Europe....in our words

they likely suck compared to the pictures, but if you feel like a well random recap, here are our hasty jottings

Danish in Europe

live from London

well, y'all we did London. we ate up all it had to offer (except not much food, because this place is outrageous as far as prices go....so we're starving and still breaking the bank and running a week or more into our budget). Luckily, we scrounged up a ticet to paris ths MORNING for relatively cheap considering our lack of forethought apparently in purchasing it early. one click away from a last-minute, salvage 300 dollar internet purchase, we decided to head to the train station and found a better (but still outragious rape-in-the-ass) deal. so in an hour or so we're off for the chunnel and a slightly (hopefully) less expensive paris (it can't be worse).

london down, the continent to go

love you all and miss you

(and send money ;-) (did i mention this place is unbelievably out of your gourd expensive?))

dan

p.s. met andy and his misses clara and had a great time before getting a little tipsy, making a random english friend on the tube, going to a private party at a cuban bar with him and getting kicked out and then wandering in circles along the thames trying to find our way back to our hostel late night....great times and exactly what we need some more of..adeiu

Manish's Take

Hullo (with british accent),
Sorry I havent written sooner, but Dan and I have been extremely busy.
Here is what we have done so far.

Day one: London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Westminster
Abbey, Parliament, 10 Downing St, Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Sq,
Soho, Covent Garden, watched a play (The Producers)
As you can tell this day was unbelievably busy. And neither of us
could sleep on the plane over, so we were tired all day, but just kept
running from one place to another. As we were watching teh play we
fell asleep several (and i mean several times).

Day Two: British Museum, National Gallery,. walk around, met Dan's old
roommates, went to a pub, had fish and chips, got lost, walked around
a lot more.

Today: London eye, tate modern, st. paul

We have seen everything in probably a quarter of teh time of most
tourists, which is good because we can leave London a little earlier
(and maybe with some money in the bank account)

Money here is RIDICULOUS, we DEFINITELY did not plan for this. THe
budget I set for myself before teh trip was shot down about 4 hours
after being in London. And we only eat 2 meals a day, only one of
which we pay for, the other is pretty much just bread and water
(seriously, i am not joking). But I guess thats part of teh
backpacking experience.


okay almost out of time on teh computer, will call later,

Cheerio,
Manish

from Paris

bonjour,

gotta keep this short since i'm paying and mainly cause i have to revert to single-finger typing on this keyboard which makes this a tough task. suffice it to say though, that despite not speaking a lick of french, we have properly conquered the city --and even ALL of the Louvre-- in under two days. now all that remains is a trip to the jardins for a lazy afternoon on another gorgeous day with some crepes at a cafe. it`s the life. then it's off to the train station to board a long one -- 20 hours or so -- but hopefully will be made considerqbly better by waking up in portugal. i love this city -- absolutely picturesque. manish and i spent one night sipping wine while reposed at the base of the eiffel tower -- and though i have to admit it would have been better (or at least more romantic) with a girl, he did just fine as a makeshift companion ;- )

au revoir,

dan

Manish’s Take

Disclaimer: the keyboards here in paris have the letters in a
different order, so expect several typos

Bonjour,
Europe is amazing. Dan and I have only been to London and Paris so
far, and we love each place.

We qrrived in London 630 in the morning tired as crap. For some reason
we thought that our plqne ride was going to be 8 to 12 hours, well it
was 6. And during that time I ate 2 meals, and got to watch the new
Ashton Kutcher movie, so basicqlly I managed to get about 1 hour of
sleep total, and it wqs economy class sleep. Anyway, once in London,
Dan and I decided that during the first day, we should be sure to kill
the fuck out of my vacqtion budget. In the first day we saw: London
Bridge, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace/Gardens,
Westminster Abbey, Big Ben; Pqrliament, No 10 Downing St, Trafalgar
Sq; Picadilly Circus, [hold on let me take a breath], Soho, Covent
Garden, and paid an assload of money to go watch the play "the
Producers" (the play not only sucked, but dan and i had 3rd level
corner seats, and we probably were asleep for about 75% of the play.

The next day we kinda split up when we were visting the big museums
(national gqllery, British museum). I also decided to explore the town
by myself, and got lost for q few hours but it was still cool. then
dan qnd i met his british roommate from last year and went to a pub,
had many pints and some fish and chips. it was jolly good. The next
day we did the London eye; and st pauls before we left for paris.

First day in Paris we did EVERYTHING other than the two big museums.
We are the ultimqte tourists, we pretty much run to everything:

Next day; the Louvre is WAYYY too big, after 4.5 hours I decided to
say "Fouquet (haha, its a painters name, you know its funny) I need to
leave for the next museum"

Today we decided to sleep in and relax. This afternoon we are going to
Lisbon, hopefully ze will be lucky and this awesome weather will
follow us.

Sorry i am almnost out of time on the internet, dont worry, I am
keeping a detailed journal qand taking mqny pictures, that everyone
can read/see;

Im in Europe and you are not,
Manish

a little Portugal, a little Spain...

Ola, bom dia (still in portuguese mode, plus i know spanish)

arrived in madrid from lisboa today, after a night train in which we actually got a bed this time (long story, but we had to move upwards of 7 times between 11 pm and 8 a.m. on our train to lisbon = ergo, the trip from hell). anyways, arrived this morning, did the prado and the thysses, but missed the free day at reina sofia, so we walked around everywhere (they have to have the biggest city park in the world, where we kinda took a siesta), saw the palacio real, ate some gaspacho, went to the plaza mayor and ate some tortilla espanola, paella and flan. good day. tomorrow picasso and dali and miro and some more of the cool shit (especially guernica) then it´s off to barcelona on a night train (knock on wood).

oh yeah, this hostel is our best yet. cheap (14 euro, FREE INTERNET (thus this extended email)), cheap drinks, all friendly. should be a fun evening of tapas and drinks.

i am absolutely parched from walking all day = 12 hours in blazing sun, so I´m gonna go chug extensive amounts of water

obrigado (which actually means thank you in portuguese but was about the only other phrase we had time to learn there '-- oh yeah, and they had these pastries..pasteis de nata...to die for)

maybe next from barcelona or switzerland or italy,
dan

Swiss Alps and Italy, the beginning

guten tag and buongiorno,

so yeah, finished up spain and all the art and stuff there (la sagrada familia is amazing and the food rocked), went to switzerland and had an epic, billesque 7 hour hike up in the alps before gondoling up to the top (if we'd gotten there a little earlier and worn appropriate cloting have no fear we would have trekked it all). that was awesome

saw pisa yesterday despite a serious train delay caused by the discovery of a bomb from wwII on the tracks

seen david and uffizi today, duomo prolly tomorrow then roma

auf wiedersehen and ciao/arrivederci,

dan

“it was perfect”

our eyes met, mine an extranjero anglo blue, hers an exotic dark hue matching an olive skin

she was gorgeous

she approached, asked if I was american

turns out she was latina, from Miami (I’d been hoping for an “authentic” Italian but was willing to negotiate)

alone in italy and looking for amore

my previously planned schedule for the evening: a trip to the cupola of the duomo, then a gelati while crossing ponte vecchio and strolling along the river arno (maybe stop to laugh at the otters), before a climb to the piazzia del michaelangelo to watch the sun set over firenze

problem was she was dumb as a rock so i dumped her and did it myself

more italy (this place is well cool)

buonasera,

like you care anymore, but i have to write somewhere since i'm not putting this on my blog and i've got the worst memory ever

so yeah, to sum things up

our train from interlaken (so goregeous and in hindsight, should have stayed longer...BECAUSE) got halted because of the bomb discovery, prompting a mysterious bus ride (they kind of herded us to an area and we just got on a bus not really knowing the plan) and eventually a run through the rain on the streets of pisa to the train station in order to catch a train to firenze on time

firenze is beautiful

aside from the ridiculous tourist vibe which caused over 8 HOURS of LINE WAITING and the art, which isn't my favorite (birth of venus, primevera, holy family, duke of urbino, etc.) (david excluded, that was amazing), i love the city. it's incredible. so old, so friendly, so warm, so safe, so comfy, so beautiful. the santa maria del fioro is probably the coolest cathedral i've seen yet. loved it inside and especially out.

the arno was beautiful, and watching the sun set on the city and the ponte vecchio was a memory for a lifetime

we made it to rome today, did the coloseo, the roman forum, palatine hill, the capitol, circo massimus, columno traiano, piazza del spagna and capped it off with a gelati at the fontana di trevi.

we are amazing tourists/travelers, if i haven't mentioned this earlier

tomorrow it's the pantheon and maybe st. peter's basillica while killing time before attacking the Vatican on Monday

then it's a little more time in italy before the end of the trip (and the wallet -- even though i'm being even frugalier than usual it's hard not to try to eat the native dishes, vegetable ones included [ get this, I was EXCITED to by a sandwich composed of nothing but bread, 1/4 of some unknown chees --usually the breaking point -- and 3/4 SPINACH!!! That was it, and better, I LIKED it) begins to come into focus. maybe some hiking in austria, some biergardens in germany, perhaps a trip to kobenhagen or bruxelles or luxembourg before ending up in amsterdam

i don't know if we'll have enough time

fun stuff and off to eat a killer italian meal,

ciao bella (to the girls),

dan

Manish's Take

Roma Roma Roma

Pronto (thats how everyone answers their cellphone here, sounds gay),

Trip update for yall, because you care.
London-expensive, fun, but still expensive
Paris-favorite city so far, just amazing in every aspect

Since then....

On our way to Lisbon, the travel guy booked our ticked for the day
before we were supposed to go. So when we got on the train the next
night (it was a sleeper), we kept on gettign kicked out of whatever
open seats we could find. We got moved like 6 times. The 6th time it
was like 430 in the morning, so i just said fuck it and we slept
sitting up on our bookbages on the train corridors and inbetween
carriages.

Lisbon, was nice but there isnt anythign to do. We pretty much walked
all around the city eating, and reading in parks. We finally made it
out to some bars, and ended up meeting some random Canadians, it was
fun.

Madrid, lets see, i took a siesta in a park, went to some awesome
museums, ate great food, and went on a pub crawl, during which someone
burnt my mouth taking a shot, and almost got in a lot of trouble for
trying to steal a bottle of wine. The worst part was we think we
returned to the hostel at 6 in teh morning, but we woke up at like 9
to do more sightseeing, bad idea,but hey sometimes you just have to
rally.

Barcelona, La Sagrada Familia is the most breathtaking "thing" ive
seen so far on this trip, its only half done, but was still amazing.
Other than that we saw the FC Barcelona stadium (and got a sweet ass
soccer jersey), largest in Europe, but not that big really, walked
around a lot, ate good food, and had a little sangria.

Interlaken/other small Swiss villages---at this point I wasnt sure if
the people from work would ever deposit my check, so i didnt think i
had any money. So i couldnt go canyoning or skydiving, which actually
turned out to be a great thing. Dan and I hiked for like 6-7 hours in

the alps and got awesome pictures. I think I want to buy a house in
Switzerland at some point in my life, or shit, just live there, they
ahve everything, moutains, chocolate, they are good timekeepers, and
if they have a wine bottle opener on the swiss army knife, you know
they are living teh good life. My parents were coming to interlaken
the next day, but we had the most confusing time trying to get in
touch with each other, so it didnt happen. sad i know.

But fret not my friends, for hilarity ensues. So Dan and I are on our
train to Pisa. About halfway there we stop at at station for technical
difficulties.....then it becomes a 90 minutes delay......then, get
this......the train will not run.......because......they found a
bomb........(now the good part).......from World War II......and need
to shut down this region of teh tracks!!!!!!! So at this point its
pure chaos, because everyone needs to get to whereever they need to,
so they put us on some buses and drive us 2.5 hours south to the next
train station. At this point I had no idea where i was or where I was
going, all i knew was that like 300 people were comign with me, so it
couldnt be too bad. Well the plan was to get to Pisa, go take a
picture with the Tower of Pisa, and come back to station and leave
immediately for FLorence. We took a taxi to the tower,took our picture
(inthe rain), and could not find a single taxi, so we had to run liek
1.25 miles with our backpacks in teh rain all the way to the station.

Florence was cool, a little too touristy for me, but it was still
good. I think Dan liked it a lot more than I did. The food in Italy is
just ridiculously good, I try not to eat like 6 meals a day. Oh yeah,
the sculpture of David, is amazing.

Today is our first day in Roma, pretty much saw everything except for
teh Vatican which is what we are doing day after tomorrow. Then its,
Naples, Pompeii, Venice, Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Fussen, Munich,
Berlin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and then CHAPEL THRILL for SENIOR YEAR.

Hope everyone is doing great, I cant wait to show you pictures and
tell you everything that you dont want to know. See you soon.

ciao,
Manish

a little scared,

and a lot scared

because

due mainly to monetary and visa concerns, and some differences in wanderlust as well, Manish and I are splitting up soon (just for a few days). He will get to see the natural beauty of Austria and Germany -- and I'm not quite sure why I'm not as well -- but I'm headed for some weirdness in some of Eastern Europe. Being stupid, I've tried to map out a jampacked tour of the eastern hinterlands (well, just the main cities), and if it all goes off as planned it will be a miracle. it probably will not. and then who knows what will happen

still, as it looks now

(we did Pompei and a bit of Napoli (birthplace of pizza!) today, which was cool)

tomorrow, the Vatican museums (sistine chapel) and off to Venezia (saw Pietà and basilica di San Pedro yesterday, both the shizznit although somehow we erred in not realizing the Pope addressed the masses at noon and so barely missed that -- we're afforded one error I feel, though this happened to be especially egregious)

then, Ljubljana

Buda and Pest

Bratislava (maybe)

Wien

Praha

and meet Manish back in Berlin

then who knows

I don't know where I'm staying, how to speak any of the languages, and Manish has the guidebook. I am hoping to find a cheap disposable camera to preserve the memories and an alarm clock to ensure I make them. adventure at its finest, and scariest for a tightass like me, I suppose.

if you don't hear from me after a week or so, blame manish. he encouraged me to spread my wings (and hopefully save some money)

by the way, parents, the constant money complaining is not a plea and I feel bad continually mentioning it -- but it's just a friggin reality and the food here is too amazing to not eat (like we did in London and Paris and will probably do the last week as well). now i know what traveling costs are (this eurail pass has done wonders, but they still make us pay handsomely for some trains, which was unexpected)

oh well, best go and try some spaghetti,

and if it's the last time, remember me.

dan

Ljubljana

so much for the other language greetings and things, I don-t even know how to say the name of the city

slovenia thoughts:

beautiful country -- who knew they had alps and picturesque mountain villages. not i till the train ride

everyone bikes here. Everyone. they don-t have sidewalks, they have bike lanes. it might be in part due to the fact that they only seem to have streets every half mile or so *and they aren't straight, a fact that contributed to me being absolutely lost for close to 3 hours today (in a bad part of town too, apparently, as the cops pulled me over before realizing i couldn't understand a thing they said). but thanks to a friendly biker and another half hour of walking, i finally found my hostel, got out on the town *another half hour away, and did the sights, mainly bridges, churches and a castle. drank some beer on the main square, presevgny, and then made the long trek back while consuming a delectible burek *a kind of bread and i got meat filling, might try cheese tomorrow.

it sure would help having a map, but the prices here while not dirt cheap, were definitely CHEAP, and I ate like a king.

off to budapest tomorrow, and if i can get up early enough, might stop by croatia for a bit

later,

dan

buda

pest

is where i am at. safely

after a beautiful train ride (and I made the stopover in Zagreb, Croatia—sweet little place) with the best sunset ever over some huge lake in hungary. missed the photo op though. Damn.

off to sleep, early to rise

a day on the town, and perhaps bratislava awaits.

ahh ahh ahh ahh

staying alive...staying alive

yesterday was quite harrowing, as i found my morphormation into bill almost complete, as during my brief stopover in bratislava (who knew they were one of 2 places in eastern europe with a SOL higher than the EU average), AFTER exploring everything and crossing the danube, I decided to hike up to bratislava castle -- exactly 25 minutes before my train left *you can't go to bratislava and not hike up to the castle, can you?

anyways, a 20 minute helterskelter and panicked descent and sprint to the trainstation, backpack on mind you, allowed a sweaty, exhausted, and parched dtm to safely board his train a mere minute before it's departure

it ended up being kind of the wrong train (long story), but oh well

wombat's was cool, even drank a little, but had to get up early. Came to europe to blitz, not to get blitzed after all

today vienna was done, and apfelstreudel and a spicy sausage consumed (couldn't find wiener schnitzel), the church scaled, the hapsburg palace toured, and the innerstradt explored.

prague bound,

dan

checkpoint charlie

yuh huh, dtm is in berlin

tomorrow the rendezvous with manish is supposed to come off bright and early -- in time to cruise the city (which is monstrosity-ly expansive -- and the train system is ridiculouslz complex). the early wake up will not be welcomed, as it will be the sixth consecutive day that dtm is up before 7. insane. the body tries desperately to sleep on trains, but the mind wont let it...ya only get to see this stuff once you know

anywho, prague was exceptional. what an amaying citz. the charles bridge or karlovy most = beautiful as expected. prague castle, the churches, the jewish ghetto (where some film was being shot) and the old town square rocked equally hard. like i said i was up insanelz early, so i avoided the huge tourist rush and got to appreciate the town in some unique, innocent regards.

travelling alone has been quite the challenge, and it hasn0t helped that my trains have made it as difficult as possible (i seemingly have to switch stations in every city -- trains from eastern europe and western europe rarely meet at the same station and i,ve done a wonderful job of switching back and forth between the two)

random stuff....hung out with some canadians, a german, and a kiwi at wombat,s, and had an english girl tell me she liked my accent. i told her she better, i,d been practicing it for 20 odd years. in a nice way.

oh and get this, somehow (as in with blind luck) i timed my ascent to the top of the citadel in budapest to coincide perfectlz with an air show taking place over the danube between the chain bridge and the next one up. incredible things, and might of (have) got a picture,

time to run,

dan

the blitzkrieg in full effect

kopenhavn (a grand total of 1.5 hours that is – which coincidentally was plenty of time to determine that the country may just be home to the most beautiful women in the world), bruxelles (most beautiful square, called great place, in the world?.... I think so, and the chocolate, beer and waffles were quite tasty as well), and Luxembourg (not the picturesque castle expected, but beautiful in its own right) later

(yeah, we really did attack them all – and I got to eat a most delicious hamburger in hamburg to further the amazingness)

I come to you from amsterdam.

don''t got much time to chat, but suffice it to say our rapid tour of the largest city in scandanavia and the low countries was well worth it -- albeit quick. But we came to conquer, and we have. Now it's some relaxing in the dutch party center (though I can't seem to get out of banshee mode and still wish to attack the van gogh museum, anne frank's house, and the rijksmuseum all today (problem , it's almost noon.....I decided to sleep in, which now equates to 10 oçlock, after an 8 day binge which saw me rise no later -- and many times earlier -- than 7 and had me totalling about 7 hours in the last two days combined. Not the typical dtm in europe is.

so, I depart now (don't worry parents, this whole coffee shop thing scares me as well),

we got free internet (which means the line is long), but perhaps after a bike ride through the tulips and windmills (weather permitting), I'll find another reason to write.

love you,

dan

usual randomness

http://vangoghen.bitmove.tv/bitmove/vangoghen/index.jsp?uid=43526EBA7E68282D2263585D9D106D2B&format=WMV

it’s all over :-(

a day-long bike ride among rolling (wait, actually, completely non-existent) hills and even a few windmills in the dutch countryside (no tulips though, ain’t that time of year) provided a superb conclusion to the amsterdam stint of our trip, though sadly, it therein marked the termination of the Europe blitzkrieg.

school starts in two days.

stateside in 15 hours (will try to call, but I've got to work Fall Fest the second I get back, so I might not be available till Monday or perhaps later),

dan