Barcelona

Meet Adi and Mike. Adi is from India. He is a VJ for the equivalent of vh1 over there and he just filmed a movie in London do he is taking some time to travel before he heads back. Mike is the kid we told you about in Rome. We met him in Prague and we keep bumping into him in this trip. Both awesome dudes and hilarious. You'll hear their names a lot in this post but I'll get back to the when we arrived.

Finally, we arrived in Barcelona and we were nothing but relieved. We planned this trip perfectly because there wasn't too much to see in Barcelona that we had to cram everything in. So we knew we were going to take our time, stay out late and not worry about seeing the sites like the past 5 weeks. The hostel was one of the best we have had. It was a little family from Argentina who started it up so it was really laid back. Great thing about this place too, it was packed with Americans which was really comforting. The picture on the left is the sun rising and the moon going down on the train ride over.
We went to the nearest pastry shop and picked up some really good sandwiches. Working on no sleep we just hung out with Mike and Adi. They can both play the guitar and sing so they just played some songs that we all knew like Soul to Squeeze, Free Fallin and all the good stuff.
We also met a couple girls from the Boston area were studying in Florence and they were with a bunch of other girls from all over the US. The 8 of us all went out to dinner at the pretty nice place and the food was OK. We had tapas, Sangria, wine and some other Spanish food. After dinner some of us split up and went our own ways, so the two of us went with Adi, Mike and two other girls to a bar and hung out there for the remainder of the night.
Next morning we took it real easy and woke up whenever we wanted. The last month we have been waking up between 7-8 so this was a treat. We watched Superbad with a bunch of people due to the fact it was pouring out. Which, I might add, is the only day it really rained our whole trip..we kind of took that for granted. We then went to the Sangria Famalia which was a wash because of how rainy it was...but hey, we tried doing something productive. It was Halloween so we expected to do something regardless if we dressed up or not. So, just like every Halloween all of us scratched the idea of dressing up and just went as super sexy Americans....ourselves....get it.
We went to a club right on the beach called Shoko. Not having costumes worked out great because only about 25% of the club were dressed up so we fit right in. The music was a lot better than the club we went to in Berlin. We could just imagine what this place would be like in the Summer. The back end of the club was all outside on the beach. This club was pretty high class too with hired dancers on platforms and VIP sections scattered around. Reminded of us of some Vegas clubs. We got back at about 4:00 AM but it was OK because we had nothing planned for the next day.
The next day had a lot better weather than we expected so we got out right away (like noon time) to go see the Guell Park, known for it's really good view of the whole city, mosaic dragons and celings and some other cool architecture. Mike came with. The view from the top of the hill was one of the best city views we have seen the whole trip. We went to the Sangira Familia once more to check it out and it was much better because it was nicer out. Reminded us of a huge drip castle that you used to make on the beach. The sculptures were insanely perfect all over the whole building. Pretty cool to see. After doing some walking around the city we went to the market and bought some food for dinner. It was a prett nice dinner. It was pasta americana with some bread and red wine. Made by Clint, Mike and myself. It was the best dinner we have had in Barcelona.

The 4 of us and 2 other girls from our hostel headed out to this club called "Razzmatazz," which was a huge warehouse type building with 5 different genres of music split up into huge rooms. The club opened at 1AM and the cover was about 15euro with a free drink included. This place was massive and could probably fit about 2500 people. Come 3:00am this place was shoulder to shoulder with people and it was bumpin with music we never really heard but we loved it regardless. Later on a band came out called "the presets" and they had about a 2 hour performance, and this wasn't your typical band. One guy on drums and another on keyboard who was also the singer. They played dance music too so it was something we haven't ever seen back in the States. We could go on with the stories but I rather not. Long story short, this was our best night of the trip and we felt like couldn't have done it any better. We got home at about 7:00am all in one piece and went to bed...then woke up at 9 and got our free breakfast. From that point on was a whole lot of nothing. We made dinner again that night because we didn't want to risk eating crappy food again.
The next morning we packed up our bags and headed to Madrid.

Sorrento, Pompeii, Cinque Terre, Avignon

So the next few days after Rome were a huge mess due to some confusion of the trains and hostel openings. We headed right to Sorrento which is right outside of Pompeii. It was what we imagined a little town would look like in Italy. Our hostel was actually a hotel converted to a hostel which wasn't really that cool because it didn't have many young travelers around. We needed to get up early to see everything we wanted to see in order to get to Cinque Terre in time...so we thought. We got some pizza and Gelatto for dinner and walked around the city the rest of the night.
Pompeii was awesome. It was a dug up village that was ashed over and frozen after a volcano eruption in about 79 AD. They had body cavities of humans and dogs and their remains were in great condition (The one up top was a guy who was curled up in a ball "crying himself to death"....how sad). They had a mini Colosseum where they had gladiators fight and little villages where you could see where they slept, drank, sold food etc. Paintings on the walls were also preserved really well. It was huge too, didn't even get to cover it all....THAT'S WHAT SH....nevermind. The Roman forum was impressive but after seeing how well intact everything was here it was really something. So....a disastrous volcano eruption that kills thousands can actually have a brightside to it because preservation of everything is impeccable. Afterward, we picked up some pizza and headed to the train station.
The train ride to Riomaggorie (a city near the Cinque Terre) was pretty miserable because our train broke down dead in its tracks...no pun intended. So we got there late at about 10:00. So we get to this small city (population 56) which is one road that is uphill right near the coast and the hostel is closed. The sign on the door notified us that is we didn't get there by 6:00 we would be out of luck for a room and they would still charge us. Luckily, we found a woman closing her restaurant and one phone call later we met a short, curly haired woman on a dark stoop. This is where I thought my final minutes in life would be. She brought us up this dark stairway and gave us a key to a room. We gave her 25 euro each and she left. That's it and that's all. Never saw her again. We were heated about the situation and it got worse once we found out that we messed up the train schedule. The last thing we ate was at 11:00 am so we had to wither away until the next morning. There would no way to get to Barcelona on the nights we booked unless we left the next morning. So we skipped the hike through Cinque Terre (which by the way is 5 cities a trail with really cool views). It was rainy so we weren't too upset about it. 12 hours later of train riding were in Avignon, a big city in Southern France. We went right to a Irish pub (the only thing open in the area). We left at about 1am and headed back to the train station. Our original plan was stop and stay in the train station until our 5:55am train to Barcelona but it was closed until 4am...so we went to a nearby stairwell and stooped it the whole night. That was an experience....pretty cold out too.
Barcelona is next and we will be there for 4 nights including Halloween. We plan on ending our last week with a bang.

When in Rome

We got to Rome at noon. Our hostel was pretty awesome. One of those converted apartments that was right on one of the main streets in Rome. Since we got there so early we went to the Vatican, which was literally 2 blocks away, and checked it out there. We went into St. Peter´s Basilica and got to see how gigantic it really is. They have a lot of Pope´s buried inside the church so it was cool to see their tomb like shrines.
For dinner we went to a restaurant that was recommended by the owner of the hostel, Ivano, who looks exactly like Antonio Banderas. The place had really good food. We got some great pasta and hung out there for a while. In Europe we learned that they don´t bring you your check until you ask for it. It´s pretty nice because they don´t rush you out right when you finish. We then went to get some Gellato. This Gellato was the best we have head in our lives and they pack it on thick. There were about 30 varieties of never before seen flavors (at least by us) so it was a lot different than typical ice cream at home.
The next morning we went straight to the Colosseum. We had been looking forward to that the whole trip. The place was really awesome. We have a really bad craving to watch Gladiator now though and want to slay people. Right after the Colosseum we went to the Roman Forum which was just as cool to see everything left as it was from way back in the day.

The next day in Rome was a free entry to the Sistine Chapel, which had our name written all over it. It opened at 8:30 so we got there at about 7:45 to get a good spot but that didn't work out as well as we planned because we were about 200m back from the doors. We literally moved 20 ft in 45 minutes. This line was getting huge, probably the longest line I´ve ever seen in my life. It turns out there was a reason for the line not moving, it was daylight savings time and Europe does it 1 week earlier than the US for some reason. Probably because that's the only thing they can beat the US in....COUNT IT! We didn't realize this little factoid until the day was over so I, Steve, left the line and went to mass that the Pope gave. 10 minutes later Clint got into the Sistine for free while I had to plan on going in the morning. The mass was really something to see though. People were just taking pictures like they were on the red carpet. Even though the whole mass was in Italian it was cool to be at a mass with the Pope there. Then we went to the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon and the Spanish Steps. We were the only ones walking around in cargo shorts even thought it was about 70 degrees. They must have went out of style over here.
At night we met some more friends and hung out with them. One of them was actually a kid who stayed in our hostel in Prague that we chilled with there so that was pretty ironic. Another kid was on vacation from Iraq for the Army. He flew unmanned spy planes and he had some good stories to tell, mostly talking about how much good we have done over there and the media never recognize it. And there were also about 8 aussies in our hostel and again, they have all the same story and always try to take jabs at the US so it can get annoying.
The last morning we had to wake up early so I could go to the Sistine Chapel and Clint could go to this museum full of monk bones and skulls. The Sistine Chapel was really something. Each section of the wall was something specific i.e. Separation of Light from Darkness, Land and water, Creation of Adam which is pretty well known, Original Sin, the Final Judgment. Again, there were no pictures allowed, but even if there was, it wouldn´t do it any justice. Clint couldn't take pictures of the skull museum probably because he would get his soul taken away from him if he did.
Rome was definitley one of the top cities we have been to so far and we are looking forward to hitting up the rest of Italy and Spain for the remainder of the trip. Anndd here's another picture of, you guessed it, Clint and Steve....wearing the same clothes that you see in most of the pictures.

Florence

Once we got into Florence we had to take a bus to the hostile. It didn't take long to find the bus but once we got on it was packed. I think we suffocated some people with our backpacks and got in everyone's way. And it was hot with no air conditioning. Florence had much better weather temperature wise...about 65 degrees. Once we got to our hostel we found that we had a private room...Wah Wah Wahhh. We didn't ask for it but I guess that's all they had AND it was 12 euro.
We immediately went out and got some pizza for dinner. It was awesome pizza to say the least and not too expensive. It was pretty late so we headed back to get some sleep so we could wake up early the next morning.
Once we woke up we headed into the city to check the sites. We really didn't know what too look for but we wandered out regardless. We bumped into these kid we met in Interlaken (random) from the US and we walked around with them. One of them lived near Venice for work so he knew where to go and what to see. We saw the Duomo (a huge cathedral that was really cool), the Ponte Vecchio (which is a famous bridge which had jewelery stores on each side), Giotto's tower, Palazzo Vecchio which has crazy designs all over the building, and of course, the David in the Accademia Gallery. The David is the statue Michelangelo sculptured with a scrap heap of marble that was being thrown out. It is supposed to be David right before he defeats Goliath. There were no pictures allowed but if you don't know its a 20 foot tall naked dude. It was sculpted perfectly and really has an aura about it. His right hand was slightly bigger than his left purposely because it symbolized the power that he had. We thought this was going to be overrated but it definitely lives up to all the talk and the pictures (above) don't do it any justice.
Later that day we hung out in hostel patio and just drank some wine that we bought earlier that was recommended. It was really good wine called Vernaccia Di San Gimgnano (a white wine). Probably the most liberal thing we have done the whole trip but it was a good time. We made some friends from Germany and hung out with them the remainder of the night.
The previous night, we both thought there might have been some bugs in our room, but this night we were certain. We could have slept outside in the forest and not have gotten bothered as much. They were attacking our ears like they were homing beacons. I (Stephen) ended up putting a bathing suit on my head the whole night but that still didn't work. We would both kept waking up to each other swinging pillows violently like it would help. So not so much sleep for Clint and Steve. So we got up, had the crappiest breakfast ever and headed to Rome as soon as possible. Something we noticed over here is that they love warm milk. We don't know if it's a European thing or just the hostiles we stay in.
There was a cool subway that had a ton of graffiti in the tunnel and I guess its a pretty big tourist attraction so we got to check that out too.

Interlaken, Switzerland

We arrived in Interlaken at about 8:00pm. The train ride was one of the best ones we have had. The views were great as we were riding next through mountains for about four hours. Yet another currency exchange needed to be done from EUR to CHF which is very similar to the dollar. Our hostel was pretty cool because it was just as you would imagine a cabin in the mountains. We were walking around the place and the owner of this place seemed to thing he was God's Gift to Switzerland. He must of hung up every article that was ever written about him. Pictures of him with Bill Clinton were being sold as postcards and everyhing he sold had his name all over it, "Balmer."
Shortly after we got settled we decided to "recharge our batteries, and shut down the engines and get ourselves back to neutral."...(name that movie and you get a souvenir) we were starving (whats new) so we went looking for a place to eat. The Only thing that was open was a pizza place so we did that. It was actually really good pizza too and once again there was no conversation while the food was on the table...it all business at dinner time. We are with each other 24 hours a day and the last thing we want to do is chat during feeding time.
The next morning we woke up and decided to do some hiking. We started walking to the train station that brings you up to the spots to hike and as we were walking we got a beep beep by a car. Turns out it was the myth, the man, the legend, the pride of Interlaken, Uncle Eric Balmer,the owner of the hostel, and he gave us a ride to the station. Saved us like 15 minutes. This guy was a gem. He was telling us that we should be taking the train up to Jung Frau instead of hiking. He then get out of his SUV and starts handing out pens, waterbottles, you name it...the guy had it AND with his name written all over it. We made the decision to do the train ride after we were talking to another guy about the hiking and he laughed at us because we had shorts on and he asked if we had any climbing gear with us... We figure it was out of league. The train ride was awesome and we finally got to our stop after about hour and a half. We were about 2600 meters up which is about 8500 feet high. The views of the surrounding mountains and small towns were breath taking. We did some exploring and got some even better views and saw some small avalanches. We stayed on the mountain for about 2 hours and then headed back down where we say some waterfalls on the way. Overall it was a great day and the weather was good which seems to be the theme lately! Florence next.

Vorarlberg, Austria

We arrived in the small town of Vorarlberg, Austria at about 3:00 and got picked up by the wonderful Isabella. If you don't already know, we met her in London and she was nice enough to show us around and crash at her place. We actually think she lured us to her flat to build things for her but that was ok with us. While she made us dinner we both used our uncanny American building skills to help her put together her new bed called something i can't pronounce or spell---latarousche?? yea.
After dinner her friend Martina came over and they took us to a town close by. They showed us a huge lake with a stage in it, where the recent James Bond movie was filmed. Right across the lake was Germany and we got some sweet panoramic pictures of the sunset....which is the new background of the blog. They would laugh at us when we took pictures because I'm sure they don't think it is as big as a deal. I think i would laugh at someone if they started taking pictures of the Prudential or the Lowell Mills. We stopped by a local bar and we were the first ones in the place so it was pretty dead but who need people when your surrounded by great company.
We headed back to the flat and they showed us how to play some card games. Their deck has only 36 cards so that was a task in itself trying to know which card is which. It was very similar to the game 45's actually so it was cool. We then taught them how to play some card games that we knew and they got a kick out of them.
The next morning we went to a nearby mountain and took the gondola up it and ate lunch at restaurant at the very top. We then hiked down the mountain which we somewhat regretted shortly after. We were very sore to say the least. Overall, this was a great "backdoor trip" of Austria and we can't wait for Isabella to come visit Boston.

Munchen Munchen Munchen

So we arrived in Munich aka Munchen at about 5pm. It was really easy to get to the hostel from the station...about 200m away. At this hostel we were in a room with 22 people so we knew it was going to be pretty interesting. The room smelt really bad at first but overall it was really clean and sleepable. This hostel, like many others, had a bar in it and a cool lounge where everyone hung out...so it was pretty cool. We met a girl from the Boston area and chilled with her for a little bit at the bar. Again, the whole days traveling wore us out so we didn't really hit the town.
The next morning we woke up for the free tour and once again, it was full of info and interesting stuff. We saw the famous Glockenspiel which is basically giant cuckoo clock that performs for about 15 minutes....(overrated), the popular beer gardens along with the history, Hitlers 3rd Reich (which was really interesting), Kristallnacht, the Frauenkirche and a ton of other stuff. During the tour we met a girl from Canada and we hung out with her the majority of the time and we planned on meeting her for dinner. She was traveling alone so we decided that we would keep her company. She actually does couchsurfing, which is where you sign up to a facebook-like site and ask people if you can sleep on their couch for free. This really got us thinking that we should give it a shot, so we will see if we can pull that off by the end of the trip.
That night we went to a place a few blocks down from the hostel and we both had scnittzle for the 2nd time on the trip. Its just so good, once it hits your lips you can't get enough of it. Restaraunts over here are extremely different than at home. First of all, there are no chain restaraunts, we have only seen 2 TGIFridays the whole trip (which is a good thing). Second of all, everyone smokes in them and it almost ruins your meal when some lady is suckin in a ciggie and then she coughs up her black lung on to your lap. Lastly, we still have no idea how to tip. People have told us not to tip 20% but a little less, so we basically just throw whatever we have in our pockets down. side note: one restaraunt we went to which was fairly nice had 3 dogs in it (1 was a pitbull) and they were bumpin' Biggie and 50Cent .
The next day is the first day we both split up. Yes its true, we went our own ways for once in the trip. Clint went to the BMW museum and I went for a run around the Munich Olympic Village and made periodic stops to check out the sights. The village was cool, I got to see the track that everything was ran on, the soccer field, the pool where Spitz swam in, the building where the Munich Massacre was and a bunch of other cool sights around the area. It was a nice day for a run too. The BMW museum was right acorss the street so we met up right afterwards. Clint posted a ton of pictures on the site.
For dinner we went to this pub and got an all you can eat stew with a beer for 6 Euro. The stew had everything in it sausages, carrots, peas, hotdogs, potatoes, croutons and some other good stuff. Didn't look that appetizing but it was really good. We both had 3 bowls and were stuffed for the remainder of the night (5 was the record). The bartender was really cool, we talked about his marketing strategies the whole time and he was really funny. Afterward, we hung out at the hostel lounge for a little bit and then went to the Hofbrahhaust to get a drink. Munich is known for its beer gardens and Oktoberfest and we just missed Oktoberfest which was unfortunate, but the hostels were all sold out and hotels were rediculously expensive. Anyways, the beers were gi-normous and surprisingly tasty. They give you a liter so the mug was bigger than our faces. We also got a delicious pretzel to chomp on. It was really good and not too expensive. The place had huge picnic like tables with people just drinking beers. Something you don't see too much of in the States. We head to our friend from Austria, Isabella's, house next...Ciao.

Budapest

We arrived in Budapest and made it to our hostel with relative ease. Their currency is the HUF which is roughly $1 = 186Huf, so the math can get a bit confusing. The walk into the area our hostel was located was a bit sketchy. It was behind these two large wooden doors off the main street and up a flight of unlit stairs. Sketchy at first but really cool when we got there. The hostel was more like a apartment converted into a small hotel for about 15 people, no bunk beds, a loft in each bedroom (6 people), a real bathroom, kitchen and living room. Also we just so happened to show up on the night that the owner cooks everyone a traditional Hungarian meal for free. That was served around 8pm and we got there at around 7:15 and had not eaten all day so it was great. It was pieces of chicken with rice with a side of pickles and bread. It was very good and filling.
The following morning we headed out to do the free tour with some of the people from our hostel. The city was very nice and had some great views. A lot of the city had been rebuilt to original standards after it was destroyed in WW2. Budapest is divided into two areas, Buda and Pest. The Danube river divides the two and on the Buda side sits all the old castles, while on the pest side there is more modern buildings and living areas.
Later that day we headed down to the hot spring Baths. We were not sure what to expect at this place, but had heard good things. We must have looked very much like tourist walking down the street with our towel and bathing suite in our hands. The lady at the hostel actually laughed at us a little bit, but we didn't really care, because that's what we are... Tourists. The bath setting was very nice, but not exactly what we had expected. It was mainly elderly people floating around and the all the men wearing speedos. The water was warm and it was relaxing none the less and we got to use our bathing suites at least once this trip!
For dinner we went to a Hungarian restaurant with our new friends Rodrigo (from Chile) and Gavin (from Australia). We had Goulash and Chicken Liver wrapped in Bacon...which wasn't exactly what i expected but it did the job. Rodrigo just ran the Berlin Marathon and decided to travel while he was over here. so we had some good conversations about running so that was pretty cool. He stayed up till about 4am watching Chile play some big soccer match, drinking Coke and pisco (probably not spelled right).
The next morning was the first time we got scammed while in Europe. The subways are pretty messed up in Hungary. You have to buy tickets for every 3 stops you go, but at the time, we didn't know this. After the first 3 stops and heading to the next train we asked a worker here if we were all set to go through to the next train and he said we could go. They don't have subways like at home where as gate will open if u have the right pass. You can just walk on the train not knowing you have the right ticket or not. So we get to the train station and there were workers checking tickets so immediately they see our huge backpacks and ask to see our tickets. We show them the tickets and they start going nuts. Saying we need to pay 12000 HUF because we didn't pay 220 earlier. We told them the story about how a guy lets us through but they didn't want to hear it. So we told them we didn't have any money and they said they would call the police if we didn't pay, so we finally knocked them down to 6000 HUF for the both of us AND when we asked for some type of receipt they said they wouldn't give it to us (because they obviously ended up pocketing it). I'm not trying to knock Europe but this really pissed us off. No one in the US would give 2 innocent tourists that much trouble...most likely because we have more advanced subways that wouldn't let anything like that even happen. But either way Europe gets a downgrade for that move. Gotta Love the US of A. (This is Rodrigo from Chile and his Coke and Pesco...)

Prague

We arrived in Prague on Sunday night. We both got a bad impression the first few hours of Prague due to a screwed up currency and the worst meal we have ever experienced in our lives. We got to the currency exchange and exchange about $20 and got 3800 Koruna... It took us a while to figure out what we were actually paying for things. We got to the hostel at about 8ish and everything was closed and we were starving. We stumbled across a Chinese food restaurant. Withering away due to lack of nutririon we decided we could make an exception for that one time....worst decision ever. The noodles we got tasted like they were boiled in a fish tank and I swear some of the managers teeth were in my meal. The process of ordering our meal was like trying to communicate.


The next day was a lot better. No tour this time. We headed out on our own and wondered around. Prague has a lot of really good views with just castles in the skyline. We went to see the Prague castle, downtown Prague, Charles Bridge and, from what we just learned, the #1 most overated tourist attraction in Europe...the astronomical clock. Everything was really cheap here. We hit up a Pastry shop and got a bunch of stuff for about 2 USD and they were just scrumptious. For dinner we had a typical Czech meal of duck, dumplings and cabbage. It was a ton of food and it did the job. After that we went downtown and got a little lost on the way back. We had to walk back in this sketchy part of town but nothing that good old Clint and Steve couldn't handle.

Sorry the posts are delayed and somewhat short. some hostels dont have free internet so its tough to wite these things.




















Budahpest next....

It's Berlin Baby

We arrived in Berlin Thursday night at about 6:00, this train ride was a lot smoother than the last few we have taken. Getting to the hostel was much easier too. First stop was this local pizza place that was delicious and cheap. It seems very popular because it had a plethora of American bands sign their wall, probably after concerts. So after that, we went back to the hostel and hung out in the lounge area where we met the 2 Australian girls. Australian's here all have the same story...they are backpacking for about 6 months then they plan to go back to work and do the same thing over and over. The hostel was selling beers for 1.50 euro...and they were 16oz...so we couldn't afford not to drink. We know a deal when we see one. The Aussie's taught us how to skull beers and we taught them how to play a bunch of drinking games with playing cards.

That next morning we woke up for the free tour. Once again, it was an amazing tour enriched with a ton of information that we were never taught in high school. We saw the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Hitlers Bunker (where he killed himself), the Holocaust Memorial, Brandenburg gate, Humboldt University (where Einstein used to teach and the notorious book burning took place) and a ton of other stuff. We had to change hostels for the next two nights so we brought our stuff over there before we went to get dinner. For dinner we had a German meal called "schnitzel." It was muy bueno. Similar to chicken parm, but with scallop potatoes on the side.

Next morning we went to a concentration camp called "Sachsenhausen" This is something everyone needs to visit at some point. One thing we didn't know was concentration camps differ from death camps. Although thousands died at this camp, it wasn't near as much as Auscwitz (a death camp). This tour guide was telling us that there are many concentration camp deniers that believe that this was propaganda and over exagerated. The tour was very infromative and it was interesting that at this camp it was not only jews that were persacuted, but communists, foreign nationals, homosexuals and Roma (Gypsies).

That night our 4 roommates from London convinced us to go to this club in Berlin that is very popular called Watergate. We went to the bar on top of the hostel first which was really cool. You can see a skyline view of Berlin out on this patio/rooftop lounge. So when we go to this "watergate" club we figured out it was was a techno club. The songs consisted of three beats: bass, a loud ticking noise, and a bird tweet. Wasn't exactly our scene but it was a funny experience. The cool thing about this club was that it was on the river so there was a lounge outside on the water. We had great company too with our roommates. Really good kids and hilarious to say the least.

This is a picture of us next to a piece of the Berlin wall. Ironically it is now surrounded by a gate so people don't take pieces of it home.

Thanks
Clint & Stephen

Amsterdam

Meet Francesco:


Francesco is from Roma. He is our roommate in Amsterdam. Francesco speaks very little English and is especially creepy. This guy looks like Mike Ambra Sr. and acts just like Screech. You probably think we get a bunch of creepers in our hostile, but no...we just take a picture of them regardless if they want us to or not for your entertainment. And yes...that is a spliff he has in his mouth.

Amsterdam is a very interesting city. More bikes we have ever seen in one place. We got a free guided tour that took us from the Red light District to Anne Franks house. The tours are great because we actually learn a ton of things about the history of the city. That canals are really what makes the city too..they wrap around the city in a spiral which separates certain sections of the place.

We got another guided tour of the Red Light District at night by the gem himself, Francesco. This guy knew every nook and cranny of the place. With the little English he knew he was a pretty funny guy. Homeboy goes to the bar and orders a Heineken Cold and comes back with a coke. Enough said. He even gave us his number so we could stay at his place in Rome, but I think we are going to pass.

Next city we post about is Berlin...we are actually in Prague right now but don't have a lot of time to be on the internet.

Paris-Amsterdam

Not really knowing how the train schedule worked, we headed to the train station. We went up to the ticket booth and showed the lady our Eurail pass and told her where we wanted to go. She said that all the trains were full to Amsterdam because of some delay yesterday, but she could get us there in an alternate route. We would have to make three connections in Northern France and two stops in Belgium. This meant switching trains in a five minute window between the trains arriving and leaving again. With the help of some nice people and our natural athletic speed, dodging people we made it. We may have pushed a few people down a flight of stairs and up and down stairs, people pointing here, there in different languages. It was very stressful, but we did finally make it..... but that wasn't the only problem.

When we finally got to Amsterdam around 9:30 and stupid us we had forgot to write down the address, directions or even the name of our hostel. We were banking on being able to find an internet cafe to go online so we could figure it out. Sounded like a plan until we realized we were wondering aimlessly down the streets of Amsterdam looking like we. We finally ran into another hostel and went inside. We explained to the guy what our situation was and he said he could go online for us and get us the info. Homeboy came through and we promised ourselves we would return the favor of coming back to get a drink. So after we made it to our hostel at around 1030 we were needless to say very worn out since we had been traveling for about 8 hours.

Paris (cont.)

We are on the train to Berlin right now and going to catch you up on where we last left off.

We woke up at about 9:00 and planned on heading to the free tour of Paris. Clint nailed it right on the head comparing the smell to our room to a hampster cage. The tour was really informative and took us around the whole city giving us the history and facts about everything we asked about the day before. There we some obnoxious Canadians just making stupid jokes the whole time trying to act cool...apparently they didn't know they were Canadian.. ZINGGG. After the tour we went to the Arc de Triomphe which has the busiest roundabout (rotary) in the world. It is 8 lanes wide, connects 13 different roads and apparently if you get in an accident the insurance companies won't cover you due to the craziness of it.

The third day in Paris We had to switch hostels so we left our current hostels with our bags and on the way, we got another banana nutella crepe which was scrum-didily-umptious. On the way to the next hostel we had to go through the ghetto of Paris. Much like lawrence or lowell but we didn't feel safe due to the fact everyone was staring at the 2 white kids with huge backpacks on. The only thing cool about this hostel was that the guy that worked there was from Springfield mass.

That night we went on a pub crawl that went to four bars and gave free shots at random parts of the night. We grabbed something to eat right before we started so we had something in out stomach. It was called a hotdog de fromage, but it was not your average hot dog, It was garlic bread with cheese on it with a 2 hot dogs wedeged in the middle. It was the best hot dog we've ever had. The pub crawl wasn't too crazy because it was a Monday night, but it was a good time. Some Canadian bought everyone on the pub crawl (about 20 of us) shots of jager which was cool. We ended up getting our free shots on the bridge over the Sen Canal which i don't think many people can say they have done. Apparently, we were allowed to do that.

The next day we decided to hit up the Musee de O'rsay before we left. It has a lot more art and sculptures by artist that most people would know like Monet, Van Gogh and Cezzane. We had a tough time getting into the museum because we had our bags on. The security guard told us we would be ok, but when we got through the doors they told us we couldn't bring the bags in because they were to big. So we decided to go back to the store where I(Clint) had just bought a postcard and ask the lady to hold our bags. She was more than willing to help us, which has seemed to be the going theme. We went back to the Museum and we were not waiting in the 35 minute line again so we just went up to the door man and he let us right in. Our favorite painting was this one, called Divine Tragedy with angels and demons at war:














Amsterdam coming soon.

Amsterdam

We made it to Amsterdam...the last few hostile charged rediculous amounts of money to use the internet so we haven't blogged in a while. Getting to Amsterdam was an insane process so we will give the story when we get to Berlin tomorrow.

London to Paris

Sorry we haven't posted in a while. We are in Paris now and we have been very busy.

We hit everything we said we would in London and then some. Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, The Eye (world's largest Ferris wheel), Piccadilly Circus, the national science museum and Princess Dianna's old crib. Piccadilly Circus reminds me of a mini New York City and it also had a huge toy store called Hanley's.... Yes we were in there for about 45 minutes. We went to a pub called Glouchester Arms and got fish and chips and potato mash which was delicious.



You have met Manfred but you haven't mentioned are two Austrian roommates who were the coolest girls from Austria we have ever met, granted we never met anyone from Austria. They taught us some cool phrases that we shouldn't say in public and had a funny time trying to do it. A little bit of liberal came out of me when they told me they get 5 weeks vacation every year. They highly recommended "shnitzles" in Austria.

We then jumped on the the Eurostar train over to Paris. It was a very smooth ride and it was cool to look at the French country land on the way in. When we got to the Paris train terminal we had only our directions that we written on a small piece of paper. We finally made it to the hostel after a very nice french lady gave us the right directions and a page out of here map. We ended up gaining a travel partner in the process named Hitomi. She is 27 and from Japan. She didn't have a room at a hostel and ended up finding one at our hostel. She is traveling by herself without a computer and we are not sure how she does it. haha. We all hung out last night in town since there was some exhibitions going so the city was packed with people and light shows. We slept like rocks.

Our second day consisted of waking up early, eating some bread and scones and going to the Louvre Museum. On the first Sunday of every month entrance is free. Homegirl, Hitomi, rolled with us too. Since it was free we both wanted to get our money's worth and stayed there for about 5 hours. I felt like like the last night i had in Vegas whenI was sleep deprived for 3 days. Clint was a trooper and I would have called it quits two hours in if it weren't for him. The Mona Lisa was the painting that stuck out the most. We could go on forever telling you what we saw because of how huge it was. We stopped at this outdoor food market picked up some really good chicken legs and headed back. Banana Nutella Crepes are amazing too. We both went back to the hostel, slipped into a coma for about 2 hours and then went to get some dinner. We then had a romantic dinner near the Eiffel Tower....no homo.

Peace out until next time....
















SteveClint

p.s. all the comments and tips help. thanks and keep them coming.