People I've Met in

Big thanks to all the amazing people that I have met who have made my trip worth while:
Luis C- Spain
Ross E- USA
Will N - UK
Cassedhe B- USA
Boom-a-ring guy- USA
Shawn F- Canada
Jerome- France
Luc R- France
Jesse H- USA
Tim H- Belgium
Will A- Holland
Koert A- Holland
Leroy A- Holland
Suzanne A- Holland
Dennis W- Holland
Hjlamar V- Holland
Marloes W- Holland
Alex G- Germany
Lisa G- Germany
Michael S- Germany
Timmy W- USA
Fintan B- Germany/USA
Tom H- UK
Steven W- Spain
Chris C- USA
Eric W- Canada
Jamie R- Canada
Divad R- USA
Clare G- UK
Caitlin G- UK
Ella W- UK
Chrissie R- UK
Justin H- USA
Diego M- USA
Micky P- USA
Zakk W- USA
Jenny N- USA
Marco V- Italy
Francesco T- Italy
Giesuppe A- Italy
Jemma G- UK
Rhian T- UK
Francesco S- Italy
Shannon D- Italy/USA
Pu Y- Australia
Teenah K- Australia
Nathan P- Australia
Adrienna Nora T- Hungary
Zsofia Cseri- Hungary
Brittany Tomren- Canada
Chris Colonna- USA
Cristina Cumin- Austria
Chrissie Reed- UK
Daniele B- Italy
Stephen Z- Austria
Helene G- France
Hillary S- USA
Jack Lewis- Australia
Janine P- BC
Jenny N- USA
Ella W- UK
Victoria V- Austria
Severine D- Belgium
Valerio C- Italy
Cristian R- Italy/Spain

I am sure that I have missed a lot of people on this list, so if you don't see your name I am sorry, you can yell at me for it later. Regardless, my trip would not have been what it was if not for meeting all of these amazing people who I am now able to consider friends. When you travel, its not just about the places and the sites but about the people who you meet that truly make your experience worth while. I am not capable of expressing my gratitude to these amazing people that I met who helped me out along the way and truly made my trip what it was. I can not wait to return the favor someday, so please come visit everyone :)

Prauge

I pulled into the Czech Republic later then expected. We finally arrived in Prague about 8 in the evening. After getting settled in, my friend Tomas showed me around the city. I also had a fact that I was unsure of presented to me, the Czech Republic still has their own currency. 1 Euro is equal to 25 Czech Krown. I had a bit of sticker shock seeing Starbucks coffee for 125. That said, everything was very inexpensive after getting over the conversion. Seeing the city at night was beautiful. Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge are light gloriously and appear to be almost magical in the dark of night. I will say, although the sights are impressive, I don’t feel that the sunlight does the castle proper justice. Exploring the city was a lot of fun. Tomas’ girlfriend Margaret cooked some traditional Czech dishes for me to sample. One such dish, roasted duck and dumplings in a thickened vegetable puree, was rather delicious, called svíčková. After a few days of hanging out and exploring the city, I packed up and headed down to the train station for a night train into Vienna.

All of Germany. From Milan :)

For the first time in ten days, every article of clothing that I am wearing is completely clean. Its amazing how much better the simple feeling of clean clothing, which still smells fresh from the wash, can make one feel. Besides that, I am dealing with a back pack that has decided its had enough and is barely making it through small journeys from the train to the bedside where its dropped for the night, a left foot with one of the most painful blisters I have ever experienced changing the layout of my pinky toe, and an agenda that is too big for the amount of time remaining on this trip.

That said, I have had a jam packed last week or so. Where to begin? Honestly it has been so long since I have blogged that I don’t recall where I left off.

How about Munich, what quickly became my favorite city in Germany. In Munich I spent 4 wonderful days with a gentleman named Michael who made sure to point out the best ways to see the area. We also left Munich for one day and drove to Venice, Italy. That’s right, I said Italy, crazy huh. Venice was a lot of fun, very cool sights and an incredibly interesting pubic transit system. Boats instead of a subway J Was actually really nice not to risk getting ran over by a mo-ped. Back to Munich, did you know Munich was Hilter’s favorite city in Germany? The area is beaming with history of that time. Within the city center, 4 structures serviced WWII, yet everything is being rebuilt to its original look.
Then after exploring the city, the following day I was fortunate enough to meet an ex co-worker from my time working at Target named Julie. We hung out and saw the Olympic stadium and enjoyed a great time in Munich. It was truly a pleasure getting to reconnect with an old friend in a foreign country, over amazing views and even better beer.

The following morning I jumped on a train to Berlin for a quick exploration of the city. However, upon arriving in the city I looked around for hostels about 3 hours and got lost more times then I could count due to construction on metro lines and no metro employees being sure of which stations were closed. Eventually, I discovered an interesting little hostel by the name of Helter Skelter hostel, which actually came recommended by a fellow traveler I met in the station. After checking in and getting situated for the evening, I set out to sight see. Even though the city is rather large, the general sights are relatively close together. The Jewish Memorial was incredibly touching, however getting into the Memorial was a little bit of a challenge. Their security discovered the pocket knife in my backpack, which I had forgotten about. They proceeded to ask me about it in German, so not only did I not remember that I had it but I also did not know what they were telling me. Getting yelled at in German in a Jewish memorial when all you can figure out with your limited German is that they were saying “weapon”. That’s a different experience. That said, the memorial itself was very touching, with the intent of memorializing the memory of every person killed during the holocaust. The project remains ongoing, with a system set up to add names or memoriam for any family members you may have had be touched by the great tragedy. After exploring, I headed back to the hostel and hung out with my roommates, a Canadian and two very interesting British girls, one of who could open beer bottles with her teeth. The next day the 4 of us explored more of the city before I grabbed a train to Prague for the evening.

Hooffdorp, Holland

The Dutch are amazing! Willy met me at the station and took me home to a family dinner where I first got to meet everyone in person. Sausages and mashed potatoes with peas for dinner and lots of good drink. The next day we explored the beach and I learned a lot more about this family of mine. We went to a really cool music festival that evening and I saw some more Dutch bands. Suzanne came to hang out here as well. Next day after breakfast I went to Amsterdam to explore and wound up very lost, thus not seeing as many sites as I had hoped to. After dinner with the family they took me to Leroy's as they were leaving for holiday. I stayed up a chatted with him about everything till about 2. the next morning Leroy and Marloes and their friend and I met Suzanne and a few more friends in Amsterdam for a exploration of the city. Took a boat tour and had a great time. We had Mexican food for dinner. Go figure right :). That evening we explored the red light and went clubbing till about 6am. Pretty crazy. Then I visited the Marloes' horse who was beautiful. Then off to Germany :)

Belgium

Brussels was really really boring. I would have liked to see the city through the eyes of a local but that wasn't the case here. After lunch I continued to Antwerpen, about an hours train ride away, where I met my host Tim. He showed me around the city and pointed out which beers I should try :). I ended up falling asleep in the middle of a discussion with him due to sleeping badly on Paris the night before. Was a great guy and I'm glad I got to know him.

Paris

So, I am going to post a bunch of stuff at once. I have been slacking on posting, but I have been writing. So here goes.

Paris was great for the most part. Host for the first night met me at the main station and gave me a tour of the city via his moped, pointing out sights and asking if I had heard of things. Of course I was about to point out the louvre and efile tower and the arch of triumph. After getting rid of my luggage we went exploring again and went to a little part of Paris I don't remember the name of. It was a separate village until it was annexed into Paris 150 something years ago. A church at the top of the hill results in a view of all of Paris. We then went to a small market and picked up a panini for dinner and went and enjoyed this under the efile tower at night, staying long enough to watch the light show. The next day I explored Paris solo. Spent 5 wonderful hours in the Louvre. July 3 I went to Caen for a day trip. Explored the little city and enjoyed a French market. The Normandy memorial museum was cool. While I didn't pay for museum admission I did visit the American memorial dedicated to our soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice on the beaches and elsewhere to stop the evils of Hitler during WWII.
The Following day I hung out with my friend Jesse whom I had met in Paris. We explored some more sites an ended up spending the evening on an adventure to walk to the train station as I had to leave very very early.

Traveling Maps

I finally have a somewhat established itinerary. This is either going to be a map, or just computer code, depends on what Google feels like doing.

View Directions to Barcelona, Spain in a larger map