoke in the Irish slang and I might of missed a few things but it was overall a good movie. We did some shopping. I needed a belt. And it is so cold I had to buy a long sleeve shirt to get me through the rest of the day. My good plan of going to Happy Hour at an Irish Pub was foiled by it being Saturday. But the Sports Bar we went to had soup which sounded great. Figures my Potato and Leek Soup came out cold. I did get two mini baquettes out of it so it was a full meal. It wasn't quite the Irish Pub I was looking for with its futbol playing on the big screen nice and loud and when the game was over the 80's DJ took over. So now maybe we will go find a real one. Although it is already 11pm and they are all probably closed.
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Entry by Jack on 9/13/2004 1:15:55 PM
Well, probably won't be writing too many more of these. Not much time left in our trip. I think I wrote last on Saturday, so, on Sunday we went on a day trip to Wicklow and Glendalough. It was not the nicest of days. It was really cold and dark most of the day and rather drizzly. It was still nice though. It was just a little van with an old Irish guy driving us around to see the scenery basically. As you might expect the scenery was really nice. He also showed us where the battle scenes from Braveheart were filmed. We saw a few mountains and lakes and cruised through the ridiculously narrow roads. When we stopped at Glendalough, which is at the site of an old monastery, he gave us a quick tour of that and then we got about an hour and a half to wander around and check out the lakes nearby. That was pretty cool. After that we drove back into town and I took a nap. We didn't do anything too exciting last night. We went to a pub to eat dinner and they randomly happened to have the NFL on so I got to see the end of the Redskins - Buccaneers game. Then the 49ers game got preempted by the hurling post game show. In hurling news, Cork had a brilliant 2nd half to beat Kilkenny 0-17 to 0-9 and prevented them from having a threepeat in the All Irish championship. Pretty intersting game, hurling. After that, we went to the bar we went to the first night we were here to see if they had any live music and managed to catch the last song of the band that was playing. The singer was wearing a "Buck Fush" T-shirt. We got in reasonably early.
This morning we got up bright and early so we could go play golf. I was pretty concerned after yesterday's weather that we'd be playing in a torrential downpour but it was actually bright and sunny outside. There were also about 75 MPH winds. It was pretty funny. It was strong enough to push me off where I was standing if I wasn't paying attention and it moved our balls on the green on a few occasions, putting me about 3 feet closer once and tapping in Christine's putt for her. It was also a tad expensive. 120 Euros for the green fees and 40 Euros for the rental clubs, and that's to walk, which pretty much everyone does there. If you wanted a cart it was 35 Euros extra. So it was good exercise fighting through the wind. In an epic battle of crappy golf, I outlasted Christine, 133 to 145. We had lunch and a couple beers and then waited for an hour for the cab to come get us. We checked out their guest book while we waited. Bill Clinton was there a couple of weeks ago, and apparently Tiger Woods has been around a couple times. And here we are.
A couple things I forgot to mention before: When we were in Barcelona I saw quite a few guys with 3-card monte games (although with matchboxes) in the middle of the main public walkway and they had a lot of suckers standing around. It must be legal or something. When we were at the Tower of London, in one of the rooms they had a plaque on the floor to memoralize the fact that a terrorist bomb had gone off there in 1974 and killed 1 person and injured a bunch of others. It was kinda creepy.
Other random stuff: My hair's starting to get pretty thick. I had originally planned to get it cut while I was here but I figured I might as well see bushy it gets. I think that's it for now. Nothing too exciting planned for tonight and tomorrow we leave for Brussels.
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Entry by Christine on 9/13/2004 1:19:48 PM
SATURDAY NIGHT: Did you know that September is the month to celebrate Jack Daniel's birthday? Well we found out when we entered the SOLAS bar. I can say " I am so not a fan of Jack and Coke" going to have to stick to wine for now.
I think I mentioned that we had to switch from our room with 4 bunks to one with 12. We'll it is not that bad and it is a bit cheaper but some jackass (for lack of better word) had his cell phone going off for two hours from like 5:45 till my alarm went off. Jack was lucky enough to have taken a NyQuil so he slept through the annoyance. But I can tell you that there was definatly other people out of the 12 that were having trouble sleeping through the doorbell like ring going off. But anyway that is just another night of lack of sleep and at this point I am pretty use to it.
SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY (unfortunatly the last there will be on this journey)
So we got up early to go on a day trip. Which I found to be a really great way to see Ireland's countrysiden plus the tour guide was entertaining. It was cold and rainy and I was pretty much freezing even though we were in a van for the ride up to Glendlough(?) On the way we got to see the coast, see the outside of musicians houses, Enya, the Edge and Bono with his Copper Gates with words from U2 songs stamped in them and then we stop off for tea and a view of Guiness Lake. Named that since a decendent of the inventor of Guiness lives their and probably owns the lake. It looks like a great place to own. The lake was a really deep blue and there was mountains all around and he still managed to have tons of grass or flat greenland. We stopped off at a pub to have lunch and I got to say I am really getting fond of the random vegetarian soup selection. After hour long lunch we headed up to Glendalagh(?) to see tombstones and what was left of a stone cathedral. And then the tour guide left us to walk up to the two lakes. And Jack and I also ventured to see the waterfall. The hike reminded me of the trip to North Shore, Hawaii we had gone on with our parents and the waterfall area both reminded us of an Australia hike we went on, but the waterfall was not as grand here as it was in Australia. Pretty tired and slept mostly on the way back into town. When we reached the hostelI thought it would be good to take a shower to maybe warm up. It was warm and even though you had to push the button to get water every so often it was like every two minutes so it wasn't that bad.
We went to an Pub for dinner and were surprised to see American football on. Tampa Bay against Washington. We started to see the 49ers game but then someone must have remembered there was a Hurling Championship that day so the screen changed to the highlights. Which I watched in an effort to figure out the game. With not a huge amount of success, although I started to fall asleep so I am sure that didn't help. I was going to hit the internet and then go back to the room but how often am I in Ireland?...
Ended up back at Whelan's which was full of Cork fans (they won the hurling national championship) also in another room a band of some sort (not irish more folk/country?) was playing. We caught the last couple of songs and then ventured back into the other section of the bar. Which one nice Irishman(Gavin) bought me yet another glass of wine. I ended up drinking way to much and after getting a "snack" candy bar(tastes like twix), I promptly got sick in the communial bathroom. Not too excited about having to be up at 8am.
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Entry by Christine on 9/13/2004 1:42:35 PM
MONDAY:
For some reason I woke up at 7:15. Had a headache and while I still have the cold I am thinking this headache was self induced by drinking all that wine. Bundled up and got myself some hot chocolate(that free breakfast is finally good for something!). Time to hail the cab for Royal Dublin Golf Club. It was a bit on the chilly side. But the sun came out for us and we were left to just bare the wind. And it was windy. I got to say this course had lots of par 4's that were so not reachable. The wind on some holes should of helped us. Maybe my skill level combatted that. I was having a great time. it was absolutly insane the wind we were playing in. Did I mention we had to walk. Great excercise, right? We could have hired a buggy for �35 but there are no cart paths so I don't know how it would have helped. We were having a few troubles figuring out where the holes went as it was. I spent some time searching for my ball in the rough(? long weedy grass) area. So it was probably better I walked. At one point I actually walked right over my ball. Who knows how many times I did that on the golf balls I gave up on and took the penatly shot.
I really had a great time. I found myself laughing and smiling alot. I stepped in some hole and fell smack down and thought it must have been super funny to see. But no one did see it. I hit some really good shots, too bad there wasn't much fairway on some holes. I made it through the whole round on my 6 golf balls. I got to take in some scenery, I liked the jackrabbits running around. And even though I payed about 1 euro for everytime I hit the ball I couldn't think of a better way to spend the day.
I had soup in the clubhouse with a half bottle of wine. It's come sort of natural to order wine with meals and I have never seen a half bottle or the neat cooler they have to chill it. I realised that I am sad that I never got to share a bottle of wine with my mom. But I guess my parents are with us in spirit. I am sure they got some laughs out of our play today.
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Entry by Jack on 9/15/2004 1:32:18 PM
I think we're definitely starting to wear down some. Our last night in Dublin we went out and wandered around, got something to eat and then found a place that actually had live music, but in typical fashion we got there right when one band was ending and only one more remained. I wasn't too impressed with either of them. And it was really strange how much everyone seemed to be cheering for them in separate sections. I felt like we were at a Battle of the Bands or something. Which we were. I think the band that won was called Playtoh or something silly like that. That was the band we caught the last couple of songs of. I also had a Guiness while I was there, since I was in Ireland and all and I realized I probably ought to. Still think it tastes like coffee. And I don't like coffee. Then they kicked us out cause the bands were done. Went to a bar across the street that apparently had had live music earlier but of course we missed that too. Sat and listened to some Irish guy who was talking to another guy about all his conspiracy theories about September 11th and that sort of thing. Was kind of amusing. But we were both tired so we finished up our beers and went back to the room. Got back at about 12:30 I think which is pretty early for us. Woke up about 2:00 having a giant coughing fit so I went downstairs to try and not annoy all the other people in the room. Was going to try and lay down in the resident kitchen area cause they had a nice couch but it was locked so I tried to go into the other dining area which also had a couch but the desk guy was cleaning the floor or something so he told me it was closed. So I sat on a bench in the lobby like a zombie waiting for him to get done. I think he felt sorry for me or something so he let me go into the downstairs room. I slept there for an hour or so and then I went back upstairs and was kinda OK for the rest of the night. Coughs are stupid.
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Entry by Jack on 9/17/2004 3:05:17 AM
Tuesday we had our standard long ass day of travel. The bus ride to the airport took about 45 mintues. We took an airline called Ryanair which is kind of like Southwest in that it is cheap and they don't assign seats, but they don't run on time and they charge for all snacks and stuff, even if it's a coke. But we got to Brussels. Once there we had to take a 45 minute bus ride to one of the Brussels train stations. Then because it wasn't the train station we needed and because we still have a bunch of days left on our Eurail pass we used up a day on our Eurail pass to go one stop (from the Brussels-South station to the Central station). We just hopped on the first train we saw that was leaving in a couple minutes and was stopping there. I have no idea where it was actually going. Once we got on I was debating whether I should even bother filling in the date on the Eurail pass but I did and sure enough in the 5 minute or whatever ride a guy actually checked our ticket. I was kinda surprised. I figured they'd wait until we got out of the city to do that. But anyways, we found our hotel. Christine did a good job of finding one that was real close to the center part of the city. The elevator ride up to our room was kind of interesting because the elevator only had outer doors. This meant as the elevator moved the walls were moving too and we were packed into the elevator pretty tight. But it was OK. After that, we went out to the Grand Place and went and saw the Mannekin Pis, which is a little fountain of a little boy peeing continuously. After that I told Christine the tour was over because that's pretty much all I know of Brussels. We went and found a random place to eat dinner. It was the first menu where we had to figure out what we were ordering based on the foreign language menu because they didn't have it in English and the waitress didn't really speak English either. Christine didn't quite get what she wanted. Right after we left there we went around a corner and found a street with a million restaurants all lit up, which was pretty funny. Christine was kinda disappointed. We went and wandered around some then. We somehow managed to find the gay bar section of town pretty easily (like the bar called L'Homo Erectus) but I knew there was a section that had normal bars that were kinda cool. So we went back to the hotel and looked in our guide book. Went back out and found the bars, although not the ones I remember. We stopped at one and pretty much that's where we ended up because Christine decided to order the full bottle size jug of wine so it took her forever to drink it. I also bought some Absinthe cause I figured that'd be a fun thing to have around the house. It has some warning on it in French which basically says it has something dangerous in it so don't drink too much or something like that. After that we went to bed.
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Entry by Jack on 9/17/2004 3:40:38 AM
On Wednesday we got up pretty early and we both went out and wandered around kinda separately. I wanted to find an ATM since I was out of money and Christine wanted to just wander around. We were supposed to meet back at the hotel at 11:45 but I managed to get myself lost again so I had to get out the map to figure out where I was and so I was a tad late. After that we checked out of the hotel and Christine went and had something to eat on the street we had found the night before. I wandered around still looking for an ATM. The only two I had found didn't take my card for some reason. Never did find one there. But Christine actually had more money than she thought so we were OK. We took the train then to Utrecht where Serge from Mikohn Europe picked us up and took us back to his place. We've been staying there the last couple nights. We hung out for a bit while him and his wife did some errands and then we had some Chinese food for dinner. Serge then took us out to tour around a little. He showed us the Red Light District in Utrecht. It's on this little side road which has nothing on it except for these little boats on the side of the canal with the rooms where the prostitutes work. There were a lot of cars passing through like we were and also a lot parked on the side of the road. There were a couple girls that were OK but most of them weren't too good. Serge was saying that when people get in accidents there they never want to report them because the accident report will have the street name on it and there's no other reason you would be on that street. Then we went to a couple bars in the center of town and then went back to Serge's to go to sleep.
After a pretty good night's rest (it's a lot quieter and more comfortable at Serge's than at the hostels), we got up kinda late and after having breakfast we took the train to Amsterdam. When we got there we took the tram to the Anne Frank House. It used to be everyone pretty much just got on and off the trams at will without paying. Now there was a lady in the back selling tickets. Strangely enough, the trams seem a lot emptier now. Anwyays, we went to the Anne Frank House, which was pretty depressing. Not only was the roundup and extermination of the Jews fucked up but there particular situation of actually staying hidden for over 2 years and then getting caught and all but 1 of the 8 people dying about a month before they would have been freed is really depressing. Anyways, after that we went and wandered around a little, a little more than I had planned because we kinda took a weird route to the Van Gogh museum. On the way, Christine saw this picture on the wall of a shop that had all these nice chickens and cows and stuff on the wall. When I looked to see what the shop was they had a bunch of meat and stuff for sale. It was the free-range meat shop. I thought it was funny. Christine didn't really think so. After that we went to the Van Gogh museum. It was pretty good but by the end I was pretty much rushing to get done. We went and had something to eat at an Irish pub right across from Holland Casinos because I wanted to play poker again. When we got there (about 7:00) I discovered I had two problems. The poker room didn't open until 8:00 and their lowest limit was 10-20 which is a tad high for me. I psyched myself into playing though but when I went to sign up I discovered they actually had a tournament starting at 8:00 for 60 Euros. So I jumped for joy and went and signed up. I did OK, played pretty well until the last couple hands I was in. I just didn't have much for cards. The hand before I got knocked out I was pretty much bluffing because I didn't think the other guy had much but it turned out the other guy had flopped top pair, turned top two pair and rivered a flush. So he had me beat pretty good. On the next hand I had pocket 6's, ended up against the same guy who had J5 suited and he ended up getting a flush again so I was out. Oh well, it was fun and a lot cheaper than if I had played in the 10-20. Shortly after I got knocked out Serge came and met us and we went to the Red Light District in Amsterdam. It was kinda interesting for me even though I've been there before. Serge knew some back alleys I hadn't seen before, including an area where there's a church that's basically surrounded by windows with red lights and prostitutes. After wandering around some we stopped at a bar that had windows right across from some of the girls so we could try and time them. Oh yeah, there were a lot of girls that were pretty good looking in Amsterdam, a lot better than Utrecht, although there's some insanely scary looking ones too. Anyways, the windows we could see pretty much had a good looking girl, an OK one and a semi-scary one. We ended up getting kicked out because they were closing, but it took the good looking girl 20 minutes to get a guy. The other girls didn't have any customers while we were watching. We waited to see how long it would take the guy to come out. While there we saw a guy come out of another girl's window and meet his buddies and then they wandered off. That's just never something that I can see going out and doing with my friends on a Thursday night or something. But anyways, the original guy we saw go in came out pretty much right at 15 minutes. And 1 minute later the girl opened the curtain and was ready for business again. One of the reasons I felt sorta weirded out this trip is that before it mostly felt like it was a bunch of tourists wandering around looking and a few single guys. This time there were a lot of groups and guys running around hollering, drunk and stuff and going in with the girls and I don't think I'd feel very comfortable if I was one of the girls. I guess they can say no, but still. It also seemed like the guys were lining up to take turns with the same girl which seems kinda strange to me too. Anyways, after that we went back and went to bed. It's our last day of vacation. We leave at 10:30 tomorrow morning to head home. I figured I'd write this up now while Christine is still sleeping. Today we're probably just going to wander around Utrecht, probably meet the Mikohn Europe guys for some beers or something and since it's our last night here probably stay out as late as possible at some club or something, especially since it's a Friday.
In the end, in our 6 week vacation we visited 13 different cities, maybe you could say 14 if you counted Cannes as separate from Nice, which was more than I expected when we sat down to figure it out. We figured we wasted 6 days on travel screwups because of lack of planning with one of those days being two half days, but we know better for next time.
Other stuff: When we were in London their subway was always announcing what the status of their tracks were. I figured it was because they had problems with being behind when it was busy or breakdowns or something. Well, the first time things weren't OK it was because there had been a fatality on one of the tracks. The second time I didn't hear exactly what was wrong but they were doing some sort of investigation so it sounded like someone else fell on the tracks or something. It wasn't until the third problem that it was because of technical difficulties. They also had a poster that said something like last year 1800 people got hurt on the escalators and 1 person died, so be careful. I thought that was interesting. Made me think of Mallrats. The lower drinking age here can be kind of strange. When we saw the bands in Dublin, these two girls in braces who looked about 14 came up and ordered beers and got them. The actual drinking age in Dublin is 18. I think it's been pretty similar all over Europe. It's the same to get into the casinos. At least when I've seen signs the smoking age is 16. It was really screwing me up when we were playing golf because the distances were in meters instead of yards. There isn't that much difference between the two but when there's huge winds and the distance is actually about 165 instead of the 150 you're thinking it does make a difference.
Anyways, I think that's it. Hope everyone who read this enjoyed it. I'll attempt to update it with our final day at some point.
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Entry by Jack on 9/19/2004 4:20:21 PM
Well, we're back. So this will probably be the last entry unless I decide to post how much the trip ended up costing me once I figure out the damage. The last day we pretty much slept in til pretty late. Then we walked to the train station to go into Utrecht and in typical fashion we missed it by a minute or something because Christine was a little off in her rememberance of where the station was. No big deal. It was a nice day and it was fun to watch the trains go by for a half hour while we waited for the next one. When we got into Utrecht we decided to see a movie. I saw the Bourne Supremacy and Christine saw White Chicks. After that we walked around the mall a little bit and then went and met Serge. He took us to meet a few of the Mikohn Europe guys for a beer near the Mikohn Europe office. We stayed there for a bit and then me, Christine, Serge and Alex went and ate dinner. After that we went to a bar and met up with Alex's girlfriend and her roommate. Her roommate is a family lawyer in Holland. One of her current clients is something like a 67 year old man with a 47 year old former prostitute wife and the wife has a 27 year old lover or something like that. The wife is on government disability because apparently something happened so she couldn't be a prostitute anymore. Strange country. Christine took a nap while we were at that bar, but I had a good time talking to everyone. Anyways, we hung out there for a while and then went to a nearby club and danced a bit (til about 3:30 or something). After that everyone except me, Christine and Serge went home. I wanted to go to a club that I had been to before when I was in Holland and really liked. We went and found it and there were about 4 people there and they had totally redone the place so I didn't really like it that much anymore. So that kinda sucked. After that Serge went to sleep in the car and me and Christine tried to find another place to go but pretty much everywhere was closing so we ended up going back to Serge's and got a couple hours of sleep before we had to go meet the train to go to the airport so we could go home. I felt bad for Serge because he had to get up early and take his son to soccer practice (and give us a ride to the station but that only took 2 seconds). The flight was pretty uneventful. The check in and security lines were long enough that we didn't really have any time to look around at the airport shops or anything. We finally got in to Las Vegas around 4:00 in the afternoon. And here we are.
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Entry by Christine on 10/2/2004 7:07:52 PM
Have I been back two weeks already. Well lets see what I can remember of my last week overseas!
MONDAY NIGHT:
Last night in Ireland. Really enjoyed our time in Ireland other than it was really cold. We saw a battle of the bands at a bar. Guess they were Irish although we only saw two bands and they were not all that good and the band that won we only heard two songs from but I definatly thought they were better than the one I got to see the whole set of. There was a bar down the street that we went to after. Temple Bar. Looks like they play some good Irish music. Would have gone back there the next night. Too bad we got to take off.
Got to say that I am totally sick of people smoking. Everyone does it. And it smells so strong.
TUESDAY: Another travel day. Pretty tired of the whole backpacking thing. Arrived in Brussels and I was excited that we were going to be staying in a hotel. Not the best hotel ever but the shower water was warm and I can flush the toilet paper. Hopefully I am too tired to care that the bed does not seem all that comfortable.
Jack played tour guide. We went to the Palace Center which is really Grand. The buildings are amazing, everything is so detailed. Got to see the naked boy peeing. He is really popular. I hear people make clothes for him and that there is a musuem that displays them. And then Jack informed me that was the end of the tour. I was hungry and could not really understand a menu. But was excited to see Fondue and plus there was a huge table of girls in the one restraunt so we chose to eat there. Too bad they turned out to be like 14. By the way, fondue was not what I am use to. It was some breaded flavored cheese fried. Could I get a date to the Melting Pot? So after my small not so satisfying dinner we walked around and it took all of a few minutes to come across a restraunt row. Now why didn't my tour guide take me there? We ended the night at a bar that I ordered a jug of wine that I couldn't finish and we did a recap of our trip and how many places we will have visited. I believe it worked out to be like 14. It also was decided that we are more of the travelers that don't like to keep moving all the time. Set up camp and stay awhile. Far more relaxing.
WEDNESDAY:
Started the morning with some window shopping (well I bought a couple of things) and had lunch at the restraunt row before taking the train to Utrecht.
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