Travel Goal

Since traveling here is so cheap, I think I'm going to set a goal for myself:

To have visited every country in Europe by the time my school year is over. (I'm not counting the Balkans or the very far East Bloc) (oh and I'm counting from trips before this year too)
So there is:
Iceland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Portugal, Spain, Andorra, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Malta, Greece, Slovakia (BRATISLAVA BABY!!), Turkey, and Cyprus

What I need to do still:
Iceland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Portugal, Andorra, Czech Republic, Malta, Greece, Slovakia, Turkey, and Cyprus

I have about 8.5 months left. It's doable. 12 countries.

Back from London

London was fun. I met up with friends from school (Jason and Nick) and Jason and I went around London doing the regular tourism things. We also went to a few pubs there and had some good beers. London is pretty ridiculous as far as prices go. When I was in Mallorca, to get into a castle and walk around was 2€. In London to get into St. Paul's Cathedral they were asking for 11 pounds. No thanks. Anyways, Jason and Nick live with a bunch of Cal Poly students, and in the building it's all California students. It seems like it would be a lot of fun. They do have to back to America mid December though. I was talking with a lot of them and we're all pretty much in the same boat. We either don't want to go back to America or we will miss Europe. I'm one of the former. It's just so much more fun here, you can actually travel around... As opposed to going like to Austin, TX for a weekend. Who would want to do something like that? In Germany it's about a 2 hour flight to anywhere in Europe, and the prices are usually less than 100€ round trip.

OK....so they live in South Kensington which is obviously the nice part of town (by all the Ferarris and such driving around), and we took a stroll through London without maps or good directions from strangers. It turned out to be a 4 hour walk in the cold. When I left Stuttgart to fly to London, it was snowing. When I got to London it was about just as cold, but it didn't snow or rain, which was good. It was just really windy though.
I got back to Stuttgart a few days later to see snow everywhere. It stopped snowing since then, but I hear it should pick up a bit later. Can't wait.

I'm going to Vienna (Wien) this weekend by train. That should be really fun. There are some American people who've lived there temporarily right before they moved to Stuttgart for school - they're organising this trip so it should be good. I'll have more pictures when I get back from Vienna.

Back from Mallorca!

Wow, that was amazing!

So I went to Mallorca with Alex, JP, Lillan, Björn, Ryan, and an Alaskan we met there named James.

We had a really good time in Mallorca. We went to the beach one day, I did a little swimming in the Mediterranean, took a Rent-a-car through 1/2 of the island and up into the mountains, and then we visited a pretty cool castle up on a mountain. I took a lot of photos; they should be up on the website by Friday (25.11.05) morning. But the weather was really great. Almost as nice as California would be this time of year.

Haha... we met an Alaskan guy at our Hostel and we did touristy stuff with him. As we were leaving an art exhibit, there were these 3 old ugly Spanish women who were forcing the guys to wear flowers or leaves or something random.. Then they wanted the guys to pay for them. As we were walking away James the Alaskan checked his pocket, only to notice that 20€ were missing....... not cool.

The nights were pretty cool. The first night Barcelona was playing Real Madrid and beat them 3-0 at their own stadium. Embarassing for Madrid. There were an unbelievable amount of Irish/British Pubs there. Probably two pubs per other late night establishment. We were at a hostel with 7 stories, and the top story was a place where you could eat or enjoy dinner and a view. It was really a nice hostel.

Next Stop: MALLORCA!

The forecasting here for weather is so bad. Every hour they say it's going to start snowing here one day or the next, and then back to the first. I was waiting for it to snow, but it's kind pissing me off now. With that in mind, I agreed to go to a trip to see some California weather again... in Mallorca. Going from 4-9°C weather to 22°C.. god its going to be great.

Mallorca: http://images.google.de/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=mallorca

I'll be there from Nov. Saturday the 19th - Nov. Wednesday the 23rd.
I'll take my camera and possibly my computer to store images and recharge stuff. I don't know yet.

But I'll be back Wednesday, Thursday, and then Friday morning im going to London to visit Jason until Monday.

I'll try to update this before I leave and when I get back from the Island.

Late.

Random Thought - Döner

So there is this Turkish food over here called Döner. When I initially got here it was like the most grotesque food ever. It's essentially a 100 lb stick of meat rotating in the shop around a hot toaster heater. Then they have this pita bread that they put it in with kräuter etc. They open it up with their hairy hands and fill it with electric-shaved-meat-from-the-stick and then put all sorts of stuff on it.

But it's soo good. From all the Americans I've talked to, only New York City has it.. I dont think it passes health inspections in the US... wonder why only New York can pass... ok maybe I don't..

U.S.A. vs. Deutschland Ice Hockey Game

Last night 9. Nov, I went up to Mannheim to watch the US hockey team take on the Germans. We received free tickets from a friend, and all we had to pay was the expenses for travel. We were going there expecting to see NHL players and stuff, but soon we found out (thanks to a team roster) that not 1 of the players for the American team actually played in the NHL, but moved to europe to play for teams over there.
With that being said, they were not exceptional. We left halfway through the last period and the Americans were down 5 to 2... I checked online just now and they actually lost 7-2 to the Germans. It was a fun experience and there are some really funny stories about going there... but I think you really have had to have been there. We were doing a little drinking on the way there because the beer at the Arena was about 3€ for a cup. bs. My friend forgot his jacket on the train, so we were like. Shit.. oh well. Then we went to get food and he pats all his pockets.. "guys....." and he had his wallet in his jacket. We talked to the service people and said they will try and have it returned. So we went to the restaurant, ate some food, then went to the Arena. There my other friend kinda crushed some lady´s beer while getting up so someone could pass by. So we decided to get ourselves a beer there and her one too. While we were removing them from the impossibly difficult beer holder they gave us, Ryan (the guy who lost his wallet and jacket) kinda jerked one beer out of the holder and it poured all over him. Allllll over. Well the game ended pretty bad... 5-2... i mean come on. So we got a taxi to the train station. To our amazement, they found the jacket and everything was still in the wallet. While we were boarding the train Ryan sort of stepped between the track and the train, sending him into the stairs of the train and his food flying all over the place. Haha, it was such a bad night for him... he wasn't even going to go.

Travel Plans in Germany (so far)

So far most of my/our travel plans haven't made it passed the planning stage. There are always rumors of going to Prague or other places, but I'll make a list of what I've already bought tickets for..
November 25-28: London to visit Jason

December late.. not exact yet: Switzerland to Ski in the Alps, then to N. Ireland to visit a friend

January 25-29: Rome for a birthday

February 20-25: Torino, Italy for the Olympics
- We are seeing:
- Ice Hockey Canada vs. Czech Republic
- Snowboarding men's qualifying and finals
- Freestyle skiing men's finals
- A day in Milan and then flying back to Stuttgart

We are applying for some World Cup tickets for June. There are tickets that were previously bought but some will be returned.. so I think we're pretty near the front in line for those, so we'll have to see if we get lucky.


Then we have to find dates to go to Prague, Amsterdam, Berlin, and then Finland

If anyone wants me to pick up some things while I'm at any of those places, just ask and I'll see what I can do.

Halloween in Germany

For Halloween some of my American and Candian friends put on a party. It was actually on Halloween, and since the following day was a national holiday (Alleheiligen - All Saint's Day) there wasn't any school. It was a pretty fun party, but apparently dressing up is only a North American thing. No one outside of Mex,CAN,USA ever dressed up for Halloween before. With that being said, their costumes were pretty bad... Actually everyone's were pretty bad. It's almost impossible to get a good costume that most people in an international party will understand. They on average were just vague wierd clothes... like a construction worker suit with an Oktoberfest hat.. jaaaa.


TROLL BAR
Last night was pretty fun. We got a bunch of people together to go to the Troll Bar. They have some pretty big beers there. You can buy a liter of beer... just a normal beer stein here. Then they have 2 liter beers in ceramic, 3 liter beers, and then the big daddy 5 liter steins. We saw the 5 liter mug the last time we were there, and I told my friends that I would do it the next time I came. Well.. I ordered it. It took about 2 or so hours to finish, but I did it without going to the bathroom either. The next time we go there someone else will order it - everyone is on the plan to do it before they leave Germany. Ill get some pictures from friends and put it on webshots later so you can see what it looks like. Spike's people... I'm pretty sure it's the Friendship Mug.. Apparently they cost something like $125 a piece.