This Beautiful Republic

Sanctus Real Sprout

Galway, the 4th of July, and Responses to Comments

Hey everyone! First I will try to respond to everyone who commented on the last blog. This was the first time I've checked it, so it was nice to be able to hear from so many people. First of all, Felicity, sadly I will not be back until August 30 in the evening sometime. Paul, I'm working on this project the whole time, right up until August 29th when I have to give some big presentation on it. Should be a fun time. Brad, programming at the speed of light is the coolest thing ever. Sometimes I try to slow down to enjoy the view. When I get back, I can try to speak some Irish to you and you can respond in Arabic. It will be fun. Juliann, if you read this post, you'll see about the 4th.

Alright, first I will talk about our trip to Galway. There ended up being 13 of us going! All 7 people in our house went along with a French guy named FX, three more Canadians named Shannon, Sabrina and her boyfriend Conall, a girl from Spain named Elena, and one Irish guy named Anthony. The plan was to catch a bus from Cork to Galway, then immediately catch the connection to Doolin where the Cliffs of Moher are. The reason we didn't go straight from Cork to Doolin was because there was an internet special from Cork to Galway that we wanted to take advantage of. Anyway, the trip started off with a bang! We were waiting for everybody to meet at our house. When it was time to go, people still weren't there, so a group of us went early to make sure the bus didn't leave us or something. So we got there, and we saw Anthony there. We actually didn't know he was coming until right then, so that was kind of a surprise. Anyway, everybody else showed up at the station about 2 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave. We had all printed out our internet tickets which told us that we just had to show that to the bus driver, and he would then print out our real tickets. Well, when we showed them to the bus driver, he didn't even look at them and told us we needed to get our tickets from the ticket booth. We asked if he would wait for us, and all he told us was that the bus left in two minutes. So we hurried to the ticket counter, and there was a huge line there! We didn't think we were going to make it. If we missed that bus, then we would have missed our connection from Galway to Doolin. So Conall, being the genius he is, talked to someone in a suit who looked important and he turned out to be awesome. He ran into where we were all lined up and shouted, "Anyone who is trying to take the next bus to Galway come with me." He tried to take us to another ticket counter, but there was no one there, then he asked the people in line if they minded if we jumped ahead in line. They said it was fine, then he looked at my internet printout and said, "Oh no! You just have to show this to the driver!" He took my ticket and ran to the bus and argued with the bus driver for about 5 minutes. I just looked at Conall and said, "Where did you find this guy?" He said, "I don't know, he was just standing right over there." Finally, we were able to get on the bus with our tickets printed out from the driver. I thought to myself, "Well that was close, but it was nice to get our problems out of the way early." How wrong I was.

The bus to Galway was really bumpy and I actually started getting a little carsick. The bus driver was speeding up really fast in traffic, then slamming on the brakes. It was really annoying. When we got to Galway, it was about 1 minute after the Doolin bus was supposed to leave. We tried to find the bus, and it was gone. We weren't sure what to do, but once again, Conall talked to the right person and we got on a bus that was actually going to chase down the Doolin bus we had missed so we could catch it. We stopped in Ennis, and everyone got off the bus. We didn't know what was going on. The bus driver came back and asked everyone where we were going. He asked each individual person even though we all told him we were in the same group going to Doolin. Alin had actually laid down across the seats in the back to try to sleep. We told him that he was with us, but that didn't satisfy him. He marched to the back and shook Alin and asked in a gruff voice, "Where are you going?" Alin, looked up very startled and stammered "Doolin!" It was hilarious. Now, everyone once in a while, one of us will shout "Doolin!" the way he did. Anyway, the reason he asked everyone was because he had actually caught the Doolin bus at that point and we had to change over. We were able to get on without many problems. As that bus was going, it was raining a lot, and people kept noticing water droplets coming out of the ceiling every once in a while. The bus was fairly full, so people couldn't move out of the way. I think what was happening was something was wrong with the air conditioning, and that was causing some water leakage out the ceiling. As we kept going, the amount of water that was falling kept getting larger and larger. Then, one time we made a sharp turn, and all this water poured out onto some people in the seats. Our group was in the back laughing hysterically. Finally, a woman got her umbrella out to block the water and everyone was laughing. No one was really angry about it, which was good. It was like we were all on an adventure together.

We finally arrived in Doolin after about 7 hours of bus riding. We checked into the hostel there and decided to go eat at a pub called O'Conner's pub. They served great food there, and the prices for beer were the same as in Cork. We were worried everything would be more expensive because we were basically out in the middle of nowhere. So we went into this pub and it was packed. We couldn't find a place to sit down, but the bartender told us that if we could finish our meal within a half hour, we would be allowed to sit at the musicians table. We figured that that was our only option, so that's what we did. We tried fitting about 10 people around a table designed for 6 at the most. I ended up eating some kind of Irish bacon dish with mashed potatoes. It was absolutely delicious. After we were finished, we looked around a bit and saw some pictures on the wall. I saw this one picture of a group of musicians around a table with some very traditionally Irish-looking instruments. They had a fiddle, an accordian, and several other instruments that looked Irish. I turned to someone and said, "I hope that's what the musicians will play." When the musicians got there, that's what it turned out to be! They played traditional Irish music, and we ended up staying there for about 4 hours just listening to them! It was awesome. Some of the other people got videos of it and promised to post them on facebook, so I'll try to get my hands on some of them too. I had actually left my camera in the hotel because I just thought we were leaving to get something to eat. After that, we decided to go back to the hostel so we could hike around the Cliffs of Moher the next day. At the hostel, we had reserved a room for 8 people and two beds in a room for 6 people. Three people had decided to skip out on paying and just sleep on the floor in the 8-bed room. I decided to take one of the two beds because we were the only people in that room so far, and I wanted to get a good night's sleep. Well, this room was one of those that locks when you close the door, and you need the key to open it again. Nick and I were in that room, and I thought he had the key. As we walked in to the hostel, he said, "Steve, you have the key right?" I thought he was joking and trying to freak me out, so I just said, "Yeah, of course." Well, it turned out that he was serious. The reception had long been closed because it was about 12:30 by that point. Both of us searched our pockets and neither of us had it. I knew that Nick had it last because I had never even seen the key. Then Nick remembered that it was in his hoodie that Conall had brought back to the hostel for everyone, which was in the other room. Conall gave us our hoodies back and the key was in there. We were both really relieved because we were convinced that we would have to sleep on the floor in that other room, which would have been awful. We got ready for bed and went into the bathroom to brush our teeth. The bathroom was outside the room, so I said, "Nick, you have the key right?" in the same tone he had asked me before. I was trying to make a joke about us getting locked out of the room again. He said, "No, I left the door open." I went back to the room, and of course, the door was closed. I went back to the bathroom and said in the same tone, "Nick you have the key right?" He said, "It's closed?" Then he searched his pockets for the key again, and it turns out that we really were locked out of the room that time. We couldn't believe it. We had such a feeling of relief, then we were tense again. I glanced in the other room, and they were having a pillow fight in there. I was glad I hadn't gotten a bed in that room, but I was worried I would have to sleep on the floor in there. Nick and I tried everything to get back into our room. We tried breaking into the reception room with a credit card. We tried to find a way to the roof to see if we could get through the window into our room, but nothing was working. We went back upstairs, and the owner of the hostel was actually telling the others to quiet down! We explained the situation to him, and he let us back into our room. Again, a feeling of relief washed over us. We slept peacefully that night and woke up refreshed in the morning.

The next day, we bought some breakfast in the hostel, which sold cheap cereal and milk, and also some really good Irish soda bread. After breakfast, we decided to go on our hike to the Cliffs of Moher. From the hostel it was about a 7 kilometer walk. We started hiking right along the ocean and came to this fence about 30 minutes in. We decided that we had come this far, and if we got in trouble, we would feign ignorance and just claim that we were foreigners. We never ran into anyone... except cows. At one point, our hike led us through a herd of cows, and all they did was stare at us. The hike consisted of jumping over rivers, climbing barbed wire fences, and trying to avoid being shocked as we climbed over electric fences. At one point, I put my hand on a wooden post that was attached to the electric fence, and that ended up shocking me because the post was wet, and there was current running through it. It was very weird. As we went further, the cliffs came into view. We got a picture by a sign that said "Warning! Extreme danger ahead!" We all took a picture beside the sign and kept going. We actually found a really cool place where we were all able to lay on our stomachs and look over a ledge that went straight down over the cliffs. It was really cool, and we got some awesome pictures there. Don't worry I remembered my camera for this part of the trip. We finally arrived at the visitors center for the cliffs, and the cliffs didn't look as good as when we were actually hiking. It was a bit disappointing, but we were all glad that we went on the hike. We ate lunch at the visitor's center and relaxed for a bit, then we hiked back along the road to Doolin. We caught the last bus to Galway and found our hostel.

Galway, of course, had it's own stories. We got to the hostel, and they said that we had booked our rooms for the night before and that we were no-shows. For this particular hostel, they had made us pay everything beforehand, so we had lost €240 collectively, which was about $400. The girl who made the reservation printed off the email and showed them that they had made the mistake, and that we had emailed them asking them to change it. The hostel had emailed her back telling her that they had changed the mistake. So she printed all these emails off and showed it to the hostel. The hostel then got a lot nicer and told us that they were all full, but they would call other hostels in the area and see if we could stay there. Everything had turned out to be full. They offered for us to sleep in the kitchen area for free and told us that they could get us a refund the next day when the manager came in. Some people really didn't want to sleep in the kitchen, so Alin, John, and I set out on foot to find places to sleep. We found this cool Mexican restaurant with rooms above it that had room for everyone for about €30 per night. A lot of people just wanted to sleep in the kitchen, but a few of them took our offer on sleeping at the Mexican place. Also, FX had a friend who lived in Galway at some student apartments that was out of town. He was planning on staying there, and a few of us were going to stay there with him. There were only three people who were planning on doing that, so I decided to join them. After we finally got everything worked out, some of us decided to go to a pub, and some of us decided to hang out at FX's friend's place. I decided to go with FX's group and it turned out that the place was an absolute dump. There was food everywhere, and it looked like it hadn't been cleaned in months. We had a good time there though. We just talked and played games and had a good time until about 4 in the morning. I was going to stay there, but the peole who were staying at the hostel had forgotten how to get back, and I had a map. I just decided to go back with them and show them the way and sleep in the kitchen/dining room area of the hostel. We ended up getting back, and I was only able to sleep until about 7:00 when people came in to have breakfast. This dining room was pretty big, and we were all sleeping off in a corner where there was a separate area with a tv and a couple of couches. I opted for the floor, and couldn't sleep past 7, so I decided to go out and walk around for a bit. It was very peaceful, and I was grateful for it because I was kind of able to recharge without being around people for a while. After that, we ended up walking along the beach and eating at this place that served a full Irish breakfast. It was really good. We caught the bus back in time for us to watch the championship soccer game of the Euro Cup. It was Germany vs. Spain, and I was cheering for Germany as some of you may know for my earlier post. Spain ended up winning 1-0, but it was an exciting game. Anyway, that was the Galway trip.

For the 4th of July, we decided to go to a local bar called Captain America's. We decided we had to do something American, and we could think of nothing that would have been better. I asked if they had any specials for 4th of July, and they ended up not having anything! I was sorely disappointed! Why would you call your restaurant Captain America's, and then not have anything special on the American Independence Day? Anyway, we got some good American beer, Coors Light and Miller Genuine Draft. The Miller was a lot better than the Coors, but we had fun. After that we went back and celebrated some with some rum and Cokes and whiskey. We had invited some Irish people to our place to celebrate with us, and only one of them showed up at around midnight, but we had a great time. We took several videos of all of us dancing to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and Another One Bites the Dust. No fireworks, but it was awesome nonetheless. Anyway, that's about it for now. Thanks for all the comments everyone, and I miss you guys!

In Cork!

Alright, so I know I've been kind of lax on the blogs lately. Sorry to those of you who lost interest and aren't reading this anymore... but you won't read this anyway, so I just apologized to nobody. Whatever. Anyway, I got settled in here, and I'm living in a 7 person house full of other "foreigners." There are 3 Americans, one from Santa Barbara, one from Seattle, and myself. There's 1 Canadian from Toronto, and he's actually got the personality type of Brad Wallace, meaning he's sociable and has that courteousness towards people that makes them feel included and enforces their opinions, even when he doesn't agree. I don't know if that really makes sense, but does Brad really make sense? Anyway, there's also a guy from Britain. That's it for the males, and there are 2 females, one from Romania and one from China. There's also a house behind ours full of foreigners. There are 3 Canadians there, 2 French people, one girl from Spain, at least one girl from Poland, and one Irish guy. Our house is kind of known as the "party house" meaning people come over to our house when they want to hang out because it's got a big common room that's somewhat separated from the rest of the house. It's been great. I know some of you are interested in the project I'm working on, so I'll give a short explanation and a long explanation.

First, the short explanation: I am making a computer model of the way light travels through something called a waveguide (basically a fiber optics cable).

Now for the long explanation (don't worry, I won't be offended if you skip this): A waveguide is something that guides light waves... which is where the waveguide gets its name. The way it works is the waveguide is very thin (only about 1/200 of a millimeter thick) and it's attached to something called the substrate. The waveguide section is called the core, and the air on top of the waveguide is called the cladding. Every material has something called an index of refraction. For those of you who have forgotten your physics, the index of refraction is based on how fast light travels through that medium. It's basically like a person who can walk through air vs. a person who walks through water. The person walking through air will travel faster than the person who is traveling through water, even though they exert the same amount of effort. The air has an index of refraction of 1 (basically) meaning light is not slowed down at all. The core has the highest index of refraction, and the substrate has one an index between the air and the core. There is a phenomenon called total internal reflection that happens when light strikes the surface of a material at a very shallow angle and the material the light travels through is higher than the material on the other side of the surface. When the light is totally internally reflected, no light escapes the material. This is how fiber optics works. The light continually bounces off the walls of the material at shallow angles, and it can thus be guide to wherever you need it to go, provided the angle isn't too sharp. Now, as some of you may know, light is an electromagnetic wave, and so it exhibits an electric and magnetic field. What I am doing is making a computer model in C++ of the electric and magnetic fields of the light as it is traveling down the waveguide. This is so we can figure out things like the optimum shape of the waveguide so as to produce the least amount of energy loss, which would really help things like information transfer. I think it's pretty cool, but some of you may have already exited the window, or skipped down to here. That's cool.

Anyway, this is basically the thesis of the dissertation for the PhD that my "boss" is working for. His name is Rob, and he's very Irish. Sometimes, I can't really understand what he's saying, but I'm getting more used to the accent. At least he actually speaks English (most of the time anyway - sometimes it sounds like another language). Our supervisor's name is Dr. Frank Peters, and he's from Canada and worked in Silicon Valley for 12 years. That's cool because he actually has my accent, so it's easy to understand him. I also found out that he's a fairly strong Christian, and he was able to direct me to a pretty cool church that I checked out last Sunday. I was very thankful for that. Since then, we've had some discussions about God and how to incorporate that into a physics career. I'm so glad that God put someone like that in my life, so thanks to all of you for your prayers in that area.

Anyway, this weekend a bunch of us are going to Galway, where we are going to visit the Cliffs of Moher. Apparently they are one of Ireland's biggest attractions, and there's a 10-mile hike that we're going to go on. I'm pretty excited about it, and a lot of the people going with us are excited about it too, so that makes me even more excited because I know they're probably not going to wimp out. So I'm leaving for that at 1:30 tomorrow on a bus with everyone else. It's going to be awesome. Other then that, we got memberships to the local gym. The way they let you inside is they read your fingerprint and that opens the gate for you. Pretty cool I think. Almost like Gattaca if any of you have seen that movie. Anyway, they have a basketball court and a rock climbing gym, so I've been able to stay active. It's pretty cool. Anyway, I think that's all I have to say. If any of you have questions or just want to say hi, feel free to comment or email me at steven.horne@tyndall.ie. That way I won't have to wade through all my junk email to find your email. Also, blogspot and facebook are blocked at my office because I guess they don't want people messing around when they're supposed to be working. I love all you guys!

Brussels and Dublin

Alright, well we made it to Brussels ok, obviously. The first night in Brussels, we just walked around for a bit and got to know the city. We both kind of decided that we liked Germany better than Belgium, but it was fun anyway. After a somewhat late night of walking around and stuff we went to bed. Funny story about that night. I woke up at 4:30 am and I had to go to the bathroom really bad. Being a hostel and all, the bathroom was outside the room, so I got out of my bunk and went there. On returning, I found that I had forgotten my key to get back in the room. The reception was closed at this point, and I didn't really want to knock and wake people up, so I just decided to wait outside the room until someone came out. There were 14 people in this room, so I figured someone would need to go to the bathroom or something soon. And I was right. Someone came out at 5, and I gratefully went back in the room. I just couldn't believe I had forgetten the key. I felt pretty stupid.

Anyway, the next day, it was raining all day, so we went to the museum of musical instruments. This was really cool because they gave us headphones, and I was like "Oh great, it's going to be a self-guided tour with some droning voice in a French accent in my ears." But it was actually something different. At each place, you could see the instruments through the glass, then if you stood in the right spot, the headphones would intercept a radio frequency that was playing the particular instrument we were looking at. We spent about 5 hours in the museum before we got hungry and left. It was one of the coolest museums I've ever been in. Also, I introduced Andrew to the glory of the nutella crepe. If you don't know what that is, you are missing out on bliss. It's basically a flat pancake filled with a sweet hazelnut spread. It tastes amazing! I'll try to make it when I get back to America, but I think the Europeans really have grabbed the essence, and no one can make it like the Parisians. Anyway, I got him hooked on those. After this, we went to the park and broke our hackey-sack record! Woot! No naked people this time though, but we did have a guy ask us if he could take our picture while we played. It's kind of funny because we'll be playing and every once in a while a group of people will stop to watch us, and sometimes people even video-record us! We feel like movie stars, and we actually play better when people are watching us. The next day, we decided to go to the palace that was there, and try some Belgian beer. Dave, Andrew tried the beer you said, and it was delicious. People, if Dave Smith ever gives you advice about anything food-related, definitely take him up on it. He knows what people like!

So the next morning, we had to get to the airport to catch a flight to Dublin at 10:10. Andrew wanted to get there by 8:15, but I didn't think we needed to be there until 9:00 because my flight from Edinburgh to Paris was so smooth. We were wrong. We decided to get up at 7:30 so we could be out the door by 8 and at the train station to the airport by 8:30. From there, we figured it would take about a half hour to get the ticket to the airport and take the train there. This was the plan. What actually happened is we got up at 7:30. I figured out that I had lost the paper with the reservation on it, and for those of you who are newer to our adventures, my computer had broken down the first day I got to London. So we couldn't find our reservation anywhere. I tried to look on the hostelworld web site to see the bookings I had made, but the password for my account was really weird. I had it sent to my email, but the computers at the hostel couldn't access my email for some reason, so we decided to get to the airport and check it there on Andrew's laptop. So we got out of the hostel by 8:15 and to the train station by about 8:35. We had just missed the train to the airport at 8:33, so we waited for the one that left at 8:45. We figured we would still be ok. Well the train never came. Apparently it was really delayed or something, so they just cancelled it and we had to take the 8:59 train. We got the airport by 9:15 and we had to walk for a little ways to get to the airport from the airport train station. By the time we had checked in and everything, it was already 9:25. Boarding began at 9:45 and the flight took off at 10:10. We figured we were still good because all we had to do was get through security. Actually, no. Apparently in Brussels, you have to go through customs to get out of Belgium. We got to this room with an insane amount of people where we saw that we had to wait in this huge line to get through. So we wait in line, praying that we'll get to our flight on time. This whole time, Andrew's been saying, "We'll never make it," in a joking matter, but I started saying it too when I saw how long the line was. We got to within 10 people by 9:45, but then, people started taking a really long time. We ended up getting our passports stamped by 10:00. We had 10 minutes. We run towards the security line, and all I saw was a huge amount of people, and I thought we were finished. I looked at Andrew and just sighed. Then, I saw this little tiny security line off to the side and said, "We're going there!" We get over there, and apparently we were allowed to go through that way. There were only two people in front of us, but the lady in front of us waited until the last minute to start getting ready to go through the line. She took things out of her pockets, took the liquids out of her bag, took off her shoes, took off her watch, blah blah blah, and all the while, Andrew and I are like, "Just go lady!" under our breaths. She finally gets through, and Andrew and I empty our pockets and go through. Andrew had a bunch of change in his pockets apparently, and he felt the need to get every last coin one by one back into his pocket. I grabbed his bags and my bag and ran to where there were less people. Andrew meets me there, and we look at our tickets to see which gate we have to go through: B32. I saw a sign that said B1-B98. I said to myself, "Surely, fate would not be this cruel to us..." but yes, it was. We had to run 32 gates through a Belgian airport dodging people and trying not to run over babies. At one point, I actually ran through a restaurant to avoid a group of people. I got to the gate at exactly 10:10 and said, "Please, my brother is coming in 1 minute!" The guy said that it was fine, and Andrew comes sprinting up out of breath. Apparently, the plane was delayed by 20 minutes. Thank goodness. That was probably the most stressful time of my life. Anyway, we got to Dublin ok, but we still had to figure out the hostel reservation.

In Dublin, I get my bag and we go through customs and through the immigration office. I show the officer my passport and my papers to let me stay for three months. He points out that the letter from Tyndall calls me a "she" in several different occasions, and he suspected that it was a fraudulent letter! I got a little worried, but he gave me the benefit of the doubt probably because I was an American. We got through that alright, and we used the airports wifi to find the hostel reservation. I get my password to hostelworld, and go to the website. I see all the hostels I was at... except the one we had to get to. Apparently, the reservation had not gone on my record and therefore, we had no way of finding where we were supposed to stay that night. I didn't know what to do. We decided to go to the tourist station at the airport to see if we could make a reservation at a different hostel. The woman there said that there were a lot of events happening in Dublin that night, so most of the hostels would be full. She tried two of them, the first one was full and the second had a double available for 44 euros per person per night. We asked her to keep looking. I glanced at her paper and saw the name of the first hostel was Abbey Court Hostel. I thought that sounded somewhat familiar, so I asked if she could call there and just see if my reservation was there. She called and said, "Hello, this is so and so from the airport. I have two guys here who think they might have a reservation at your hostel. The name is Steven Horne. Do you have a reservation by that name?" Seconds that seemed like hours passed by. I was praying that this was the right hostel. Then I heard, "Oh you do?" My heart leaped, and I did a fist pump saying, "YES!" I don't know how it happened, but we found our original reservation and the rest of the day went splendidly. That incident right there makes me believe that miracles do happen.

After that whole fiasco, we checked into our hostel and visited a church and walked along the river. We were relieved to be in an English speaking country again. That night, there were a bunch of girls from Germany in our room, and they talked and had the light on really late. Finally at 1:15, I said to them, "Are you going to bed anytime soon?" (Apparently Andrew can sleep through anything, so he wasn't affected by this at all.) They apologized and the light was off by 1:30. We were up by 9:30 the next morning (this morning) in time to catch breakfast. I had to check out to go to Cork, so I did that. We decided to go to a church service we had seen the day before, and it was awesome. They had Chris Tomlin playing and they sang songs we knew. It was a very welcoming environment, and we both had a great time there. It was really awesome to be able to go to church after a long time of not being able to for a while. After this, we went to get some lunch, and I packed up my stuff to go to Cork. I got on the bus, said goodbye to Andrew, and got to the train station. Then I realized that I had no idea where to go once I got to Cork. I found an internet station at the train station and logged onto my email from there. I found the Tyndall Institute welcome letter and saw that I was supposed to be receiving an email from the housing accomodations soon. Now I know you are all familiar with spam. I receive about 600 emails per day, about 595 of which are spam. I had actually deleted the email from the housing people, so I wasn't sure what to do. The Tyndall email had given me the name of the place, so I had hoped to just show up there and check in when I got there. I checked my inbox, and lo and behold, there was an email from the place already there! It was asking me when I would arrive in Cork because the lady who runs the place is not there all the time. It alluded to the previous email that I had never gotten and gave me her phone number. Luckily there was a phone next to the station I was at, so I phoned her and left a message. By this time, it was about 10 minutes until my train left, so I went to get on that. Apparently I had forgotten to tell her I would be at the train station, so when I got to the place, the lady wasn't there. One of the residents let me in, and he let me use his computer and phone. Finally, when I called, she got to the place and said she had been waiting for me at the train station. I felt kind of bad, but I was just glad to be there. I finally have my own room! I have to share a bathroom, but I'm so glad to finally have a place I can call my own. I start my orientation tomorrow, so I'm going to do some laundry now and hopefully I will be fresh for the morning.

Munich and Time with Dave

The train ride to Munich was pretty nice. It was a direct train from Goppingen to Munich. When we got there, we were able to check into the hostel right away, then we went to go explore the city. We walked down to the Glockenspiel and then over to the English Gardens (not to be confused with Elitch Gardens). We also saw the Frauenkirchen, which means church of our lady (strangely enough, that's also what Cathedral of Notre Dame means). That was a pretty cool church. Then we walked around the corner and we saw this HUGE church! It was St. Stephen's cathedral, and it was really awesome. We took some good pictures of everything, so those will go up when we can figure out how to do it. We walked around some more, then went back to the park. We took a nap there, and right when we were about to go to sleep, this duck came over to Andrew and got really close to him. It was pretty cool. Then we saw this family of geese. There was a mom and a dad and three babies. They were pretty cute, and when another goose got close to them, the dad would start making a lot of noise and chase the other goose away. It was hilarious to watch. I told Andrew that he should go near them and see if the dad would chase him away. He got within five feet of them, when the whole family started to move away, and the little babies said, "Meep!" in a really high-pitched squeal. We walked around a little bit more, then we went to check out the Glockenspiel's performance at 5:00. It was kind of cool, just because it was the world's biggest cookoo clock, but other than that, it was kind of lame. We both agreed that our dad would have loved it. After this, we went to the Hofbrauhaus and ordered the obligatory liter sized beers and some good food. I got the sausage platter and the dark beer. It was delicious! Andrew got the light beer and a meatball plate. He said that was really good too. To finish, we had some applestreudel. It was a great meal. After this, we walked around some more and went back to the hostel. The Euro Cup soccer games were still going on, so I went and checked them out for a little bit, and Andrew went to bed. It wasn't very exciting, but there were a lot of people cheering for Holland to win, and they did, so that was cool. The next day, we went to the food market and had these yummy sandwiches with meat in them. They have a really funny sounding German name so I don't remember what it is, but they were good. We went back to the park to play hackeysack, and there were a few people scattered in this open field with a river running through it. We decided to go play over there, but I saw this guy who was either naked, or wearing some skin-colored clothes. I said to Andrew, "Andrew, is that guy naked?" He said, "I don't know," so we went over to check it out... and it turned out he was completely naked! We both just started cracking up! You couldn't really see any of his... parts because of the way he was sitting, but it was still nasty. He looked really sunburnt everywhere. Everyone just seemed like it was natural, so we said, "Ok!" and acted like it was natural. Every once in a while, we would check to see if he was still there, and he would be. Then Andrew just pointed and he was fully dressed! It was the weirdest thing ever. After that, we walked back through the food market and I had a bratwurst for lunch. The meat there was so good. We then caught a 1:00 train to go to Hof to meet up with Dave and his wife Steffi. We got there at 5:30 and had an awesome time with them. They live in a bed and breakfast type of place that Steffi's dad owns. He also has a zoo-like park with a bunch of animals in cages including tiny monkies, guinea pigs (they were nuts), and snow owls. It was quite a variety of stuff. Then we had a barbecue with Dave and Steffi's dad while Steffi was working and her mom was at English class. It was a good bit of man time. It was a bit surprising to see Dave talking in German with Steffi's dad. It was pretty cool to hear. Anyway, the barbecue was really good, and there was a lot of meat involved. Apparently it is somewhat of a tradition to make sure everything gets eaten off the table. Usually they make Dave to it, but this time we had to do it. It was really good, but we were so stuffed when it was done. Then Dave put some chocolate in some bananas and barbecued those. Those were "deelish" as he likes to say. It was good to be with someone whose first language was English again. Also, he knew the food really well so he knew the best Bavarian foods that Americans would like. It was really good. Later, we went to the restaurant where Steffi works and sat around for a while and played this game kind of like liar's dice. We'll have to teach people how to play when we get back. We shared some good stories and had a great time. Steffi had to close the restaurant, so it was midnight when she was done. We met up with one of her other friends and we were going to go in town to hang out, but there was nothing open. We decided to go back to the house and have some rum and cokes. It was delicious. After talking some more and laughing, we went to bed. The next morning, Andrew and I forgot to set our alarms, so we got up kind of late. We went downstairs, and there was another huge meal waiting for us. Steffi's mom was really nice too. She knew a lot of English because of the classes she is taking, and she packed us a big lunch for the train ride to Brussels. It was a very short visit, and everyone there wanted us to stay longer, but we weren't able to cancel our reservation in Brussels. Overall, we had a great time and got to Brussels at about 9:00 last night. More to come later about that.

Day 3 in Vienna and time with family in Germany

Alright, before we start with the touristy stuff, I have a funny story about Andrew. Apparently Andrew sometimes has a tendency to sleeptalk, so a couple of times in the middle of the night, I heard him talking. The first time, he started talking about how he needed to go somewhere. I said, "Andrew, what are you talking about?" He said, "I don't know, I'm probably just sleeptalking." Then, later, he started mumbling, then I heard him say, "Oh my guy!" which is something he's started saying lately, but I guess it's second nature now. So I went back to sleep, and the next day we woke up and I saw Andrew's fly was down. The thing is, he took his pants off the night before to go to sleep, so I said to him, "Andrew, why are your pants on?" He looked down and said, "I don't know! What the heck!" Apparently he had put his pants on in the middle of the night, and he didn't even know it. He didn't remember anything he said. It was pretty funny.

Anyway, the last day in Vienna, we wanted to visit Shönbrunn Palace. We decided to rent the nifty free bikes again, and we went and saw that. We had to catch our train at 11:45, so we just went there and looked around. It was pretty fun. We went back and caught our train. We were supposed to meet my mother's cousin and her kids at the train station. She gave Andrew a picture, but we didn't know how old it was, or if they looked different or something. Andrew said it would have been hilarious if we were just looking around at everyone, then we saw someone who looked just like mom. We would have said, "Oh! There she is." That would have been funny, but we found them because they looked just like they did in the picture. So we got to the house, and everyone was very friendly. Lisa and Ellen are our second cousins, so they are our age, and they took us to this mini-Oktoberfest kind of thing. It was really fun. We went on a really freaky ride, then we went to the beertent, where the beer only comes in liter-sized glasses. It was pretty ridiculous. They had a band playing, so everyone got up onto the benches and was singing with the band. It seemed like everyone was friends with everyone else, even though we didn't even know anyone's name. It was cool. After that we went to bed.

The next day, we had a big breakfast, which was really nice, and we went to meet more of our family. My grandmother had 4 brothers and sisters, and they all have kids, so we met more of our family, but certainly not everyone. All of the kids spoke pretty good English, so they were able to translate to the older ones for us. We met my grandma's last living brother, Otto. He was really funny because the only English phrase he knew was "I speak English!" We had a great time, and everyone was really happy to see us. We went to one of our cousin's birthday parties. He was turning 48. There was so much food, and there was a lot of beer and everyone was having fun. Andrew and I decided we wanted to introduce hacky-sack into Germany, so we played with everyone there. They were really good because I think everyone plays soccer. After this, we went to a place to watch the soccer game of Germany against Poland. Apparently it is Euro 2008 right now, so it's a huge deal. Everyone was decked out in black, red, and yellow. It was fun to watch and cheer for the team because everyone had so much passion. Germany ended up winning 2-0, so the streets were crowded with people honking and waving German flags. It was really fun. We went to bed after that, and now we are going to be on our way back to Munich. Awesomeness.

Vienna Days 1 - 2

When I got to Austria, I checked into my hostel and made sure Andrew and I would be in the same room. Then I decided to walk around the city for a little bit and look for a place to sit down and read for a while. I couldn't find a place for a long time, so I walked around the city for a little while and found a bench in the middle of the place where all the museums are. Of course it was raining, so I found a bench under a tree and was reading for a little bit, but the raindrops kept getting on my book, so I decided to just sit and maybe take a little nap. I must have looked like a bum just laying there because all I had was a backpack, and I wasn't using an umbrella or anything. I took about a 20 minute nap, which seems to be the thing to do after a night train experience. I woke up and walked back to the hostel and actually got into the room. I took a nice hot shower and saw that there was nobody else in the room, so we might actually get the room to ourselves that night. I tried to go to the train station to see if we could get our tickets to Germany, but when I started talking to the information guy, he looked really confused. Apparently, I was in the metro station, and the train station was across the street. I was really confused for a while, then I realized that the metro stop was called Westbahnhof, which is the name of the train station. The real Westbahnhof was across the street, and it was a lot bigger than the metro station. Anyway, I found that and made sure that Andrew's train was coming into that station. After walking around a little bit more, I went to wait for Andrew. He came in right on time, and there wasn't any problems picking him up. I thought that he might have missed the train or something, and we wouldn't have any way to communicate with each other, but everything worked out.

Now Andrew has a story about a Romanian guy he wants to tell:
Alright ladies and gentlemen, here is my absurd tale. I was having a grand ol' time on the train, just minding my business and falling asleep on people's laps, when I was suddenly interrupted by a strange tapping on my chair above my head. I turned inquiringly toward whatever individual might await me, and I was met with the fairly large face of a slightly bearded Romanian. "Romania?" He queried while pointing toward the direction the train was going (Of course, he pronounces it, "Lomahnia?"). I arched my eyebrows in surpise and perplexion. He continued to repeat his question, and finally I decided to pull my handy-dandy eurail map out of my suitcase. I saw that Romania was ridiculously far from where we were, and I answered no to him. I should have just said yes; oh the fool I was. Anyway, after this first encounter, I resumed my lovely adventure of trying desperately to stay awake so as not to impeach upon my fellow passenger's space. About half an hour later as I was failing miserably at my task of staying awake, a sharp tap above my seat brought me back to my senses. I turned around and repeated the same conversation with my new Romanian friend. I decided to ask his name, and he said, "No, thank you." It sounded like a wonderfully delightful Romanian name. Long story short, we had several of these little conversations, many after I and the train attendants realized that he did not have a ticket, and each time we talked, I think he got a little more confused. I ended up giving him 45 euro to get a ticket, mostly because I felt that it was what the Lord wanted me to do and he was just trying to get home. After we got off the train, I handed him a little piece of paper with a cross and Jesus's name hastily scribbled on it, and after he clasped his hands together and asked for some food, Steven gave him some corny bars. I will always have a special place for Nothankyou in my heart.

Alright, it's me again. After this little encounter, we got back to the hostel, walked around the city for a little bit and went to bed early (and we still had the room to ourselves... SCORE!) The next day, we decided just to walk around and tour the Hofburg Palace. It was pretty interesting. They had an entire museum just dedicated to the dishes of the palace! It was nuts. We then went to a park where we had a conversation with a Russian Jehovah's Witness girl. This was interesting because she didn't speak english very well. After that, we went to a bar and had some wienerschnitzel. It was really good. We then went back to the park and played some hackeysack and watched people make out on the grass... fun times! It started raining again, and everybody left except us, which was nice. Then we went back and rented a couple of bikes for free. It was pretty cool. We biked back to our hostel, where there was a drop-off point for the bikes and we had some gelato. It was a good day. More to come later. We're here in Germany with my mom's cousin and her family and we're about to go to some kind of festival. It should be a good time.

Rome Days 3 & 4 and Rome - Vienna

Well, I made it to Vienna in one piece. I'm sitting at the hostel right now waiting for Andrew, so I thought it was a good time to write a blog entry. The day before yesterday, it was raining when I woke up. I think the rain has been following me because it rained everyday I was in Switzerland, then it was sunny when I got to Rome, then it rained again the next day. I think I've had as many rainy days as sunny days at least. So I thought it would be a good idea to go to the Vatican that day and stay indoors. When I got off the subway, there was a line all the way down the wall of the Vatican and around the corner! I stood in line in the rain with my little umbrella while all these guys kept trying to get me to go on a tour to skip the line. It was tempting, but I didn't really want to pay for the tour, or stand around and listen to someone who loves the sound of their own voice, so I waited for about an hour and finally got in. I walked around the museum, which was relatively uncrowded. They had a bunch of displays on the different popes and the history of the Vatican. It was really interesting. After about an hour, I bought an overpriced pasta lunch... you'd think at the Vatican of all places that they wouldn't rip you off for the food, but I guess supply and demand even applies in God's holy places ha ha. I stole some plasticware to make up for it. By stole, I mean I just grabbed a couple from the huge stack that they were freely giving out. Anyway, I was ready to go see the Sistine Chapel. Now I remember that it was a long walk from the sign that pointed to the Sistine Chapel, and the actual Sistine Chapel, and so I thought I was prepared for it. I remembered a little bit shorter than it actually was. It took about an hour and a half from when I set out for the Sistine Chapel to actually get there. I spent about 20 minutes in there because it was really cool, but by that time I was really tired, so I didn't spend as much time as I would have. I think that might have been their point in the walk because so many people want to see it. It was kind of funny because they had an "enforcement officer" or whatever who would shout at people who tried to take pictures, then he would demand silence when people tried to talk over his shouting. He would also yell at people who tried to sit on the stairs too. It was pretty funny. Anyway, I got out of the chapel and, after grabbing some gelato, I headed over to St. Peter's Basillica. I had forgotten how big this place was! I walked in and after my eyes adjusted to the light, I just said, "Wow!" It was very cool. I spent about an hour in there, and I actually hadn't realized that Peter was the first pope. I thought that was pretty cool. Anyway, apparently all the popes are buried there, and they are pretty sure that Peter is buried there too. The reason they think that is because someone found a stone that said "Peter is here." Now why they think it was the apostle Peter, I'm not sure. For all I know, it could have been some kid whose name was Peter that wrote "Peter is here" but whatever. Anyway, after a good long day at the Vatican, I decided to go back to the hostel. When I walked in, there was a guy in there in nothing but his dark green briefs. It was a little bit shocking at first, but I guess I got used to it? I left to get something to eat and walk around, and when I was ready for bed, I came back in to the room. The guy had put some pants on, but when I got ready for bed, he stripped down to his underwear again. It was kind of gross. He got on his phone and was talking in Italian I think, so I just decided to listen to a podcast on my ipod. Then, one of our other roommates, a French kid, came in and wanted to go to sleep. I had finished my podcast, which was about 45 minutes long, and this guy was still talking on his phone! We turned out the light and tried to go to sleep (I had put my earplugs in), and the guy didn't stop talking for about 20 minutes until the French guy finally asked him to stop so we could sleep. It seemed like the guy hadn't even realized we were there because he was very considerate after that and got off the phone and went to sleep 5 minutes later. It was really weird. Anyway, he then got up at 5:30 the next morning and left, and I never saw him again. He was a weird guy.

Anyway, the next day, I stored my luggage at the hostel and went to the Pantheon. It was really cool. It used to be a shrine to Athena, but now it's a catholic church. It has a huge hole in the top of it for some reason, so the sun was shining through, and it made a really cool effect throughout the room. From there, I went to the Roman Forum ruins. I bought my ticket and realized that it was also good for the Colosseum, and there was no line at all! That was a nice way to save some time. After spending a couple of hours in the ruins, I headed over to the Colosseum. Apparently, they are in the process of restoring the Colosseum to it's original state. I think that's a pretty cool idea. What I want to know is, who was the architect for the Colosseum? And, who was the guy that said, "Ok, we're going to build this huge building and we need a lot of people... so all of you guys come and help." Kind of a bizarre thought to me, but whatever.

I had an ok night train here. The passengers were really nice, but there were two babies (7 months and 2 years) that were there with us, so it wasn't exactly a peaceful night. After the kids and mom went to bed, the dad (who was from California) offered to buy me a beer in the restaurant car. I took him up on the offer, and while we were there, he told me stories about his job (he works for the US State Department fixing databases for top secret people). It was fun and interesting. We arrived in Vienna, and I got off the train. I had to take a tram from one train station to the other. I didn't see where to buy the tram passes, and I just saw everybody getting on the tram, so I followed suit. I later found out that you were supposed to buy the tram passes in the station, but I didn't get caught... thankfully. So I got on the train, and while later the guy said something in German over the speaker system. A bunch of people got off, but a bunch of people stayed on too. Then I heard one of them saying in English that they thought the train was done. He then asked if anyone remaining on the train spoke German. None of us did, but we all thought everybody else did. It was pretty funny. So the driver came back and told us that we had to get off. He then told us how to get to the other train station. So we got on the train he told us to, and finally got to where we were supposed to. We never got checked for tickets, and I don't know where I would be right now if they had. After getting to the station, I followed the directions to the hostel and was able to check in alright and everything. I took a nice hot shower, which I hadn't done for 48 hours, and took a walk around Vienna just getting my bearings. I made sure that Andrew's train was getting into the train station that was close to me, and he was, so I am about to go meet him there. I think that's everything up to this point. If I think of anymore funny stories, I'll let you know :)

Rome Days 1 & 2

Alright, last time in our adventures together, I left off at a bad night's sleep on the train. That combined with all the hiking from the previous few days resulted in one very tired Steven during that day. All I really wanted to do was find a place to sit down and read for a while. I started wandering around with the map I had gotten from the hostel and I couldn't find a park bench anywhere! I ended up walking all the way to the colosseum where finally I was able to buy an overpriced panini and just park it for a while. It was really crowded at the colosseum, so there were people selling all kinds of little trinkets that nobody needs but everybody thinks are cool. I tried to read, but it was really hot and I was really tired, so I took a nap for about a half hour while I was sitting on the grass. I woke up to the sound of a huge pine cone that had fallen from the tree above me. I actually woke up a few seconds earlier than when it hit the ground, but I saw something huge falling from the sky and I thought it was a huge bird turd. I tried to get out of the way of the splash, but it didn't make a sound like a bird turd. It sounded like... a pinecone. Anyway, some girls got really freaked out because it landed really close to them. I kind of sat up for a while and read some more. 20 minutes later, I saw this little kid come over and pick up the huge pine cone and he got a look of accomplishment as he walked away with his new prize. Anyway, afterward, I made my way around the Circus Maximus, which is a huge oval shaped track where they used to do chariot races. I decided I wanted to go look at the river, because I remembered how peaceful it was by the river in Switzerland and how the water was really blue. I got to the river in Rome, and it was pretty much a dump. It was really brown, and when I went down next to it, there was nothing there except for some "houses" of homeless people and a bunch of trash. Not very impressive after what I had come to expect rivers to look like. After that I went back to the hostel to actually check in and get my room. I got there, and it was actually pretty nice. There was a sink in the room, and my bed was pretty comfortable. Also, I think someone left their plug convertor in the room, so I think I'm going to snag it before I leave because I left mine in Paris. So after checking in and seeing the hostel, I took my laundry to the laundromat and went somewhere to relax. This time I found a park bench about 5 minutes from the hostel. After sitting there for about 15 minutes a guy came up and asked if he could sit next to me. I said he could, and he started a conversation. He couldn't speak English very well, but he was very nice, and he tried. His name was Omar and he was from Iraq. He was very friendly, and he wanted to share everything he could with me... including his cigarettes. I had never tried one, so I decided to accept his offer. Just kidding (don't worry mom, I didn't smoke). I politely declined, but everything he took out, he offered me one from tissues to gum sticks. I think the middle east is more of a sharing culture than America. Anyway, showed me his passport, and I showed him mine. From that, he got that my name was Horne, and he assumed that was my first name. So whenever he started talking about something, he always said, "So Horne..." It was pretty amusing. At the end of our conversation, he asked for my email address, and I gave him one of my McDermott cards. I'm looking forward to a nice email from him, but whether or not I'll be able to understand it is a different story. After that, I had some really good tortellini and went back to the hostel for the night.

The next day, I felt much better, but it was drizzling slightly all day. I had wanted to go to the supermarket to get some cereal for breakfast, but everything was closed. It was really confusing to me because I thought everything would have been open on Monday. I walked into the city, and there was a parade going on. I figured it must have been some holiday there. It turned out that it was Italy's Independence Day. I thought it was pretty cool that I happened to be in Rome on the Italian Independence Day. Anyway, there was a bunch of soldiers everywhere and I saw a procession of jets fly across the sky with orange smoke coming out the back. It was pretty cool. Because of this, most things had shut down early, but I went and looked at a bunch of things including St. Mary's Basillica, the Repubblica, the Castel di St. Angelo, the Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain (which was really cool), and the Piazza del Popolo which had a great view from up high of most of the city. After a long day of walking, I bought some gelato (italian ice cream - to die for... I've had 18 scoops so far this trip) and some pizza. I also bought my overnight train ticket to Austria for tomorrow. I leave at 7:10 pm and get to Vienna (or Wien as the Austrians call it) at around 8:15 am. Hopefully it will be better than my last overnight train trip. Today was a trip to the Vatican, but I'll post more about that tomorrow. Talk to you later!

Interlaken Day 3 and Interlaken - Rome

Well, I made it to Rome in one piece. Yesterday, Kirk and I tried climbing up the Schilthorn mountain, where there were supposedly some really good views. The hike started out really tough, and we were huffing and puffing after about 15 minutes. We got up about a quarter of the way when we started talking to some Canadian people who were coming back down. They said that they had turned around because it was too snowy and it was raining, but a couple of people from their group had kept going. We decided to keep going and assess the situation when we got there. That has been kind of our motto: "We'll see when we get there." So we got up a little higher and kept on going. After a short lunch break, we started trudging up through the snow. About halfway up, there was supposed to be a hut, and we met the other people from the Canadian crew. They said that the hut was closed, and it was really snowy to try to keep going. We stuck to our motto and got to the hut. This hike started at about 2500 feet, and the top was at about 10000 feet. Also, the clouds were really near us, so the whole time it had this Monty Python feel to it with all the fog and mist swirling around. It was creepy and cool at the same time. Anyway, we got to this hut, and sure enough, it was closed. We knew that if we got about 3/4 of the way up to a station called Birg, we could get to the cable car and take that the rest of the way up if we wanted. We decided to go for it, even though we couldn't see the trail at all because there was so much snow. Along the way, I actually stepped on a doozy spot and was immediately up to my waist in snow! It was fun though, and we finally made it to Birg. We asked the attendant how much it would be to take the cable car up to the top and then all the way back down. It was going to cost $60! We asked how bad it would be to hike up, and he just laughed in our faces and said there was too much snow. I don't know if he knew that we had hiked up in that snow for 3 hours, but we didn't really feel like hiking anymore anyway. To take the cable car back down from there, it was only $18, and it was really foggy at the top anyway, so we wouldn't have seen anything. So we just decided to take the car back down, which was kind of disappointing, but it was fun nonetheless. As we were walking back, we stumbled across a huge chess set and decided to play a game (I told you he was like Paul!) I actually ended up winning, but it was pretty close for most of the game. After that, we walked to a couple of waterfalls, then we went our separate ways. It was a good day, even though we didn't make it to the top. My train to Rome left at 11:30 last night and got here at 9:15 this morning. It was not a good night's sleep. First of all, there were already 5 people sleeping in the 6-bed room, so I was the last person to get in. So I had to get situated in the dark and ended up sleeping with my backpack in the bed for half the night because I didn't know where there was anymore storage. Finally in the middle of the night, I found some storage space and put my backpack there. From then on, I was able to sleep pretty well, but not for very long. I woke up at about 7:30 and couldn't get back to sleep again, so I'm pretty tired right now. The hotel looks to be a big step down from the other places I've stayed (there's no reception desk!) but I haven't seen the room, so I'll find out soon I guess. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing my brother on Thursday! I'm a bit sick of traveling by myself, so that will be fun. I'll post more later.

Interlaken Days 1 & 2

I arrived in Interlaken yesterday, and it was a very nice day. I caught a train from Bern at 10:00 and arrived in Interlaken at about 11. It took awhile to find the hostel, but it's a very nice place. As I mentioned before, there's free internet, but there are also great views and friendly staff! Yesterday, the reception guy gave me about 10 different hikes I could do. I decided to try one called Harder Klum. It's a pretty steep hike, and it should have taken about two hours to get to the top. Well about 40 minutes into it, the trail is closed off, and I wasn't allowed to pass through. I thought about hopping the rope, but decided that I didn't want to end up in a Swiss prison, so I just went back down. It was a bit disappointing, especially when it started raining, and it didn't stop until this morning. But I thought to myself, you know what? I'm in Interlaken, and I'm going hiking! So I set out in the rain (more of a drizzle really), and I used my map to go to the lake that's on the west side (Interlaken literally means "between lakes"). I walked around the lake and came to the river that would lead back to the city. I noticed on the map that there were these ruins on my way back, so I decided to check it out. It turned out to be a castle that had been built in the 1200's. It didn't look like much anymore, but you could still go up these stairs and onto the top that overlooked the field it was in. It was about 9:00 when I went here, so the stairs were really dark, and I was waiting to either hit something, or have the gangsters that are so prevalent in Interlaken (yeah right) attack me or something. Anyway, after that I went back to the hostel. I'm in a 4-bedroom hostel, and I was the first to check in. When I came back at about 9:30, I was still the only one in there, so I thought I had the whole place to myself. Well, at about 11:15, 3 people from Singapore came in and ruined my fun. The bathrooms in this hostel are actually in the rooms, so it's more like a hotel. I was really looking forward to having my own bathroom, but as fate would have it, that didn't happen. Oh well.

Today, I met up with Kirk, and we decided to go to First (pronounced Feersht) and hike up a mountain we saw on the map. We asked the attendant there which way to go, and he said the trail there was closed! We were sorely disappointed, but there were many other trails there that we were able to hike on. There was still snow where we were at, and great views of the Swiss Alps from up there. We ended up going off the trail to get to the top of this ridge we could see. This involved what Kirk liked to call "scrambling" which is like a mix of hiking and rock climbing. It was pretty fun, but then we had to figure out how to get back down. It took about 20 minutes to get up to the ridge, but about an hour to get back down. There were several times when we slid a bit, and our hearts jumped through our throats, but everything turned out alright. At the end of getting off the ridge, we actually did some sledding down the mountain, only without the sleds. We just decided to sled down on our butts, and we got going pretty fast. The only bad thing was that I was in basketball shorts, so I had to hold the legs up so I did get snow in my butt. It was a blast though. We got down alright, and we have another day of hiking planned for tomorrow that will bring us up to a place where they shot a James Bond film. That should be pretty cool. Then tomorrow night, I'm taking a night train to Rome. When I bought my ticket, the guy said that there would be a strike going on, but I should be alirght, and I might experience some delays. I said that delays would be fine, and he said, "No! Delays are not fine!" He seemed adament about this, so I just said, "Oh ok!" Anyway, I'm pretty sure Italy is less expensive than Switzerland, so that should be good. I'll post when I get there. I miss you all a lot!

Bern Days 1 and 2

Alright, there's free internet here at my hostel in Interlaken. I got on the train in Paris to go to Bern, which was about a 5 hour trip I think. Anyway, I had to connect in Lausanne, but my train was 40 minutes late and I only had a 30 minute layover... so if you do the math, I missed my connection. It turned out to be ok because my eurail pass made it so that I didn't have to make a reservation for that segment. That was pretty cool. Anyway, so I made it to Bern, and found my hostel. I looked at some of the restaurant prices, and none of them were under $20 per plate! I couldn't believe it. I just decided to buy some stuff at the grocery store there and eat by the river Aare, which was a very nice river. After relaxing and getting to know the city better, I decided to go to bed early. I did have to end up using my earplugs while I was there because there was a guy that was snoring really loud, but it didn't bother me too badly. Also, I woke up in the middle of the night, and my bedlamp was on. I'm not sure how it happened, and it took me a while to figure out how to turn it off, so that kind of weirded me out for a bit. Anyway, the next day, I decided to buy a Berncard, which gave me free public transport and free entrance to a bunch of museums for 24 hours. First, I saw the bears that are apparently famous in Bern because that's where the city derived its name. Then I went to the Einsteinhaus. For those of you who don't speak German, that roughly translates to Einstein's house. This was the place where Einstein formally put together his theory of special relativity! I know a lot of you probably are not as excited about that as I am, but I took a class in relativity last semester, so to see where these ideas were put in writing was pretty cool. So from there, I hiked up the Gurten, which is a trail that leads up to the top of a big hill. The elevation at the top was about 2500 feet, and I got a beautiful view of the city. I tried to take pictures but the camera really couldn't do it justice. From there, I went to the history museum, where I learned how Bern was founded, and attached to that was the Einstein Museum, which had a bunch of rooms dedicated to Einstein's life. From there I went to the Museum of Natural History, where they had an exhibit with a bunch of full skeletons of over 1000 animals including a huge whale! It was really cool, and it's amazing to see how closely the apes skeletons resemble human ones. From there I went to the Kleinmuseum which had a bunch of art, some was interesting, some was... really weird. There was one movie of just a light bulb that was shining. About 5 minutes into the movie, you saw a moth flying around in slow motion, then there was another 5 minutes of nothing but the light bulb. It was definitely the biggest waste of 10 minutes of my entire life. By that time, everything was closing (everything in Bern closes at about 6:00), so I decided to go back to the Aare River and just sit and read a book for a while. While I was walking back, I looked in at the McDonalds to see the prices... it was $12 for a stinking big mac! That's ridiculous! Anyway, today I got to Interlaken, and I am very impressed so far. The hotel receptionist guy was really cool, and he gave me all these tips on what I should do while I am here. He also gave me a free shot of vodka, and I haven't eaten lunch yet, so I'm kind of feeling the effects of that. If anything in this post doesn't make sense, then that's probably why. Anyway, I'm going to the train station to see if I can get my ticket to Rome sorted out, then I'm going to spend some time hiking through the Swiss Alps. I'm really excited about this.

Last Day in Paris :(

Well, today was my last day, and it was pretty eventful. I met Megan at 10:30 this morning. It took me about 30 minutes to walk to her hostel from mine. It actually worked out quite well, because she and I got there at the same time. She checked in, and then we decided to go see the Basillica. It was really pretty in there, and there was a great view of the city from up there. This was obviously a very touristy area because there were a bunch of people trying to sell us these things called friendship bracelets. It's basically where a person comes up to you with these multicolored ribbons, and they tie them around your finger. They distract you by asking you where you are from. After they tie them on you, they demand money from you! I had about 4 guys come up to me and say, "Hello. Where are you from?" And all of them had these little bracelets ready to tie. I just ignored most of them, but one guy actually came up to me and said, "Give me your finger," and tried to grab my hand! I slapped his hand away, and he left me alone after that. It was actually kind of funny. Anyway, from there we went to the pantheon, and underneath there, there are a bunch of different tombs of famous French people. We actually got to see the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau, which was pretty cool. After spending some time there, we ate at this Greek restaurant which sold these really yummy pita bread taco things. That was probably the best meal I've had so far. Then we went to where the Bastille used to be. We both actually thought the Basillica was still standing, but after about 45 minutes of searching for it, we overheard a tourist lady reading to her husband from her book that the Bastille was the most famous monument that was not standing anymore, so we felt a bit foolish. It had started to rain a while back, so we tried to find something to do inside. We were going to go to the Louvre, but it closed at 6, and by this time it was about 5:15, so it wasn't really worth going in at that point. We then tried to get out of there, but we took a secluded way that nobody else was going because it was really crowded there. It took us to this huge parking garage, and we finally ended up getting out on this road that didn't have any sidewalks. It was a bit scary, but we managed to get out alive. Anyway, after that, we decided to stop for a nutella crepe, and I had forgotten how good those were. We sat and talked under a shaded area in an outdoor cafe for a while, then we parted our separate ways. It was a fun day, but I am excited about going to Switzerland tomorrow. I have to be at the train station by 12ish, so it should be a pretty relaxing day.

Paris Day 3

Last night I went on the pub crawl with some people from our hostel. There ended up being 90 people that went on this, which was a lot. We basically went to 4 bars and then a nightclub. It was pretty fun. Kirk and I went with one of Kirk's roommates whose name is Peter. It was enjoyable, but it was really crowded every place we went to, and it was pretty hot most everywhere. Other than that, I had a good time hanging out with people and making some new friends. Today I woke up late and did some laundry. The dryer actually dried my clothes this time, so that was nice. I then went to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, but it was really crowded there and there were a lot of people selling things outside and begging for money, so I didn't actually get to go inside. Then I read a book along the Seine River and walked along the Champs Elysees. It was a long day of walking, but it was fun. There are a lot of shops that are overpriced on that street. Also, I bought my train ticket to go to Switzerland on Tuesday. It was really easy to do, and for some reason I thought it was going to be harder than it turned out to be. Megan and I have set up our meeting for tomorrow, so that will be fun. I also made plans to see Dave Smith, who is a friend from high school. He got married to a German girl, and they are living in Germany right now, so Andrew and I are going to visit them. It should be a good time. Hope things are good at home!

Paris Day 2

Alright, so last night I had an egg, cheese, and meat crepe, or une crepe complete. It was delicious. I've already had a few people ask me if I speak French, even though I wear shirts and things that have English phrases on them. Whatever. Anyway, on a whim, I went to the Louvre last night and at the bottom it said that people who were under 26 could get into the Louvre for free after 6 pm on Fridays. Well, it was 6:30, so I said, "Sweet!" I went in and looked at all the Italian paintings, which were mainly about Christianity or Roman mythology. It was very interesting, but by the end, I was pretty tired of walking around. I went back to the hostel and decided to go to the walking tour the next day. I was in bed by midnight and I got up by 9:00. It was nice. Anyway, I went to the free breakfast at the hostel, and I met a cool English guy from Birmingham, England. His name is Kirk (maybe Curt?), and the only way I can think of to describe him is like a British Paul Mueller for those of you who know who he is. Paul, if you're reading this, don't worry... that's a compliment. He is intelligent and likes to have a good time and talk about interesting things. We have the same type of humor, so it was easy to have fun with him. Anyway, we went on the tour together, then went and walked around Paris. We decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower, but that was a bad idea at 4:00 on Saturday afternoon. There were people everywhere. So we then decided to go hang out around the Arc de Triomphe. After being there for a few minutes, we came back to the hostel where he had to check in. We decided to go on the pub tour tonight, along with some other people who were on the walking tour, so that should be pretty fun. Anyway, tomorrow I plan on walking up the Champs Elysees and probably going to some of the cathedrals. Nothing's set in stone as of yet, so it'll be an adventure. I also found out that Kirk will be in Interlaken the same time I am, so we might have to try to do some hiking together. Anyway, that's all for now. I'm out.

Arriving in Paris! Day 1

Well, I made it. It was a relatively uneventful trip. They served us a light snack on the plane, so I'm really hungry right now. The security at the Edinburgh airport was pretty low. They didn't even check ID's at the security line, but the guard singled me out to take my shoes off. I looked around and saw that I was the only one doing this, so I felt awkward, but whatever. I guess I look like a terrorist or something. Anyway, I'm one hour ahead from where I was in the UK, so that makes me 7 hours ahead of Dallas and 8 hours ahead of CO. The hostels I've stayed at have been really nice! They've been clean, and the one I'm at now is like a hotel. I traveled down a hallway to my room and there is a sink in our room! It's very cool, and I'm glad I decided to stay here one extra day. Finding this hostel was not quite as smooth as in Edinburgh, but that was to be expected, since Paris is a much bigger city. One interesting thing that happened was the immigrations officer. France must be sucking up to the US or something because all I did was show them my passport, the guy didn't even look at my immigration card and he stamped my passport and let me through. I thought he would be worse than the UK guy, but I was wrong thankfully. Anyway, I'm going to grab some dinner, maybe a crepe or two, then find a nice place to relax and read the book I've been getting through. Hopefully I'm meeting up with Megan Newman on Monday night, but we haven't set anything in stone yet. Catch you guys later!

Days 2 & 3 in Edinburgh

So I ended off last post with my free walking tour. On that tour, they told us what haggis was. It's a Scottish dish that consists of taking a sheep's heart and lungs, then putting it inside a sheep's stomach, throwing in some oatmeal, then baking it for a couple of hours. Gross! I had to try it! So I found some haggis that was middle-range priced and ordered it. The only way to describe it was like mixing oatmeal with Styrofoam. I did finish it, but only with the help of the mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes that came along with it. I'm looking forward to going to countries in Europe where they are known for there food. Places like Italy and Germany. But I'm also having a great time here on the island. After I finished the haggis, I explored Edinburgh a bit, then I found an awesome place to go hiking. That got me really excited, so I got to the top of this cliff like thing and saw a mountain-like structure behind me. I decided to save that for the next day. I also got a good view of the ocean. So yesterday, I got to the top of this mountain and found out it was actually a volcano that had erupted a long time ago, and that's what gives Edinburgh its hilly structure. Edinburgh Castle is right on the edge of this cliff, which is apparently one of the hills that was caused by this volcano. It was pretty cool. So I hiked back down the volcano and decided I wanted to go walk to the ocean. After about an hour and a half of walking in the general direction of the ocean, I found the ocean and spent some time there just looking around. I went back, and found a Scottish church that was having some kind of a service there. I sat in on the balcony and during the songs they kept talking about someone named Sam. I couldn't figure out who it was, and then I realized that it was the way they said the word Psalm. I chuckled to myself a little bit and just listened to the choir singing the "Sam 138." They were very talented, and I'm glad I went there. Today I went and visited Edinburgh castle, which was pretty cool, but a little disappointing. I hadn't expected it to be as modernized as it was. They had renovated a lot of it, and there was a bookstore, a gift shop, and two cafeterias in the castle. It was still cool though. I also visited the Scottish national gallery today, which had some more artwork by famous Europeans. I fly to Paris tomorrow, so more to come later!

London - Edinburgh and Day 1 in Edinburgh

So I just remembered that I made a mistake in my last post. I said the Magna Carta was created in the 1200's, but it was actually in 1512 for those of you who are history nuts. Anyway, I left off going to do some laundry. I threw my clothes in the washer, and it took about 40 minutes to do. Afterwards, I threw them in the dryer, and the timer said 8 minutes, and I said to myself "Whoa! It's like a super-dryer!" More like a super-LAME dryer. It gave my clothes back to me still very damp, and when I tried to dry them again, it spit my money back out at me! So I said to myself, "Whatever" and took my wet clothes back up to my room. I tried to spread them out as best I could, but I was also trying to pack up to head to Scotland, so in the end, I ended up stuffing two pairs of wet jeans into my backpack. Now, I had purchased a bus ticket to go to Edinburgh from London and it was supposed to leave by 9:00. I got there around 8:30, but apparently there was major traffic and we didn't leave until 11:00. It was supposed to be a 9 1/2 hour bus ride up there, so at this point, we didn't get there until 8:30 at night. Other than that, it was a pretty cool experience. There were a lot of sheep on the way up, and I saw these two lambs drinking milk from their mother, and their tails were wagging like dogs while they were doing it. It was pretty cute. We also drove right next to the ocean, which was quite a cool experience. So we got to Edinburgh at 8:30, and this time, I actually took about 10 minutes to get my bearings and I found a map. I spent some time looking at the map, and actually found where I was and where I had to go. It only took me about 10 minutes of walking to get to my hostel, which was nice (using my super-manly sense of direction). Edinburgh is a much smaller city than London. I then spent about a half hour walking around the city and then went to bed.

Today, I went on another one of those cool, free walking tours and saw lots of cool stuff in the city. I took a few pictures, so when I get back, I hope to be able to remember everything and explain the stories that I was told. Tomorrow, I think I'll try to go on a hike up to the top of one of the hills there and pack a lunch. Anyway, I guess that's about it for this time. There's no free internet at this hostel (but I hear their laundry service is better), so I may not be online as much. Goodbye for now!

London Days 3 & 4

Alright, so I haven't really said much about jet lag. I mentioned that I went to bed at about 8 on Thursday night, and I woke up at 8 again. Friday, I was feeling pretty worn out by the afternoon, mainly because I went on a walking tour, so I told myself I would take a two-hour nap at about 6:30, but I actually just ended up sleeping until 8 the next morning. So I figured I would be fine for the next day! Maybe not. Last night, I went on another walking tour and then fell asleep again at 6:00, only this time, I actually got up at 9:30 and saw night time! I didn't actually go out of the hostel because it was chilly outside, but I went out to the common room of the hostel until about midnight. Before I left though, these guys came in, and one guy came near my bed and said, "Oh no!" I thought I did something wrong, but then this other guy came up and said, "How the heck did you lose your brother? You are a RE-tard!" I was just cracking up in my bed silently. Then these other guys came in and started shouted at each other, then they got really quiet and all I heard was one guy whisper, "Everybody hates us!" That made me laugh because it reminded me of something my brother and I would do. So after that I got up, read for a while, and went back to bed around midnight. When I got to my room, it was really dark, but I could tell that there was someone leaning on the bed next to mine. As I slipped past him, I could smell a lot of alcohol on him, so he was really drunk and didn't even realize that I had passed him. I got in bed, and watched him just standing there for about 5 minutes, then he slowly made his way up to the top bunk and basically passed out with one foot hanging out of the curtain. I then heard him making noise, and I'm just praying that he doesn't throw up. He doesn't. So then this other guy walks in (the guy who lost his brother) and he goes to bed (which is right next to mine and just underneath the drunk guy) and starts snoring really loud about 5 minutes later. I just laid there for about a half hour, when I finally decided to get my earplugs. Just before I get them, the drunk guy wakes up moaning something. He becomes more coherent, and I think to myself, "How is the drunk guy going to react to a loud, snoring guy?" So the drunk guy wakes up and he says, "Oh heck no!" A few seconds pass, then he shouts, "Get the heck out!!" After about 5 more snores, he throws something onto the ground, which woke up the entire room... except the snoring guy! He then gets out of the bed and just stands next to the guy saying "Shh!" every 15 seconds. After about a minute, he went somewhere else, and I put my earplugs in and went to sleep. I almost burst out laughing every time the guy snored. It went from sounding like a pig squeal, to sounding like an idling car, to sounding like a chainsaw starting.

So aside from the hilarious night, yesterday, I went on a walking tour around old London, where I saw the Tower Bridge, London Tower, London Bridge, and Big Ben among other things. I also went to the National Gallery where I saw several painting that I somehow remembered from Dr. Brettell's class three years ago. Among those were Van Gogh's sunflowers, and several paintings by Monet and Manet. I also booked a bus ticket to Edinburgh, which was only 18 pounds or $36, which was way less expensive than the $130 I would have spent on the train ticket. The only thing is I have to be at the bus station by 8:30 tomorrow morning. Anyway, today I went to the British Museum, the Tate Modern Art Gallery, and I figured out where I have to meet for my bus tomorrow. The British Museum was very interesting, as it had several original works by Shakespeare, a Guttenberg Bible, some of the original Beatles' manuscripts, an original version of the Magna Carta from the 1200's and several original works by Galileo, Da Vinci, and Newton! It was very fascinating. The modern art was interesting in a different way... sometimes I have to wonder how they decide what constitutes great modern art. Do they have an expert who looks at blobs on a canvas and says YES? Or do they have someone say, "Oh Piccasso did it? Put it in there somewhere." I'm not sure, but either way, it was very strange, as modern art tends to be.

Right now, I'm going to figure out how to do some laundry and pack up my stuff for tomorrow.

Day 2 in London

I must say, yesterday was one of the longest days of my life. I was doing pretty well until about 2:00, then it just hit me. I promised myself that I would go to bed no later than 8:00, and that's the exact time I hit the bed. There were some guys in bed before me though. I think I woke them up when I went to bed. I woke up at 12:00 and looked at my watch. The room was light, so I thought that I had slept for 16 hours! I felt like I could have the night before, so I sat up really quick, but then I realized that it was light from other people's bed lamps (each bed has its own light and curtain, so it's really nice). So it was actually midnight, so I went back to sleep. I slept until 8:00 the next morning, and those same guys were still sleeping. I don't know if they had gotten up beforehand or if they slept all the way through, but I'm sure I woke them up again when I got up. Then, just now I got back from all the sightseeing touristy things, and they were sleeping again! I couldn't believe it. Maybe they're nocturnal or something. Anyway, today I took a free tour of London and saw a lot of cool things. I also visited the British Museum, which is huge! I'm pretty sure I'll be back there before I leave. Tomorrow I plan to visit the National Gallery, maybe take the free tour of old London and visit Westminster Abbey. I actually found a grocery store, so I bought about 5 meals worth of things for only 6 pounds! That's like $12. I was pretty excited because when I look at prices in restaurants, I say to myself $2.50 for a sandwich? That's pretty good, but then I realize it's not dollars. They're prices are about the same as ours, but their currency just costs more is the way I see it. Anyway, I'll probably hit the sack early again tonight and maybe go on a pub tour tomorrow evening.

The First Day!

Well, I'm here, and intact. Everything went smoothly, and the guy at the passport checking counter was nice too. He asked me about college, but I'm not sure if he was being friendly, or if he was prying me to see if I was lying. Maybe I just don't look like the typical college student. Anyhow, I got through everything when I had to get from the airport to the hostel. I went to the train station, and they pointed me in the right direction and sold me a ticket. I got on the train when I heard something about passengers who were going to the place I was going to should get off. So I get off because I didn't want to get in trouble with anybody, but as it turned out, I got off for a train I didn't have a ticket for! I ended up having to wait a half hour at a stop because there are two different trains going to the same place, and I thought I had to go on the other one! Whatever. So I get to where I'm going, and I'm supposed to make a transfer, but I had to pay money to take the tram. When I looked on the map, I thought the hostel was fairly close from where I had just arrived, so I thought I would take a nice walk through London to get to where I was going. As it turned out, I had no idea where I was. I wandered through the streets of London with a very heavy backpack on and a roller suitcase with my bright orange folder in my hand shuffling through papers. I must have looked like such a tourist. On top of all of it, I ended up buying a map of London for a dollar and just staring at it for about 25 minutes trying to find any street name I recognized. Finally, after a couple of hours, I just went back to the train station and decided to just buy the train tickets. I ended up just buying a week long pass for the places I needed to go, which was totally worth it, as I intend on getting lost again sometime. So I finally get to the hostel, and I am here now. I get out my laptop, because the hostel boasts free wireless internet. When I turn on my computer, it all of a sudden goes berserk and I have no idea what happened to it. Right before I left, it was fine, then when I enter Europe, it dies on me. What's a guy to do? So that's kind of frustrating, but it's definitely not going to ruin this trip. I miss you guys already, but not enough to come back yet :) Talk to you guys later.

Pre-Departure Post

Here I am, sitting on the floor of my apartment in a bit of a daze. I'm not going to see this place for three and a half months, but that hasn't sunk in yet. It kind of makes me wonder how things will be different when I get back. I will have at least one new roommate, people I haven't seen in a long time will be welcoming me back (I hope), and school will be starting up again. I wonder if this trip will go by quickly or if it will seem longer. I hope it's a little of both. I'm excited to be able to go on this trip and meet new people, and also to meet up with my brother Andrew in Vienna. It's going to be a whirlwind of sightseeing, gaining experience, and making new friends. I hope to be able to communicate with people back home while I'm gone, and I'm not sure what to expect with the jet lag. In any case, I know it will be fun, and there will be good stories to tell along the way.