Alrighty I know it's been a while, and my last post was mediocre at best due to time limits, but this shall be a doozy since I have a fair amount to up date.
We went to Venice for three nights, which was a lot of fun and very romantic. The cannals were very cool, along with the layout of the city. Since you have to walk everywhere, and you never know when you will turn a corner and be looking down at water, the whole time it felt like a bit of a giant maze which I found incredibly entertaining because I'm just weird like that. The "metro" system in Venice was also very unique in that it was boats. Yes, the public transportation is water based as well, but again, very unique and very fun. The nice thing about those boats is that you could purposefully take a long route to your final destination and see a bunch of the city by water, instead of paying 100 Euros for a gondalla ride, and you pretty much got the same effect as the majority of the boat drivers would sing in their driver space. The food was very good, and I ate too much in our three days there, but we walked a lot so no big deal I guess.
In some respects I liken Florence to Amsterdam, in that while it's fun to visit, I feel that it would be even more fun to live in. There's a lot of touristy stuff you can do here, but you get the vibe that the really good stuff is for locals only. We stood in line for an hour and a half to get into the Accademia where the statue of David calls home, and it was totally worth it. While David is quite a famous statue, and I'm sure just about everyone knows what it looks like as there are pictures a plenty, when you turn the corner to see him hanging out at the end of the hall way, it does blow you back a bit. The statue is absolutely massive, and while you circle the master piece, you really can't believe that one man created this with as little technology as he had.
The food here in Florence has been absolutely fantastic, and while I am not much of a food snob, I have been enjoying way too much here. The first run I go on back home is going to be a bit of a struggle. We hiked to the top of a hill with the view of the main part of the city right below us, which was fantastic, but in a small world situation, we ran into a family that had stayed in the condo next to us the last time we were in Kaui about four years ago. I saw them, and they saw me, and there was a second of disbelief and then a "holy shit (sorry grandma)" on my part. Quite funny, and a little crazy at the same time.
We're heading off to Milan, then taking an over night train to Barcelona before we head back up to France for our last days. We are planning on seeing a Barça game tuesday night, so that should be fun, and I've contacted Arnau who worked with me in Ireland who we're going to meet up with, and hopefully he can show us some cool places.
John
Monday, September 28, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Amsterdam
Currently in a bagel shop in lovely Amsterdam, but I do have to make it quick because Whit is waiting to use the free computer here as well. Been in Amsterdam for two days now and it's absolutely lovely. While from a city construction sense, it's very unique and something I've never seen before, it has a bit of a Portland vibe in the sense that it's a big city, but not too big, and everybody seems pretty nice and laid back.
Paris was awesome, thanks to Keith and Lezlie Whit and I had a very nice apartment/hotel room for two nights in the 16eme arrodisement. We did the usual stuff, go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, went to the artist colony on top of the hill that I can't remember what the name is, and had a drink on the Champs Elysees at night.
Before I met Whit in Paris, I did make my way to Dusseldorf to see Rett, Carla and their relatively new little girl Erin. It was great fun, Rett and I went out on the town in Dusseldorf one night, we played wiffle ball in the street with the neighbor girls, and had a grand old time taking Erin for walks. I really appreciated them putting me up.
Gotta go, got to give Whit a chance to write!
John
Paris was awesome, thanks to Keith and Lezlie Whit and I had a very nice apartment/hotel room for two nights in the 16eme arrodisement. We did the usual stuff, go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, went to the artist colony on top of the hill that I can't remember what the name is, and had a drink on the Champs Elysees at night.
Before I met Whit in Paris, I did make my way to Dusseldorf to see Rett, Carla and their relatively new little girl Erin. It was great fun, Rett and I went out on the town in Dusseldorf one night, we played wiffle ball in the street with the neighbor girls, and had a grand old time taking Erin for walks. I really appreciated them putting me up.
Gotta go, got to give Whit a chance to write!
John
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Luxembourg
I am sitting in the public library in Luxwmbourg City at the moment, free internet by the way, and figured I´d throw in an update.
For those of you who do not know, I was recently crowned the Beer Challenge Champion on my second night in Munich. As to those who might be wondering what I had to do to become the Champ, all it came down to was dancing on the stage of the Hauf Brauhaus with classically dressed Bavarians (I´m guessing I have a picture printed out at the front of the haus saying something along the lines of "don´t let this jackass in," but it was totally worth it), and singing a German drinking song they taught us while doing a shirtless head stand that, of course, had someone holding my legs.
I´ve walked around Luxembourg a bit already and it´s quite the charming little town. There´s a big garden that seperates the high part of the town with the lower part that I think I will take some lunch to and wonder. I have been surprised how expensive, and chique the city center is so I think I´m going to be in the old town for most of the day. Tomorrow I will take a bus out to the country side and do some hiking, I´ve just got to find out where to go.
I believe my next town will be Düsseldorf as I have gotten a hold of Rett and actually need to e-mail him now to let him know of my plans.
John
For those of you who do not know, I was recently crowned the Beer Challenge Champion on my second night in Munich. As to those who might be wondering what I had to do to become the Champ, all it came down to was dancing on the stage of the Hauf Brauhaus with classically dressed Bavarians (I´m guessing I have a picture printed out at the front of the haus saying something along the lines of "don´t let this jackass in," but it was totally worth it), and singing a German drinking song they taught us while doing a shirtless head stand that, of course, had someone holding my legs.
I´ve walked around Luxembourg a bit already and it´s quite the charming little town. There´s a big garden that seperates the high part of the town with the lower part that I think I will take some lunch to and wonder. I have been surprised how expensive, and chique the city center is so I think I´m going to be in the old town for most of the day. Tomorrow I will take a bus out to the country side and do some hiking, I´ve just got to find out where to go.
I believe my next town will be Düsseldorf as I have gotten a hold of Rett and actually need to e-mail him now to let him know of my plans.
John
Friday, September 4, 2009
Munich
I arrived in Munich today after a lovely six hour train ride with no book, and with the bitter taste of defeat to top that off (I´ll comment on that later) to find a lovely city here in the south of Germany. The place I'm staying at is very nice, it seems like a bit of a party hostel, but I'm only staying here one night so it shouldn't bother me much. After I had checked in I was in search for some dinner, and I was trying to find the Weiss Brauhaus. Well, while I didn't know any Spanish, at least it was some what similar to French so the street names weren't that crazy; that is not the case here. I had to take a picture of one of the streets because it's name is Dreifaltigkeitsplatz. No joke. I did find the Brauhaus eventually, but it was packed, so I settled on another fine establishment where I got sausages over sauercrout and potatoes. Naturally, I finished it all off with a fine pilsner and it was a great way to start my German days.
There are some castles around the area that I'll check out here in the next couple of days, along with other beer gardens because I've been seriously deprived of good beer on this trip.
As for the whole football thing, we all know how much I loved to play, and how much I love watching, coaching, and commentating on the game. However, in the past couple weeks I've been almost embarassed of my game of choice. It seems to me that the days of self monitoring and responsibility, sportsmanship, and honesty have disappeared. The entire Brett Favre saga has been a damn shame, and an example of a lack of chivalry that should be shown by one of the greatest players at the ultimate leadership position. I realize that retiring is a difficult choice to make, but if you say you are retired, don't go on a one man crusade to revenge the GM that wouldn't let you come back a month after your first retirment ceremony.
Last night was another great example of a lack of sportsmanship. I didn't get a chance to watch the Oregon-Boise State game, however I have seen the Legarrete Blount punch to the BSU player's face on youtube. While in Blount's defense, from the replay the BSU player seemed to mouth off and deserve to get his clock cleaned, but show a little more restraint. If you say in a nationally published, and well known magazine, "we owe them (Boise State) an ass-whoopin'" you better damn well back that up, and if you don't, then you better expect plenty of trash talk back your way.
Then to top it all off, I'm going after the fans. The amount of trash talk on the internet these days is childish at best. You have grown men, assumingly, writting on blog posts here and there about all this and that, and then come up with a moniker of some sort to completely erase any reprocussions from their voice. I don't particularly care about shit talk back and fourth about teams, but when it comes to criticizing a coach, player, or front office person, you better damn well own up to it. To go by some sort of alter ego, and write anything you want regardless of how juvenile or false it may be, in my opinion, is pissing on the First Amendment. We as Americans have the wonderful right to be able to express ourselves without being censored, including on the internet, and there are millions of people who hide behind fake names, taking advantage of a faceless forum. If it's something you believe in, you shouldn't have to refer to yourself as "Duckguy8," or some other name, own up to it, because you can in this country without reprocussion and to not do so is offensive to those who don't have the luxuary of freedom of speech.
John Fredrick Stokes
There are some castles around the area that I'll check out here in the next couple of days, along with other beer gardens because I've been seriously deprived of good beer on this trip.
As for the whole football thing, we all know how much I loved to play, and how much I love watching, coaching, and commentating on the game. However, in the past couple weeks I've been almost embarassed of my game of choice. It seems to me that the days of self monitoring and responsibility, sportsmanship, and honesty have disappeared. The entire Brett Favre saga has been a damn shame, and an example of a lack of chivalry that should be shown by one of the greatest players at the ultimate leadership position. I realize that retiring is a difficult choice to make, but if you say you are retired, don't go on a one man crusade to revenge the GM that wouldn't let you come back a month after your first retirment ceremony.
Last night was another great example of a lack of sportsmanship. I didn't get a chance to watch the Oregon-Boise State game, however I have seen the Legarrete Blount punch to the BSU player's face on youtube. While in Blount's defense, from the replay the BSU player seemed to mouth off and deserve to get his clock cleaned, but show a little more restraint. If you say in a nationally published, and well known magazine, "we owe them (Boise State) an ass-whoopin'" you better damn well back that up, and if you don't, then you better expect plenty of trash talk back your way.
Then to top it all off, I'm going after the fans. The amount of trash talk on the internet these days is childish at best. You have grown men, assumingly, writting on blog posts here and there about all this and that, and then come up with a moniker of some sort to completely erase any reprocussions from their voice. I don't particularly care about shit talk back and fourth about teams, but when it comes to criticizing a coach, player, or front office person, you better damn well own up to it. To go by some sort of alter ego, and write anything you want regardless of how juvenile or false it may be, in my opinion, is pissing on the First Amendment. We as Americans have the wonderful right to be able to express ourselves without being censored, including on the internet, and there are millions of people who hide behind fake names, taking advantage of a faceless forum. If it's something you believe in, you shouldn't have to refer to yourself as "Duckguy8," or some other name, own up to it, because you can in this country without reprocussion and to not do so is offensive to those who don't have the luxuary of freedom of speech.
John Fredrick Stokes
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Interlaken
I'm currently hanging in my second Swiss city, and I think it will be my last. I'm possibly heading to Munich in a couple of days, but I don't want to jump the gun for the moment. Any way, Interlaken is a very nice little city, it's quite small, but you can tell it does well on the tourism side. There are tons of hotels, and tons of adventure companies to hire to go river rafting, parasailing, bungee jumping, and just about anything you can think of. While I would love to do some of these activities, they tend to be on the priceyer side, so I decided today that I would head up the mountain to do some hiking instead.
I had been suggested to do an activity called Via Ferrata, and I think I may have found a new outdoors activity mistress. It's a hybrid of hiking and rock climbing, and definitely had my legs shaking at moments. They tend to take you on trails that normally, wouldn't be a good idea to go on because of the steepness and narrow paths. However, there is a steel cable that runs along the whole trail where you clip into with two carabeaners that are attached to a climbing harness you are wearing.
On this particular trail there were two cable tight wire bridges, a suspension bridge that was about 100 yards long, and one terrifying wrap around a rock where there is only steel rebar sticking out of the rock with a 1000 foot fall beneath you. There was no escaping looking down, because I wanted to look and see where I was stepping. Once I had maneuvered my way around, I had sweated so much the ten minutes it took me to get around, for a second I thought I had peed my pants.
It was a fantastic day today, but I think I'll take it easy tomorrow as I'm still getting over a cold and don't want to be too beat for my train ride the next day, wherever it may go.
John
P.S. Go Ducks!
I had been suggested to do an activity called Via Ferrata, and I think I may have found a new outdoors activity mistress. It's a hybrid of hiking and rock climbing, and definitely had my legs shaking at moments. They tend to take you on trails that normally, wouldn't be a good idea to go on because of the steepness and narrow paths. However, there is a steel cable that runs along the whole trail where you clip into with two carabeaners that are attached to a climbing harness you are wearing.
On this particular trail there were two cable tight wire bridges, a suspension bridge that was about 100 yards long, and one terrifying wrap around a rock where there is only steel rebar sticking out of the rock with a 1000 foot fall beneath you. There was no escaping looking down, because I wanted to look and see where I was stepping. Once I had maneuvered my way around, I had sweated so much the ten minutes it took me to get around, for a second I thought I had peed my pants.
It was a fantastic day today, but I think I'll take it easy tomorrow as I'm still getting over a cold and don't want to be too beat for my train ride the next day, wherever it may go.
John
P.S. Go Ducks!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Gryon
This shall be a short and quick entry because I've only got a little time left on my internet usage. Getting here was quite interessting because I had to take about five different trains from Avignon where I had spent the night before. The last of which reminded me of the Enchanted Forrest's rip off of Splash Mountain, Doug you remember. Regardless of how slow it was, I could never complain about the view; valley's with little towns nestled in them, surrounded by the Alps is not something I see everyday.
The view from my hostel is fantastic, and I greatly appreciate the recomendation from Pat, because it's been fantastic here. I'm in an eight person dorm, all by myself due to the slowing down of the travel season. I went on a four hour hike yesterday that's made my joints a little sore, and tired me out a bit. I did live a little bit by the Jon Jaqua mantra of indecision (If the Indians were chasing you, would you do it?) and did a little bit of rock climbing on my hike (Sorry mom). I think I'll head back up later tonight to watch the sunset from one of the more populated spots, so that I will be able to see where I'm walking on my way back down.
I'm heading to Interlaken tomorrow and am going to try to stay at a hostel with a Bouldering wall. I've been fairly frugle here in Gryon because apparently there are amazing options of activites in Interlaken, including parasailing, white water rapids, and all other kinds of fun stuff.
The view from my hostel is fantastic, and I greatly appreciate the recomendation from Pat, because it's been fantastic here. I'm in an eight person dorm, all by myself due to the slowing down of the travel season. I went on a four hour hike yesterday that's made my joints a little sore, and tired me out a bit. I did live a little bit by the Jon Jaqua mantra of indecision (If the Indians were chasing you, would you do it?) and did a little bit of rock climbing on my hike (Sorry mom). I think I'll head back up later tonight to watch the sunset from one of the more populated spots, so that I will be able to see where I'm walking on my way back down.
I'm heading to Interlaken tomorrow and am going to try to stay at a hostel with a Bouldering wall. I've been fairly frugle here in Gryon because apparently there are amazing options of activites in Interlaken, including parasailing, white water rapids, and all other kinds of fun stuff.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Crazy Tomatoes (Tomatina ´09)
Before I get into my three days in Cheste/Bunol, I´d like to give a bit of an update of plans. I have decided to head to Geneva, and thanks to Pat, I shall have a pretty awesome place to stay. However, for the time being I´m in Valencia as I could not get a train to Barcelona until tomorrow. I´m not complaining by any means, Valencia is very beautiful and I´m excited to go roam around. Now, what you were waiting for, my three days leading up to and including, La Tomatina.
I arrived in Valencia around three thirty and as usual, it was quite a warm day. I had no idea on how to get to this small town Cheste, until I arrived at the train station and saw that I could take the metro there. Unfortunetly my directions weren´t fantastic as I got off of the wrong station because the metro pulled a U-ey to go out to Cheste and Bunol. No worries though, I just back tracked until I got to the appropriate station.
Once I arrived in Bunol, it was around 5 in the afternoon, and for those of you who do not know the Spaniard way of life, this is prime Siesta time. While I had no idea as to where the street was where my hotel was located, nothing was open for me to shuffle in and ask in my broken spanish for directions. Fuck (sorry grandma). As I drifted aimlessly for an industrial way, I happen to notice a middle aged woman and her teenage daughter exit from there home. A sign of life! I asked them where it was, and they proceeded to ramble of a list of directions in spanish with some hand gestures of walking. I let them know I didn´t speak spanish, thanked them for their efforts, and continued to drift. As I was walking away, I heard them whistling at me, turned around and they were pointing to their car. Bless those two lovely ladies, they gave me a quick five minute ride to the front steps of my hotel, that otherwise, would´ve been a massive ordeal to find.
I took a day of rest in my comfortable, one person, air conditioned hotel room and gave Tom a call. Him and his siter were camping outside of Valencia, and thinking of spending the night in a park in Bunol to escape the traveling crowd the next morning. Unfortunetly we had no way of meeting up that night, or the next day, because the mayhem that ensued would have certainly led to the demise of our cell phones.
Eight O´clock the next morning was my arrival time in Bunol. After seeing the way the metro had been packed full of people like a brand new pack of cigarettes, I had a feeling I wasn´t going to find Tom. First order of business was to get myself a litre of beer. Strange thought at 8 in the morning, but I was going to a giant food fight in a foreign city; there was no time to consider the ordinary. By the time I reached the city center, it was already packed with people, mostly drunk, and mostly Australian. I heard a giant roar ten minutes later, as the crowd was reacting to the raising of the greased pole with the ham on top that started the festival. I figured the pole would be 15-20 feet high, but no, it was a respectable 30 feet high. There was so much grease on the pole, that it looked like a pretzle stick that had been covered in frosting.
While my competitive side was screaming and kicking at myself inside, when I saw the Bros that were attempting, and failing miserably, to climb the pole, I decided to hold back as to some what insure that I left Bunol with all of my teeth. After about an hour and a half of failed pole climbing, the cannon went off, and the trucks of tomatoes started to drive down the old cobble stonned street, with the rest of us wackos standing on a 5 foot wide side walk. When there´s an estimated 40,000 people, one would wish that the side walk be twenty feet, but I guess we just delt with it.
It´s very difficult to describe what happened the next, as it seemed to be a giant red haze. If you look it up online, you might be able to understand a little better, but it was simply a bunch of people being sprayed with water and having tomatoes chucked at them. Some times it got in your eyes, which stung. Some times it got in your mouth, which tasted like BO. Regardless, it was the craziest festival I´ve ever, and probably ever go to and it was a blast. I can´t get the smell of tomatoe off of me, I keep finding seeds in strange places, I had an amazing time, and I will never do it again.
I arrived in Valencia around three thirty and as usual, it was quite a warm day. I had no idea on how to get to this small town Cheste, until I arrived at the train station and saw that I could take the metro there. Unfortunetly my directions weren´t fantastic as I got off of the wrong station because the metro pulled a U-ey to go out to Cheste and Bunol. No worries though, I just back tracked until I got to the appropriate station.
Once I arrived in Bunol, it was around 5 in the afternoon, and for those of you who do not know the Spaniard way of life, this is prime Siesta time. While I had no idea as to where the street was where my hotel was located, nothing was open for me to shuffle in and ask in my broken spanish for directions. Fuck (sorry grandma). As I drifted aimlessly for an industrial way, I happen to notice a middle aged woman and her teenage daughter exit from there home. A sign of life! I asked them where it was, and they proceeded to ramble of a list of directions in spanish with some hand gestures of walking. I let them know I didn´t speak spanish, thanked them for their efforts, and continued to drift. As I was walking away, I heard them whistling at me, turned around and they were pointing to their car. Bless those two lovely ladies, they gave me a quick five minute ride to the front steps of my hotel, that otherwise, would´ve been a massive ordeal to find.
I took a day of rest in my comfortable, one person, air conditioned hotel room and gave Tom a call. Him and his siter were camping outside of Valencia, and thinking of spending the night in a park in Bunol to escape the traveling crowd the next morning. Unfortunetly we had no way of meeting up that night, or the next day, because the mayhem that ensued would have certainly led to the demise of our cell phones.
Eight O´clock the next morning was my arrival time in Bunol. After seeing the way the metro had been packed full of people like a brand new pack of cigarettes, I had a feeling I wasn´t going to find Tom. First order of business was to get myself a litre of beer. Strange thought at 8 in the morning, but I was going to a giant food fight in a foreign city; there was no time to consider the ordinary. By the time I reached the city center, it was already packed with people, mostly drunk, and mostly Australian. I heard a giant roar ten minutes later, as the crowd was reacting to the raising of the greased pole with the ham on top that started the festival. I figured the pole would be 15-20 feet high, but no, it was a respectable 30 feet high. There was so much grease on the pole, that it looked like a pretzle stick that had been covered in frosting.
While my competitive side was screaming and kicking at myself inside, when I saw the Bros that were attempting, and failing miserably, to climb the pole, I decided to hold back as to some what insure that I left Bunol with all of my teeth. After about an hour and a half of failed pole climbing, the cannon went off, and the trucks of tomatoes started to drive down the old cobble stonned street, with the rest of us wackos standing on a 5 foot wide side walk. When there´s an estimated 40,000 people, one would wish that the side walk be twenty feet, but I guess we just delt with it.
It´s very difficult to describe what happened the next, as it seemed to be a giant red haze. If you look it up online, you might be able to understand a little better, but it was simply a bunch of people being sprayed with water and having tomatoes chucked at them. Some times it got in your eyes, which stung. Some times it got in your mouth, which tasted like BO. Regardless, it was the craziest festival I´ve ever, and probably ever go to and it was a blast. I can´t get the smell of tomatoe off of me, I keep finding seeds in strange places, I had an amazing time, and I will never do it again.
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