oops.

So yeah - I got back from Zagreb the other day and now I'm leaving to Istanbul later today. I didn't upload any photos yet, and I leave for the plane in 4 hours. I haven't even started packing yet... Absinth hits hard. ok well I need to get a haircut right now and I have to start packing. I might update a bit and talk about Eastern Europe before I go, but I'm not certain. So yeah. Last night we went to Troll and JP's little brother Andrew drank the 5 liters.. he did it really well too. I stole a ceramic Mass and now I have one to send home. Got to go.

Naples Part 2

So I think we left off before we were going to the Island of Capri.
It turns out that the weather reports were actually correct, so the trip to Capri was the highlight (weather and travel) highlight of our trip. Capri was amazing compared to the homeless/trash/dog crap ridden city of Naples. Although it really reminded me of Catalina (an island off the coast of Southern California), it was a nice trip. The water was really blue, the sun was shining, and it was a really just a good fun day.

The next day, Alex left us to go to Rome to fly to Budapest. Ryan and I decided to make a day trip to a resort town on the coast of Italy called Sorrento. There really wasn't much to do there because we were in the off season, but again it was really mountainous with sharp drops, which made the views pretty cool. It was a mix of sunshine and drizzle rain, but again it was much better than the first two days.

Our last full day, Ryan and I went to the Amalfi Coast, which apparently in the summer time is ridiculously filled with tourists. The coastline here was even more steep than in Sorrento, and the roads were tiny.... We were in a big bus for about 40 people and it was really fun in a death defying sort of way to traverse it; sometimes having to back up on it so cars and other busses could get past us. We took about a 10km walk along those roads, sometimes almost getting smacked by side view mirrors. Once we got to the small bus station there it started to rain and we took the bus back and ened our trip. We went out that night to an Irish pub with some Aussie girls and some british people. Good times.

So, tomorrow I leave for Prague, Bratislava, and Zagreb. I should be back on the 21st of March.

Naples, Part 1

Ok, well Naples is going well. The weather was crap for the first two days. it was about 13 degrees but it was raining a lot. We basically just walked around the city and saw it. It looks like mexico. The traffic here is awful. Rome is chaotic because everyone does what they want on the streets, but here there is so much more traffic and so many more cars than Rome. So they have traffic jams everywhere in the city and then they just honk and honk... the scooters and mopeds weave in and out of the sidewalks because its faster. Ambulances are stuck in the middle forever. The city as I said is really dirty and pretty dangerous I think. Cars have devices on their steering wheels that resemble a tire boot.
2 days ago we were thinking of going to Pompeii, but when we got outside it was raining so much. Instead we went to the Archaeological Museum of Naples that housed many of the original things in Pompeii. Everything in there was only in Italian, so we got some audio guides. Those were crap. They probably had only 10 different things explained through the guide.

Two nights ago Ryan got really drunk and we went out with a bunch of Aussies and Canadians from the first hostel. Everything was closed and we found a place and had a beer. Ryan woke up at around noon the next day.
Yesterday we went to Pompeii and the weather was actually really good. It was more than 10 degrees and it was sunny outside. We spent about 3 hours at Pompeii and saw a lot of the ruins and a couple of the bodies that the ash made holes of. Some of the ruins were amazing, since it was destroyed about 2000 years ago. But a lot of it was just what you would expect. It was actually a huge city - hundreds of acres.
Last night we moved to a different hostel, the Hostel of the Sun. There we met more Canadians and Americans. We went out to dinner and got some drinks and brought them back to the hostel. At about 1am Alex and Ryan and a canadian Natalie wanted to go out. By then they were drunk enough to want to go out at 1am (exactly). So I was debating going out or not - Ryan was really drunk again. I said I would only go out if we went to a bar and not a club, and that was fine with them. So we were walking to some suggested places and they were all closed again. We knew where an Irish pub was and that too was closed. On the way to that though there was a club. I wasnt in a good mood, Ryan was slapping cars as they drove by... but it was already 2am by the time we showed up to the club and they werent letting anyone in anymore because it was so late. In any case apparently (i already started walking back at this point so i didnt see any of it) Ryan (acted) drunk so they would let him in (?), and they didnt like that and they pushed him back to the street, and then another guy pushed him and then they hit him in the face. Then they went back to the hostel. What a great night. glad i went out. (no). In any case Ryan is sleeping in the main room of our hostel where he passed out still.. its 11am.

Today we are going to the Island of Capri - the weather is really nice. Clear skies but its only 8 degrees. Might be windier on the island.

Tomorrow it should start raining again so I dont really know what to do. We were thinking of climbing Mt. Vesuvius - there is a train station and they say its only a 1.6km trek to the crater. But it could be snowing up there so I dont know what we will do. Amalfi coast?

Then there is the day after that. No idea what to do. I will update how that went

Köln und Fasching!

KÖLN: The parties there were huge. They don't dress us as well as Americans do at Halloween, but it's spread over about a week, full of parades and everything from small villages to the heart of Köln. The parade on rose Monday (i don't know.. its a catholic holiday) was huge. If you were to watch the entire thing standing in one spot, it would have taken about 4 hours. It was really fun to experience, and everyone was having a fun time even though it was lightly snowing. The beer and Döner definitely helped keep everyone warm. The traditional Fasching music is a bit strange. Corny but the songs get stuck in your head even when you're not trying. There was some homeless guy who was standing next to us when we were watching the parade. At first he was really close to Stuart and yelling incomprehensible things, and I thought that was hilarious. Then he moved over to me and I was almost stuck between him and a parked trailer. That was scary. He was so wierd! But yeah - if it wasn't for the snow and the cold, I think it would be a perfect holiday tradition thing.... I'm going to try Mardi Gras next year I think - see how that one goes.



So - That's about it. I think those are all the details that I can think up now, but I'll be heading to Naples, Italy (and places like Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii and Herculaneum) from March 5th through March 11th. I'll have some more stories and such by then. Again I will be uploading my pictures onto my picture website at:http://community.webshots.com/user/markrcpde

Milan and Torino Olympics!

Ok so here is my update from the Olympics and Milan

Milan: Milan was a cool city to be in... for about half a day. The coolest thing they had there was the Ferrari store, which had 5 stories of Ferrari things you could buy. I bought a Ferrari hat (€30,00.... shirts were around €70,00!) They have a huge cathedral there that took 600 years to build - it's enormous on the inside but really I think the Barcelona Cathedral is much better, even though it isn't even done yet. Milan is so expensive... A coke at a Café on the main street runs about €5,50. seriously what is up with that. When we were in Milan our final night, we figured out that it was a law that markets had to close at 10pm, and we couldn't find any beer for card games or anything -- so we went to McDonald's and ordered 10 beers for 4 of us and took them to go. I don't think any of us have ever done that, and I don't think the people at McDonald's ever saw that before either. That's pretty much the highlight of Milan.

Torino: Torino isn't a really good city. In the Summer I think it would be a nice place to walk and see minor tourist attractions. They have the Shroud of Turin there, and Da Vinci's Last Supper, but both of those are by appointment only.. and on two days a week only. Too much work. The Games were really cool. The Canada vs. Czech game was awesome, even though we were in the last row of seats. The stadium was really small so we still actually had good seats. We had some beers and some vodka with a group of about 15 Canadians before we entered the arena, and it really was a fun atmosphere. We brought a €0,74 liter of boxed German wine and got it past security (which was more thorough than an airport). Canada was up 3-0 by the second period I think, and everyone just got really rowdy. The Czechs got 2 goals but Canada ended up winning. After that we all went to a bar and everyone there was practically a Canadian or was rooting for the Canadians. Good atmosphere. Scott, Alex, and I went to another bar after that and then to a club/bar. It was amazing the number of Olympic athletes that were up partying until like 3 in the morning. Germans, Canadians, and a few Americans were there (from what their uniforms and badges said). Scott and I stayed up until 5:30AM or so and went back to the Torino train station to go to sleep. We didn't have any hotel accommodations because it was too expensive for our group. When we got there, the waiting room was practically full. We could barely walk across to the other people in our group and get our sleeping bags. We went outside the waiting room and parked about 30 feet away from it. Woke up at 7 or so to go to the snowboarding the following day. Snowboarding was pretty cool. I haven't seen it before, and Scott ended up getting a sunburn the sky was so clear. We were all sitting there watching the Olympics with t-shirts on. Pretty strange feeling. It turned out that two Swiss brothers brought home their Gold and Silver - and we were OK with that. There was only one American in the competition and a few Canadians. After that, we just bummed around Torino the rest of the day. They have this place called Sponsor Village, where its just a bunch of fun stuff - like 3D movies, free diet coke and you can practice your slap shot or learn how to do curling or go in a snowboard or bobsleigh simulator. The Eurosport people were there with a giant screen, so we sat down and watched the Olympics from there for a few hours. Later that night, we stumbled upon a huge square where Ricky Martin was playing for the Olympics. None of us were too impressed. That night we went to the same bar to watch Canada vs. Russia, but there were Champions League matches going on. After the game ended, they had some live music and about 5 of the American Hockey team showed up at the bar and were hitting on all of the girls. It was pretty funny to watch. Since we were all tired from the night before, we decided to go to sleep at about midnight. We went to the train station, but apparently there was this huge asshole security guard whose job it was to supervise the waiting room. Scott and I sat on our sleeping bags in the corner. The guy game over and said (they wont speak English because they're asses) that we had to sit on chairs. We were like "screw that guy" - and then we went to our place the night before. Then about 30 minutes later some police came over and sort of tap/kicked our feet and told us that we had to either leave or go to the waiting room. So we decided to go to the waiting room. We tried not sitting in chairs again and the guy came over. We tried to sleep in the uncomfortable chairs - didn't really work. About 6 in the morning his shift changed and then we finally tried laying down in the waiting room (this place was really spacious) and it worked.... until 9am. Then the police came and kicked everyone out of it who didn't have a train ticket. We walked around town and went to the city and stuff, and then we went to the finals of the men's freestyle aerials competition. We were on the floor of it where the jumpers stopped and waited for the scores. We practically were on the big screen one out of every three competitors. There were a lot of Americans there and also Canadians. It was an OK competition, but the American got screwed because the judges emphasize doing a perfect landing and how the trick is done, instead of relying on the difficulty of it. Some Chinese guy won it... his difficulty points were like 4 and 4.1... the average for first jump were 4.4 and 4.6.. the American was leading and tried a 4.9 (the highest in the competition) but didn't land perfectly... so he lost. That wasn't cool. Anyways, we boarded our bus to the Oulx train station, then went to Torino, then connected to Milan. We got back in Milan about 1:15 in the morning and went to bed right away. The next day we had all day in Milan - but it was raining and had shitty weather. We didn't do much there. We boarded our plane the next day, arrived, and i had 30 minutes to pack before going to Köln (cologne) with Stuart (from Washington) to visit his former host family and enjoy Fasching. At the Airport we saw about 4 people from the Canadian hockey team... Still not normal for me to see athletes like that eh.

So on to Köln.