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Munich, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, & London

Coming soon! (probably all at once in a day or two when I'm home, might have been better to blog while I was in Europe, but it's hard to find the time and internet. Still, people will be able to view out exploits even if they could call us and hear the same, at least I won't have to tell the same stories over and over [not that I mind])

Asphalt? Nah, just put in another canal.

Yeah, I know the title isn't that witty. So I figured I'd finally sit down and give it my best effort to finish this Europe blog more than two weeks after I've returned to Europe and now that Matt is already gone and started work. If not for the people that have long since stopped reading it, then at least for my own personal record, that I did, in fact, travel to Europe. Or maybe it's just because I have this awkward month where all my friends go to college, and I sit at home. Whatever the reason, if you're reading this, then I guess you have some interest. But, due to my laziness and other extraneous variables, I think the rest of the blog will be more of a photo caption journal, rather than the whole experience. That stupid rambling having been said... VENICE!

The first night we got there, we kinda just walked around. The canals are so gorgeous at night. If anyone is familiar with Van Gogh's "Starry Night over the Rhone", I consistently thought of that painting when I was marveling in the light reflections off the water. (I actually got to see that painting later in the Louvre, it was amazing)



So pretty much the reason you go to Venice, is to check out the city. It's not really home to any famous museums, or monuments, but it's so toured simply for the fact that it is Venice: a city built entirely off canals where roads should be. It's definitely the most unique looking city and the water provides gorgeous views, as well as a break from the normal city, loud car congestion, and instead provides just a peaceful floating boat experience.


So yeah, here are a couple shots that I am particularly fond of. It's hard to take a picture of Venice and not have it be beautiful.















The gondolas. Yes, the famous Venice gondolas. We never went in one. And you might be saying to yourself "Are you kidding me?, How can you go to Venice and not experience the famous Venetian gondolas?" I'll tell you why. 80 Euros/hour. Plus, they don't sing, you still get to see a lot of the city from the buses (that's what they call the water metro system), and we were with a group of about six dudes. Just overall, not really worth it. Plus, if or when I go back, I want to have something new to do, possibly with my lover/girlfriend/wife/whatever, and I think I'd get more bang for the buck. (no pun intended, bah!).

Oh yeah, so everything you every image in car form, in Venice, is in boat form. Ambulances, police, taxis, whatever, it's kinda funny. Here's a nice floating fruit stand. Pretty cool.


After wandering around the city for a bit, we got like two or three day bus passes, again, Venice's equivalent of metros, I don't really remember. And yeah so here's a pictures of us on it heading out to Lido for the day, this little island that about a 20 minute ride out from Venice.



So it turns out that Lido doesn't suffer from the tourism of Venice, or at least the part we visited. We were walking along the closest thing there is to a beach, looking for a good spot to relax, and we found some people had set-up their own little Robinson Crusoe style shelter.

Finally, we find a decent little cove, walk around this fence that warns that trespassing will get you arrested in like three different languages. But we figure it's ok, because there's alright a good number of people out there, including some nude tanners.


So, having finally found some water, we head out into the Adriatic Sea. Which, like the Mediterranean, is crazy salty. Then we find this pole stick in the water just a bit off the coast and everyone decides it's a question of their manhood to climb up it, while in the water. This pole is covered in some crazy spikey, sharp crap, but that doesn't stop it from being really slippery. Just about everyone gave it a shot to get up, and I got the closest, as I managed to pass my hand over the top of it, right before falling. However, my accomplishment did not go without a cost. Every time you'd get close to reaching the top, your feet and legs would slide down the pole, ripping open your skin and then throwing you into the salty water. So here's a picture of my battle wounds. Hurt to walk for a few days, but it was worth it.

A shot of the view on the way back from Lido from the bus.







On the last day, we finally managed to get a good deal on food. Food in Venice is insanely overpriced. But we stopped at this little meat store, picked up a bunch of types of meat, cheese, some bread and ate for probably 5 euros each.



One of the things we missed in Venice was the Venetian glass blowing, so the last day we tried to wonder through some stores and check it out. Some of the stuff was really amazing. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was getting kinda burnt out. We spent our last moments doing that before having to catch the train out.

Florence is... Florence

When I think of Florence... I think of... not all that much. I dunno. To me, it was just another Italian city. I guess it's main claim to fame is the renaissance art.
So all over Italy, especially in train stations there are these ads, everywhere! for this drink called campari. It comes in a little red glass, and it looks like soda or something. I thought, hey, I'm just as susceptible to mass advertising as anyone else, why not give it a shot, plus I can keep the bottle, because it looked pretty cool. Most disgusting drink I've ever tasted. I had about one shot of it, could barely handle it, gave Matt a taste, who refused to drink any more, so here's a picture of me muscling down the last of it. As you can see, it's painful.
Ok, onto actual tourist things. We checked out this church that I can't remember the name of. It is the 2nd largest cathedral in the world or Europe or something, after St. Peters. Having just come from St. Peters, it was hard to be impressed. What really stood out though was the dome. The construction of the dome was really quite amazing. It was done with a series of posts put into the side of the thing and entirely without scaffolding. Apparently the workers were so afraid of the safety of the structure that the architect actually had to jump up and down on the beams to prove to them it was safe. Quite a cool dome (Italy has plenty).

Afterward, we checked out this Leonardo da Vinci museum, that was kinda a low budget thing, not like a main museum. Still, I thought it was awesome, they had many reconstructions of da Vinci's machines are they are like 1000 years ahead of his time. If only he had lived today...


So we went to this one place that was recommended by Let's Go (our bible by this point), but the menu ending up being entirely in Italian, so I just impulsively ordered something that sounded nice in Italian, and ended up with Cow stomach. Not too good.


I think this is the only picture I took in the Uffizi (Florence's most renowned museum), as camera's were not allowed. I thought it was hilarious because there's a red button on the metal detector that just says don't push. Which is always just funny. But yeah, the Uffizi was possibly the most boring museum we've been to so far, and the audio guide was no help. We suffered through the rooms, and finally left when we felt we had our money's worth.

Afterwards we wandered around the city, and saw this replica of the statue of David, which is in the Museo d' Academia, which we meant to see, but didn't really get around to. Later we saw another replica of David, but in bronze, so we left Florence having seen two replicas, but not the real thing. Oh well, I gives me a reason to return to Florence, when I otherwise would have none.

I feel like kind of a loser, posting this picture of my ipod, but it was really quite cool. I was sitting at the balcony, listening to some Dave Brubek, while watching people go by, and it was quite a relaxing situation. One of those that just kind of makes you appreciate life. Also the ipod on the shelf against the background had a nice composition, but I don't think I really captured it.

This picture is out of place, but I guess I actually took two pictures while in the Uffizi. This is out of one of the windows, kind of a nice view of the city and Florence's main bridge, Ponte Vecchio. (sp?)



And here's a shot of while talking across that bridge with the million other tourists. At the end of trip, in a Rome-esk style, we went up this fat set of stairs that overlooks the city.

When in Rome, Roam

So after kinda being lazy about schedules and things to do in Nice and Barcelona, I was determined to not miss any of the important Roman sites, so we really did it all. Right when we got there, we went over and checked out the Colosseum, which was pretty awesome.











Afterwards, we headed down to the Palentine, which is the remains of what once was a giant Roman palace. So little is left, it's hard to get an idea of what was there, but you can kinda look at column stubs and use your imagination.

That night we checked out the Trevi fountain, which is amazing at night, unfortunately Matt and I didn't have our cameras with us, but I think Kyle managed to snap a few photos.


The next day we headed off to the Roman Forum, more roman ruins, but of a more gubernatorial nature, (I can't believe i spelled gubernatorial right on the first try). All the ancient ruins inspired me to watch Gladiator and that HBO series “Rome”, as well as perhaps learn about some legitimate Roman history.

Then we headed through this museum of this artist that enjoyed painting dead people. Really well done, and a lot of them kind of felt like Resident Evil, even though I actually haven't played it. This one kinda looked like Kevin Spacey from K-Pax, so I snapped it.


We also saw this sweet Roman statue, which one of our audio guides or tours or something talked about earlier. It has to do with the original Roman history, and the babies drinking are Romulus and Remus from the story about how they were raised by a she-wolf, or maybe a prostitute, whatever, it's a long story.

Then we saw enough Roman statues, frescos, and history to make anyone throw up, including this giant painting which Matt is standing in front of, to kind of give you an idea for the size of it. If yo click on it, you can see some of the detail.


Then we checked out the pantheon, which is pretty insane. In case you are unfamiliar with it, it is a fat dome with a hole in the center that with stood that huge earthquake that knocked down all that other Roman shit.

Nice shot of the Trevi fountain during the day, probably the most awesome fountain so far (and every city has like 10).



This is the way drinking fountains are in Rome. Every country has their own style of fountain, and for some reason the ones in Rome just flow constantely, I think it has to do with the aqueducts, or maybe just because it's freaking hot.




After a long day, we chilled by this fountain, and I started to put my feet in. Then we see this group of like 8 policeman pull up in their car and get out and start walking towards the fountain. There are way too many police in Europe and they're usually kind of driving around looking for something to do. So they start circling the fountain and two take each side and start walking around and we're wondering like what's going on, and if we should go check it out on the other side of the fountain. A good 15 seconds later, this guy runs right in front of us, soaking wet, carrying his soaking wet clothing and trying to run across traffic. Yup, the police have so little to do that they send a squad car of 8 people to find out about some guy swimming in a fountain. Sad.


That night we chilled out on the Spanish steps after paying some rediculous amount for a meal. They're really not all that exciting, really just a bunch of steps. I guess its the longest or widest set of stairs in Europe or something... woo hoo!



The next and last day, we made a half attempt to get up early, but didn't get out of the door until 10 or 11 or something, and got to wait in a good two hour cue for the Vatican museum.


We walked through this hall way with enough Roman statues to make you sick.
There was this pretty tight ball thing in the center of the plaza. I really don't know what the meaning of it was... which kinda sucked, no audio guide for this one.



Not the real thinker, but a pretty sweet replica. Hopefully we'll see the real one soon. You can really see the attention to detail in the muscles and position of the whole statue and how it all works together for this pose. Quite cool.

So yes, the Sistine chapel. That famous picture of you see of man touching God's hand is actually just one of the many paintings. Personally, I don't know if it was because the entire Vatican Museum tries to build you up to the Sistine Chapel, by putting direction signs in every freakin' room or if it was because I was tired, or maybe just not a religious man. I wasn't all that blown away. It's pretty cool though that like the entire old and new testament is done out in picture form all over the church, so yeah.





Unlike the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica really blew me away. Largest cathedral in the world, and it is really just awesome, as in you are just in total awe. It is amazingly huge, amazingly lavish, and just incredible. Yeah. For like 5 euro or something you can climb up 200 stairs to get to the top on the dome on the inside, so you can look down on all of
your people, which is pretty awesome. And then theres another like 322 stairs where you can get to the very top of the dome, and you can see how the stairs and the walls curve very strangely as you get close, and yeah the view from the top is just amazing as well, you can see all of Rome. It was the perfect finale to a such a historic city.