Been home now for a few weeks, starting to settle into being back stateside. Haven't completety unpacked - waiting until Jason heads off to college to finish up.



Haven't had enough time to go through all the photos and sort them, but here are some to tide you over until I have the rest done. All of them are from Sweden and Norway:



http://siena.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022916&l=854e5&id=35203951

Currently in Glasgow - as we weren't able to go to Loch Ness we stayed with Rory in Edinburgh (pronounced, for some reason, "E-din-bur") for four nights before coming here (watching 7 of the 10 episodes season four of their equivalent of 24, 'Spooks'), where we're spending two nights with his parents and younger brother.

I loved Edinburgh. Smaller than Albany, it has retained more of it's old charm than any other city I've been to. It felt like it was an old castle town that simply aged into the modern world - the buildings looked old but grand, the castle dominated the views, cobblestone streets were the rule rather than the exception. Dulet tones of bagpipes floated everywhere, and anytime you were near the center of town you could hear it in the background. The Royal Mile was full of shops and museums, including the famous black cathedral that looked like it could have come right out of a fantasy epic dark lord's kingdom. Visited a fascinating museum - the camera obscura - and saw the earliest form of camera ever invented in action, giving us a full 360 view of edinburgh. Also had tons of amazing opitical tricks and illusions, including incredible kalediescopes of light and color.

It was also cheap, and small enough to walk everywhere, which helped a lot. Also interesting was the way the city just stops - from Rory's flat we could we the cliff and the end of the city, and it was nothing but nature from there to the next town over. Few cities have such defined borders.

Glasglow we aren't going to see much of, just the science museum with Rory's mom and his brother, Gaberiel. Gabe is 11, and a great kid who loves to talk about just about everything. Over dinner he asked us all about America (does America have money? does America have ice cream?), after dinner we played monopoly, his favorite game, for a few hours. Interesting the different strategies - the Americans there bought everything they could, while the Scots only bought highly expensive properties in small quantities. Gaberiel has tourette's syndrome, but it doesn't show too much - he's a completely normal kid.

We're heading into the city soon, after Sean gets up, and then we're back here for one more night. Tomorrow we fly to Dublin at 10:45am our time (5:45am yours), arrving an hour later. After a five hour layover there (giving me a chance to read Stardust - Jason, go watch the trailer for the movie, it looks like the next Princess Bride) we leave for JFK at around 5:30, and arrive two hours - or is it seven hours - later, at 7:30 EST. Sean's mom is meeting us there, and we'll be back in Loudonville by about 11. Home by 12 tomorrow, then Tuesday I pack for a short trip to New Hampshire. Don't know how much traveling I'll do the rest of the year - touring European cities has made me realize I know almost nothing about American cities, so I plan on visiting Boston and NYC a few times in the few months.

Disappointingly, I don't think we can do Loch Ness - there aren't any free rooms available there, so we're going to stay here for an extra night.

First city I've missed that I really wanted to go to, but there's not much we can do about it.

Going to Stirling in a few hours, seeing the castle and the battlefield at Bannockburn, where William Wallace defeated the British.

In Edinburgh now, will be for another day or two. Haven't seen too much of the city yet, but walked around the city university with Sean's friend last night. Going to explore more today, and see the old castle up on the hill. Tomorrow I think we're visiting Stirling; but don't know for sure.

Spent a day in Manchester, which I enjoyed. Fascinating city... if London is the UK's metropolis, Manchester is the city of urban life and culture. I doubt many cities have such dedication and pride associated with it. 20 years ago the city was all but dead, and now it's alive, vibrant and fun. Cheap, too. We saw Harry Potter 3D on the iMax screen at the Printworks - an old converted printing shop that is now an upscale mall - and visited the Urbis museum, a modern glass building that showcases urban life and art. Most interesting was their Play exhibit, which showcased various urban trends - from parkour to flash mobbing, street musicians to guerilla gardening.

Right now I'm just really, really tired. Traveling with someone else is far more exhausting than traveling alone, and last nine weeks are catching up to me. I'm sleeping longer and doing less each day; and just don't have the energy or desire to see or do much of anything. Fly home in 5 days - have two more in Edinbourgh, a day in Loch Ness and one in Glasglow.

I've noticed that I've lost a few more things in the past few weeks. I think I've lost two of my five shirts - not quite sure how I managed to lose them. One I can't remember having since Interlaken, the other I'm sure I had in Stratford two days ago. Also lost my plastic bags, although I may have used them all by now, not sure.

Spent the last three days trying to find a book or two by this author I like. His books, in English, were all over Europe - I bought one of his in Stockholm, another in Milan - but I can't find them at all now that I'm in England, his English-speaking home country.

Not sure how much news of Britain makes it back stateside, but it's been something of a disaster zone out here. After a wet, drenched summer well over six inches of rain flooded the west and southern parts of the country, flooding towns, streets, houses, covering bridges, closing roads. Sean and I are fine, although exhausted - we missed out on Stonehenge due to the weather, and the two and a half hour bus ride to Stratford turned into a nine hour nightmere that got us halfway. We spent the night in an evac/emergency ref shelter at the local hall in Cheltenham, arriving at three in the morning. Left there at 12, and managed to climb into Stratford around 1:15, walking the two miles to the hostel by 2. Another two miles back for lunch (delicious) and the new harry potter book (still reading), then two more miles back, Sean's sleeping and I'm delaying so I can sleep through the night.

It's been just crazy here. Spending the night in an evac shelter is one of the strangest experiences this trip, as was nine hours on a bus. (15 hours that day, covering roughly 50 miles...). We had to count little blessings - we got no sleep the night before due to a rather loud snorer in the room, so we were tired and groggy for the bus ride, and didn't really care to do much. We were IN the bus, not walking or driving ourselves. We had a great place to stay (out best hostel yet, at least until the mansion that we are in now); with some great people who was fun to get to know. The bus driver was incredibly nice, and, best of all, the infant in the back of the bus didn't cry once until one thirty in the morning, that that was just for two minutes. Despite several backtracks to various towns we ended up with a place to stay with warm drinks and lots of food; unlike thousands who were stranded on the major M4, M1 and M5 highways between London, Bristol and Birmingham. There is more that seems to be working out - this town is a great place to relax and recover from our trip.

I'm not sure just how I can say just how much water they have everywhere here. We saw cars driving with water up the the bumper, drove through intersections where asphalt wasn't visible. People have reported walking through water up to their waist, and one local town lost a bridge and had water up to five feet in some places. Just looking up in the sky and one or two medical helicopters are visible, and firetrucks and rescue boat sirens are constantly heard. The UK has never been hit with a flood this bad, and we were stuck traveling in it. Going to rest two nights here, then to ManU, then north to Scotland - trying to cut down on the travel time, both for our own sanity and the cost.

Try to look around for some pictures of the flooding... it's truly incredible how much water we're dealing with here.

Sean is making me mention that for the LOTR show we had front row seats, instead of top-of-the-balcony-back-row seats, simply because we went to the theater box office instead of ordering online. Day seats are great things - same price, infinitely better view.

Spamalot was as hilarious as I expected it to be. Definitely want to see it again, as I'm sure I will.

Had a fun morning, as we realized that we had to check out today from the Olympia instead of tomorrow as we planned, so we packed quickly and called about a dozen hostels in six cities before finding one free tonight. Took a bus to bristol, then a bus to here - Glastonbury, home of, well, strange people who we don't think are quite right in the head. We did walk up to Glastonbury Tor - literally, Glastonbury Hill - where, supposedly, King Arthur sleeps, waiting to awake when Brittania needs his rule again. Mostly it was just pretty and windy - but we could see for miles.

Then tried to find a place to spend friday and saturday nights - very, very difficult to do. We wanted to do Oxford, but the only place free was Stratford on Avon; so after Stonehenge and travel tomorrow I guess we're learning about Shakespear Saturday. After that Manchester, home of the famous ManU, then on to York. After that we're not quiet sure until Edinbourgh...

We met Julian Beever today...

...he was creating a new 3D artwork when my friend and I walked by. Location was across the Thames from Tate Modern over the millennium bridge, and then about a block down.

It's a drawing of this random guy falling off of Big Ben and holding onto one of the clock's hands. If you see it, I saw him draw the person.

He's quite funny in person, and has a very sarcastic sense of humor to deal with all the annoying people who walk by. Perhaps the funniest was an old lady who came by and asked him "Are you influenced at all by Dali?" To which he replied: "No, Dali was a pretentious bastard."

She then made some fuss over him, finally asking "Well, what does your drawing mean?" Voice dripping with sarcasm, he simply said "It means if you are falling off of Big Ben, hang on."

She walked away, muttering to herself.

For those of you who don't know who Beever is, you may recognize his work:
















Sean and I had fun yesterday, walking around and visiting a few museums. Hit the Tate Modern, which had a kinda cool exhibit about modern cities and their growth. One showcase we really liked was three video screens in a room with a guy running along different sidewalks with a drumstick hitting different things and recording the sounds... the combination of the three videos was cool. Mostly we just walked around making fun of pointless modern designs.

Then went to Coventy Gardens and watched several street performers for a few hours, all of varying skills. Some were amazing - trick juggling while balancing on a non-taunt rope; others were just plain funny. Most amusing were the balloon animal 'helicopter' which looked just like a poodle - given to a disappointed kid. When everyone complained to him he responded "What? Haven't you ever been to the Tate?"

Another guy juggled five balls at once - two normal ones and three stuck together as one. This guy was part of a duo and they were excellent... incredible at entertaining the crowd, making jokes up as they went. Whenever they saw someone taking pictures they'd stop what they were doing and immediately pose themselves in ridiculous positions. Perhaps the craziest thing they did, which I'm sure they made up on the spot, was drag a lady out to pose with them, deciding that they weren't good looking enough, pulling out a man from the crowd to pose with her, then deciding that something was still missing, and then stealing a stroller from the crowd to throw in front of the man and the woman for the picture. We're going back to watch more later tonight.

Then saw the Lord of the Rings musical. Not knowing what to expect I had an open mind, and I loved it. It was really cool how they set everything up, and they really did manage to capture the story and make a good show out of it. Some of the songs weren't up to par - it might have been better as a play, as for the most part the spoken scenes were the best. However, they had Galadriel in the role of a background singer for much of the show, she'd be floating in the air singing out in elvish or English, and she had a beautiful voice even if we couldn't always understand her.

The highlight, musically, was the song Sam, Frodo and Gollum sang one night while resting. Speaking of Gollum, he was definitely the best actor I've seen on stage. Seen many musicals, but he was the first actor in a musical I've seen get a standing ovation for exiting the stage without singing a note. He did things with his body that I didn't know was possible - he was almost as good, if not better than, the movie's gollum at capturing the insanity and duality between Smeagol and Gollum. The most fun scenes were the epic ones, however, when the music was loud, the lights were flashing and stage sets complex and fascinating. Weathertop, the Balrog, the orc fights - all were super cool.

I also liked how they set the story up. To tell the story properly as a musical they had to cut a lot out and change a lot, but it worked very well. For instance, they combined Gondor and Rohan into The Land of Men, and had Boromir's father be the one under Saruman's spell that Aragorn frees. The story still had much of the same power and joy, but fit perfectly into a three hour musical.

Tonight we're going to see Spamalot, which will be completely different and just as fun.

Met Sean without a problem Monday morning. We went back to the hotel, and then visited the (free) natural history museum and the (free) science museum. Sean went back to sleep, and I wandered slowly over to Chinatown where Queen's Theatre is.

Was distracted by Harrod's on the way - my new favorite store. They have everything there. The place is simply huge, and as an avid window shopper there was a ton for me to see. Especially nice were the models of Dubai mansions for sale, the crystal, glass, and silver rooms and the collection of high quality poker and chess sets.

Then walked around chinatown, and got my tickets. Had some money problems, but they all worked out in the end. Found a cheap dinner, and went and sat down for Les Mis.

which was, of course, incredible. Every note (except for Javert's) was perfect - and, in some cases, better than the other shows I've seen or heard. They had added a fair number of short scenes or moments that worked perfectly, and the stage work was masterful - always great to watch. Every actor or actress (except Javert) did an amazing job, especially Valjean. The highlight of the night was not One Day More but Bring Him Home, a testament to just how powerful his voice was. I think we applauded twice as long for that song as any other. He wasn't alone, though... everyone (except Javert) did superb. Gavroche and Eponine were perfect, and Marius and Enroljas sang a stunning Red and Black.

As you may have picked up on, Javert was disappointing. I have yet to hear a Javert who can capture the role perfectly - many pick up on parts of his character, but fail during others. In this case the final song, during his suicide, was great but others, such as Stars, were disappointing. Only other problem I had was the ensemble was on the small side, and so songs like Do You Hear the People Sing? were lacking about 10 extra voices that would have made it sound far stronger. Still, small complaints for an amazing, amazing, show.

Sean and I are about to go get lunch, then buy tickets for Lord of the Rings (for tonight) and Spamalot (for tomorrow), the two shows I could convince him we should see. After that we're going to visit the (free) London Museum and the (free) Tate Art Gallery, before coming back to Drury lane to see LOTR at 7:30.

...I come home in less than two weeks. It seems so soon.

Have the time (and the english keyboard) to make a decent update for now.

I loved Paris, to start. The city is a wonderful place to walk around in - beautiful buildings, fun statues, great atomsphere. The first night there I walked up the the quite new area La Defense, where they have built an incredibly modern business and entertainment center. Picture the region between the capital and the museum in Albany, only about 10 times bigger and more impressive. First time I ever saw escalators outside, for one. It was the first time I really felt like I was in an important city, as European cities, as a rule, don't build very tall buildings. The Corning Tower was taller than almost any I'd seen until Paris. Anyway, I watched a beautiful sunset from the new huge Arch they have, then took the metro back to my hostel.

Next day I went to the Louvre, and was there at 9:05. Good timing, as it only took me 5 minutes to go through security and get my tickets. Helped that I brought nothing - not even a camera. Didn't think they'd let us take pictures there, but they were far more lax about it than anywhere else. While in Rome or Athens all you hear staff shouting is ''NO FLASH! NO POSING!!'' every 30 seconds, here they didn't care. Anyway, spent about six hours in the Louvre, most of it speed walking through everything. The place is huge - 3 corridors, each a kilometer long, with five stories. It would take days to see everything properly. And yes, I saw the Mona Lisa.

After that I went back to La Defense, and watched Harry Potter and explored a french mall. Amazing how similar it is to American ones... it felt just like Crossgates, minus the signs saying 'NO ONE UNDER 16 AFTER 9:00'

Next day I met my Parisan friend and guide, Chris, at noon; after I walked to the arc and under the eiffel tower. Chris and I visited bookstores (I got yet another Neil Gaiman novel) and had lunch and then went to the science museum. It was rather boring, but the 3D film was great as ever. Best parts were the full size MC Escheresque rooms; the light and optical allusion exhibition and the sciencefiction monsters room. (two movie posters next to each other: 'I married a monster from outspace', 'I married a communist'. three earth animals with similarities to aliens: bug-eyed jellyfish, stick lobster, kitten)

Chris and I then went back to his car and moved it to free parking, then walked another several KM back to the tower. We were planning on going up but it costs too much - 11€. Turns out that it was also the French equivalent of the 4th of July that night, as the next day was Bastille Day and they have their fireworks the 13th. If we didn't have so much to do we would have stayed, but I had a train to catch the next day and he had to drive home. Also, he says that the french get very... boisterious on the 13th, and suggested I get to my hostel. From the sounds as I fell asleep, it was probably a good idea.

The 14th was a travel and relax day; after getting to London I walked down the Thames towards my hostel (which I only knew was east of the tower). Got sidetracked by a hilarious comedy duo The Maniax outside of the national theater, then a few hours later walked the remaining 5 km to the hostel. Found it eventually, had a good dinner and read myself to sleep.

Today I took the metro from the hostel to the city, found our hotel, walked through Hyde Park. Then met another friend, and we took a tour bus around the city for a few hours and then walked through Regent Park, after visiting 221b Baker Street.

Walked the 5 km back to the hotel, checked in, and am very glad to have 5 nights here. Nicest hotel I've ever stayed in, it's going to be great to have this place for our time here. Beds are comfortable, room is perfect, bathroom is a blessing after the rooms I've had at hostels. Dr Kelly, thank you.

I meet Sean tomorrow morning. I figure we'll come back to the hotel, walk around the city some, and then he's going to crash at night and I ordered a ticket to Les Miserables. I'm kinda excited. Only 35£, which is about $70, and it's actually a decent seat. Sean and I are going to see the Lord of the Rings stage performance some night, and depending on how things work out I might end up seeing something else - possible Othello at the Globe, or another musical. We'll see how the next few days go, we've got a lot of time in London - almost twice as long as I've spent anywhere since Athens.

I come home in two weeks - is everyone ready to hear me talk of nothing except Europe for another few months?

...I'm trying to decide if I can justify spending over $70 to see either Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera or The Lion King while in London. All would be the second time I've seen it... or I could see Wicked, or something different.

...Or I could go see Les Mis, again.

Had a near disaster on the French subway on the ay back from 7 hours in the Louvre today... very sudden, unexpected break between stations, cracked my jaw against one of the metal poles in the middle to hold on to. Hurt for about an hour, but feels fine now. I think the shock was the worst part. However, I think it may have knocked the two front teeth on the bottom slightly out of places - I can't see any difference, but it feels slightly strange there.
...fortunately I'm visiting an oral surgan as soon as I return anyway, so I can have it looked at then.

Paris is wonderful. Am enjoying the sunsets and the delicious French Italian restaurants. Am not enjoying French keyboards/

I'm in Paris now. Don't think I will update here until I am in London, as about a half dozen keys are in the wrong places on French keyboards; including 'a', 'm', 'y' and '.'.

Makes typing take far too long to updqte here... especially the a being out of place:

Switzerland would be far, far nicer if it wasn't so cloudy and rainy outside.

That said, while most people have been around when it's pitch dark outside, few people can say they were around in pitch light. Walking through/in the rainclouds around Mürrén today I could see about as far as my waist - visibility was about three feet. Needless to say, I didn't make it to the top of Slichthorn like Bond did, as I wasn't going to spend 89 CFR to see nothing. Still, I made it one mile above sealevel... just not two.

Would love to come back here with more time, more money, better planning. There's so much to see in do in this region (Jungfrou - The Top of Europe), and I only have time to visit one tourist attraction and walk around some old villages. Two weeks here would be enough to briefly see everything - one day isn't enough.

Visited the Tummelbach (I think) waterfall... it's a glacier drain that flows through a mountain, and you actually get to climb through passageways inside the mountain to look at it. Supposedly it's the only thing of its type, anywhere. It was very loud and very wet.

Outside has been similar, minus the loud. Switzerland a mile up is quiet, with no cars able to make it this high. Ran out of breath in the three kilometer hike I limited myself to (too far for my ankle, which had been better)... air is much thinner up here.

Still, would love to come back in the future... rent a chalet for two weeks, visit Jungfrou and Slichthorn and see the famous play of William Tell, kyack in the lake and do some white water rafting. Would also love to try the much more expensive canyoning, and possibly paragliding... they have pretty much every outdoor sport imaginable here. They also have the highest minigolf course in the world, which i would have done if it wasn't raining.

Now I need to go see if the other bookstore in town has anything in English before heading to the supermarket for my dinner, and I'm going to go back to the hostel and eat and crash from exhaustion. Bern & Geneva tomorrow, Paris the day after.

Ended up in Switzerland, not Vienna. Made it to Vienna, and found out that every hotel and hostel was book solid for three days. Walked around for several hours, saw the river, visited the museum I wanted to...

Now I'm in Switzerland, in Interlaken, the hub of major alpine excursions in the country. I don't plan on doing much hiking, but there are cable cars up to the tops of the mountains that I'll use to visit them. Don't know how long I'll be here - definitely the next two days, but I might end up heading to France if money is running low. It's expensive here, and I misplaced 90 francs (about 75 dollars) this morning due to exhaustion from not getting enough sleep.

My health is decreasing a little... I get tired more easily than I did at the start of the trip, and I don't sleep as well, and as of yesterday my throat started to act up from the copious amounts of cigarette smoke in the train and in Vienna. Swiss air should cure that quickly.

Money is also being spent a little fast than I would hope - have to spend less over the next thee weeks. Paris and London should make that difficult.

I think tomorrow I'm going to visit the alpine resort that James Bond visited in In Her Majesty's Service, which will be kinda cool.

Need to go now, need to get some food before crashing for the day.

I´m running out of time to see everything I want to see. Going to have to completely cut Germany out of my trip, and I only have time for three or four more cities before arriving in London in nine days.

Well, the first really bad thing to happen on my trip happened about two hours ago. Was walking out of Legoland after 7 hours there (more on that later) to the bus that would take me back to the nearest town with a train station when I stepped on what I thought was a concrete sidewalk. Turned out to be sand - a heavy, dense sand - and I twisted or sprained my ankle as I turned on it, not expected the depression. Hurts a ton to walk on it, and kinda ruins my plan for the next few days (hike in the Black Forest, walk around castles).

Thinking I'll do Vienna for a day or two, then take some trains through Switzerland to see it, then visit some town in southern france before finishing out in Paris. We'll see how things work out.

Legoland made me feel like such a kid again. Everything they did there was amazing - I loved Miniland, where they recreated hundreds of villages and buildings using millions of lego bricks. My favorite was their recreation of Bergen, Norway, where I spent a day - they had the fish market where I had my hvalburger, and even had the hostel I stayed at. What amazed me was how animated they made everything - trains, boats, cars and people moved around, dragons blew smoke, pirates and scottish bagpipers played music... by far the coolest was the working lock system, though. It'll never cease to amaze me what they do with those bricks. Entire cities - Bergen, Copenhagen, Amsterdam; famous buildings - castles, capital buildings, the statue of liberty - they had pretty much everything.

Also loved the 4D cinema, which had the best 3D movies I've ever seen. Those things have come a long way from when I first saw them years ago. Hopefully it isn't too long before they start become widespread enough for a major movie release - I'd love to see some action flick done on the curved screen.

At JJ's request I took pictures of 'everything' - about 250 - so you have something to look forward too, kid.

Anyway, tonight is interesting 'cause I have no idea where I'm going. I was too late for the train to Hamburg, which is the train hub of this part of the continent, so I just started getting on trains that would take me closer to Vienna. Currently I've done Vejle -> Fredrisburg and Fredrisburg -> Kolding, and have a train from here to Dussledorf, Germany, in an hour. Who knows if I'll get another train from there tonight.

I need my ankle to get better, soon, or else I'll be seeing very little of vienna over the next few days.

For the first time yet my rail guide failed me - left me in a city where it said there would be a train, but there wasn't one. I'm now in Goteborg, Sweden, and there isn't a train to Copenhagen for 7 hours.

Fortunately, Goteborg is the one city in Scandinavia where I actually know someone - an old friend who I had already met in Malmö earlier on my trip. I called him up, and now I'm at his flat for the night. In any other city in Europe I would be sleeping at a train station (too late to get a hostel); here we can stay up and watch a movie or two. Rather nice how things work out...

What is funny, though, is that because I'm here it's the one night so far on my trip that I could call home; as I'm in a place late enough that wouldn't charge a ton of money. However, it's also the one day of the year back home where everyone is out for the night.

I laughed at how things have worked out tonight, at least.

Don't have long, as I have a train to catch in 25 minutes. In Oslo, leaving for Gotenburg, Sweden, in route to Denmark.

Bergen was nice. Spent a day there, walked around, climbed a mountain, had whale and elk and reindeer at the fish market throughout the day. All were excellent, especially whale.

Then came to Oslo yesterday, walked around some in the rain yesterday and visited museums all day today. Most interesting was was the Kon-Tiki museum, about the famous explorer Thor H-something. Replicas of his many ships, exhibits about his travels - cool to see after reading the book. Also interesting was the Nobel Peace Museum, which was far better than the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm. Don't think I've ever seen a museum as hi-tech as this one. later I might have a video of a book they had there.

Norway has been great, although very expensive. By far more costly than anywhere else I've been. Taken to eating bread and fruit for lunch/breakfast, and dinner is whatever I can find for under 100 kroners (about 16 dollars...). Everything here costs far more than the mainland, and even more than back home. Haven't eaten as much as I should, but that should changed as I had back to the continent and their cheaper prices and larger servings.

Each of the past two nights I've roomed with people from East Germany, both of whom remember before the wall came down. About 30 years old for each, I think, and it's been interesting to listen to them. Both are capitalists, and prefer the way things are now, but also say that things were better there back before uninifcation.
Also talked alot in Bergen with a girl from Norway who spent time in England two older Englishmen, and French girl who spoke about every language imaginable. Then an elderly couple and a father and his a and adult son on the train ride to Oslo, then a Amsterdam native and one of the Germans in the hostel last night here. Always fun to have such cross-cultural conversations that last most of the night.

Denmark tomorrow. Visit Copenhagen, maybe, and will possibly hit Legoland 'cause I'm bored and tired of history museums. Then to Munich, to visit some castles. Then to Vienna for a few days, and Switzerland for a few, then to Paris for the rest of my time before I head to London on the 15th.

The train ride last night was... not good.

The ticketeer saw fit to give me a seat:

In a middle of three seats
Facing backwards
In the front of the cabin, meaning the chair doesn't recline
In the cabin furthest back, next to the room with all the barking dogs
Next to a guy who didn't get on until 1:30, who had to get by and fully woke me up the only time I was even close to sleeping
Across from a kid who couldn't stop moving and kicking me all night

add to this the ungodly hour - a 23:05 to 6:43 ride - and it made for one bad night

In Oslo now, will be in Bergen tonight & maybe tomorrow. Saved a day getting down here, so I might stay longer or move on to a country that isn't so expensive.

Another thing that amazes me about Norway is how they build their train lines. In other countries they kinda follow the terrain, but mostly just build the trains as straight as possible. Tunnels go straight through a mountain, bridges cross over lakes, etc. In Norway they have virtually no land to work with, especially around the mountains, and they use their tunnels to connect different parts of passable land. It's not uncommon to have a steep uphill or downhill, or a right or left curve, all while underground.

I know I've talked on alot about how beautiful Norway is, but no country has a right to look this amazing. It has everything - tall mountains, deep lakes, forested hills, long, winding waterfalls, lush forests, small fishing hamlets, brilliant sunsets (when it sets), modern cities... I can't really describe how great it is, and I'm usually pretty good a turning a phrase or three. Wait for some pictures, I guess.

One thing that has amazed me is how layered the country is. As any learned artists could tell you, the most beautiful masterpieces were done by painting one colored layered over the previous one. It's insanely difficult to do right - Da Vinci did it for Mona Lisa, among others. Computer graphic design works on the same principle. Norway is similar... rather than just seeing a lake or a mountain, there is a lake then a hill then a few taller hills then a tall mountain off to one side and a smaller one to the other, behind which is a huge, snow-covered mountain, and all around are layers of colored clouds. The hills and mountains also have layers - so steep each line of trees is noticably taller than the previous one, like a soccer pose.

The Adirondaks are similar, I guess, but not on this scale. Spent all day yesterday (six hours bus, six hours train) traveling from Narvik to Trondheim, over a thousand miles, and it wasn't until I neared Trondheim that the terrian changed even a little (less mountains).

strange: the formal greeting in Scandanavia is 'Hey!'. Makes me think everyone knows me or recognizes me.

Calvin & Hobbes is called 'Tommy & Tigren'

Getting a little tired of seeing so many museums... should find a spot to sit and rest and hike some, but have no time if I'm going to see every city I want to see.

Pictures soon? maybe.

After getting soaked in Stockholm yesterday I got on the train for Narvik, Norway at 1700. (Well, technically it was the train for Kiruna, Sweden, as the line for international trip reservations didn't open until 10 and I was there at 730and didn't want to wait). Was hoping to have some room to stretch out in after being completely drenched, but was put in a semi-cabin with six others. This was the first trip that I didn't get a window seat since a bus ride in Greece, which was disappointing.

Read for awhile, finishing up an amusing book I bought in Amsterdam at a friend's recommendation. Had bought another book that I planned on reading, but after I finished my book I noticed that the guy next to me was reading Douglas Adams. In German. But still, it was Douglas Adams. He spoke a little English, and we talked about Adams and Pratchett's work with his friend... they're both traveling north to visit one of Sweden's national parks. Around 2130 we started playing cards, and just played on and on until around 130. They taught me a game, I'd teach them one, etc.

Saw the sunlight at midnight - not the actual sun due to clouds, but it was still light enough to read by at 2400.

Woke up this morning to hear that the train tracks were washed out due to tons of rain, and we'll have to take a five hour bus ride instead. I wasn't looking forward to it, but it was a blessing in disguise - we got to slowly make our way through some of the most beatiful land on the planet. Started out in Lappland, moved to Nordland. Unfortunately my batteries in the camera were dead, so you'll just have to take my word for it. But the snow covered mountains, countless lakes and streams, waterfalls trickling down cliffsides, small, thin trees and bushes dotting the landscape as green as any tree I've seen... and then, as soon as we crossed into Norway (near the top of the mountains) little houses appeared everywhere, on every flat spot, small vacation homes for hikers and skiiers to get away from it all.

Now I have two or three days in Norvik, Norway, which is about 220 km inside the arctic circle. To give you an idea of how far north I am, look at Iceland - I've above that. Now look at mainland Canada - I'm slightly above the coastline of the mainland territories. Climate is wonderful here, though - feels like a warm fall day, due to the gulfstream.

Now I'm off to explore the city. There's a zoo nearby that features tame arctic wildlife that you can interact with... maybe they have a polar bear. Well, maybe not.

Stockholm would be wonderful if the museums weren't so small and it wasn't raining. Again.

well, had my first kinda major loss sometime in the last two days. while traveling from Amsterdam through Copenhagen to Malmo, Sweden, I seem to have completely lost my notebook. It's not a trip-threatening loss, but I have lost my maps, my phone cards, my spare ID pictures, my Eurail Insurance card, my USB key, and, most importantly, my notebook/journal and rail time table.

I'm not sure how or when I lost it - definitely had it at the hostel Sunday night - or if I'll ever get it back. It's strange, 'cause I'm so careful with what I have and this notebook isn't exactly something that I use often... I keep it securely in the laptop part of my backpack, and keep that locked.

Oh well. Should be able to get a timetable at a Eurail office, which might be in Stockholm (heading there tonight) and a notebook/pen/map I can get anywhere. It's just the panic from losing it that is hard to handle.

I like A'dam. Fun, relaxing city - lot of museums to go to. Yesterday I visited the zoo and the historical museum, and spent a fair bit of time in an English language bookshop. Had a tranditional Dutch dinner - Indonesian chicken. Dutch cooking is horrible enough that they have to import all of their specialties.

Today was the beautiful botanical gardens, the wonderfully creative and playful science museum (spent way too much time and had way too much fun here) and the dull and boring wait at the train station to reserve my ticket to Copenhagen. Now it's raining very very hard, and i'm very wet and wearing my rain jacket for the first time this trip.

Will never get used to how many bikes are in this city. They have seperate paths for them, but are always about to hit pedestrians. Lots to look out for when walking - trams, cars, other people, buses, bikes, etc.

Finding that I pick up way too many books in my travels - carrying around 5 or 6 books, most of them fairly thick (600 page paperbacks) that I didn't start with. They make my bag big and heavier, but I don't want to just lose them. Only thing I've lost so far was my alarm clock, which was stolen in Milan, and I had to replace it with a larger one.

Tonight is my first night train. I expect to take them every night for the next week while I travel through Norway and Sweden - so much space to cover, so much to see. I'll probably pick up another book or two on the way, but it'll be nice and relaxing. Looking forward to completely the quest for seeing the sun at midnight.

Kilkenny with John and Steve was nice. Arrived midday, had a good lunch - hadn't had fried chicken in a month. Kilkenny was a nice, old town... very small, very comfortable and relaxing. Walked to several cathedrals, all of which were over 700 years old. One of them we climbed up the round tower (very descriptive names here... 'Tall Cross', for example) and got a few of the entire town. Then we visited Kilkenny Castle, which was also good. Tour was a bit boring, but still fun. Rain made the day a little boring. All cooked pasta for dinner, then played more cards. Walked around to try and find a pub playing Irish music, but as John put it "it's easier to find Irish music in Boston than it is in Ireland". I was disappointed that I didn't hear any music outside of street performers, but I'll make do.



I'm now in Amsterdam, after a long day of travel.
11:05 bus from Kilkenny to Dublin, delayed, arrived at 2:15
2:17 bus to Dublin Airport, arrived around 3:00
5:20 flight to Amsterdam, delayed 30 minutes
With the time zone switch I arrived in A'dam at 8:30
train from airport to Amsterdam Centraal
tram from train station to hostel
got in around 10:00 tonight.
going to spend a few days here - visit the zoo, the NEMO science museum, the Van Gogh gallery, the city museum, etc.

I like the city so far, architectually it feels very much like home. Many of the streets would look normal in Albany, which is to be expected given it's dutch history. While all the other cities, even Dublin, have felt slightly foreign the other problem with A'dam has been my complete lack of knowledge of the Dutch language.

Copenhagen & Stockholm soon. Read about a really cool museum in Stockholm which focuses on the Nobel Peace prize, and has an exhibit about everyone who ever won, and what they did. I'm looking forward to it.

Dublinia

Been in Dublin three days now, and love the city. While the weather has been slightly depressing with constantly light rain, it's still been great to walk around and see the town. It is not a large tourist spot, with fairly few attractions, but most of the ones that are here are free to get into. Visited the Historical Museum, the Archeological Museum, the famous gaol whose name I forget (site of the execution of the leaders of the Easter Revolution) & the Natural History Museum over the last few days. The last one was a lot of fun, tons of stuffed animals and skeletons of most every animal imaginable. Strangely enough the catherdrals - St Patrick's & Christ Church - cost a fair bit to even get into, so we didn't go see them.

Spent a lot of time walking around O'Connelly Street, Grafton Street & Lord Edwards St. Due to the rain always picking up around 3 or 4 we've ended up playing a fair bit of card games, and watched a few movies either at the cinema or the hostel.

I don't think I'll ever get used to traffic on the wrong side of the road. It makes the streets slightly dangerous to cross, as I'm always looking the wrong way.

Music is good. Still haven't made it to a pub yet to hear some good traditional stuff, though. Were going to last night, but the one next to my hostel didn't have it like the advertised. Going to Kilkenny for tomorrow before coming back and flying to Amsterdam on Saturday - should be able to find some good music there.

Dublin's also expensive. Spent more here than I would like, but that's too be expected. In a few days I've going to start heading north (way up north...) so I can see the midnight sun. I should be hitting Kiruna (possibly farther), in Sweden, by the 26th or 27th after a 20 hour rail trip from Stockholm. After another few days of travel through Norway I'll begin my quick tour through Germany, with the possibility of a visit to poland and a concentration camp or two.

Appearences can be deceiving.

Yesterday, while in Melpensa Airport outside of Milan, I was sitting in terminal 1A01 and had just sat down after ordering some dinner. It was crowded, and a Muslim man and his wife asked if they could sit down. He was dressed in full religious garb, and she had a veil covering everything but her eyes - not exactly the most comfortable position ever.

The man asked what I was reading, and when I said it was a science fiction novel his eyes lighted up and asked if I had ever read Dune. I have - it's one of my favorites. We had both read all 10 books in the series at least once, and spent a good 15 minutes talking about it and other science fiction.

When he asked where I was from I said New York, and both he and his wife sincerely apologized for what happened on 9/11. Then, as the man was asked over to help three people solve a dispute - they only spoke Urdu, French and Italian each, and he spoke all three - his wife and I started talking about our travels.

Turns out the were in Europe because she is one of the leading doctors in Pakistan, and there was a EU medical conference in Barcalona she had been specially invited to attend. Her husband, a high ranking official in the Pakistani government, was merely tagging alone for the ride to sightsee.

The whole conversation left me rather stunned, and reminded me to never trust first impressions.

Safely in Dublin, although we were slightly delayed so I didn't get in until 01:00.

Milano

The space key onthis keyboard is broken, I'll likely have some problems with words sticking together.

Was in Venice the last two days, first one alone and the second with Liz Kays and her friends. First day I made the mistake of walking around at 2:30... hottest time of the day. spent a few hours walking around, then found my hotel back on the mainland in Mestre. Met Liz the next morning at breakfast, then we were going to go to church in St.Marks, but they wouldn't let me in with my bag. So, I waited around outside and practiced speed-shooting pictures with my camera. It's remarkably hard to take a zoomed picture of a pidgeon in midair, you have to find one that's flying, zoom in and track it at the same time. I got a few good ones.

Then had lunch at an old seafoodplace, had shrimp scampi and calamari. Quite good. Spent a few hours walking around the city talking and eating gelato together, saw a sting of street vendors. This time they were caught and the police got all of their stuff. Then I left, three hour train ride to Milan. Arrived around 21:30, got to my hostel about 22:30. Hostel is in a planned community, which is kinda cool. Designed for about 5000 inhabitants, it's meant to provide a relaxing, enviromentally sound place to live. Lots of green, but what fascinating me was that every street, besides a few main ones, was a dead end. The goal is to cut down on traffic, and encourage walkways for pedestrians. It worked... great place to be.

Played Munchkin Impossible with some Asian travelers, which proved very difficult as none of them spoke English, two only spoke Japanese and one spoke Korean. We had to use a sheet of paper to right everything down in numbers to do all the events. Great fun, though.


Monday wasthe wrongday to come to Milan - everything closes down, museum wise. Also, it's raining. Fortunately a really cool museum was still open - Museo d'Arte e Scienza. It showcased a lot of Da Vinci's creations and artwork, as well as different types of art from around the world. Wasn't big, unfortunately, but had a really cool focus on showing you how do determine true antiques from fakes. I got to play with fire when one hands-on activitiy let me use a blowtorch to heat a screwdriver tip to be red hot and poke it into two identical objects, one made of ivory and the other of plastic. The ivory just left a small black mark while the plastic gave way and let off a bad smell. They also talked about identifying originals of everything from paintings to books to rugs to watches to guns to glass. Never really seen much of this stuff before, and it was a lot of fun to learn about.

Love Milan. Great city - wide open streets, lots of green areas to walk, smart, polite, professional citizens. Milan is the business & economical capital of Italy, and it shows. The upscale shops are incredible, some display nothing in their windows and won't let you in unless you've been invited to shop there.

Now I'm in an internet cafe spending way more than usual per hour, which seems typical for everything in Milan. American radio is playing, and I need to figure out how to burn the 6 hours in a rainy city between now and my flight to Dublin. I should get another book,I think.

Can't wait to be in an English speaking country...

off to venice

as wonderful as rimini has been, I have to leave it eventually. tomorrow morning i'll hop on the train to venice, where i'll spend saturday and sunday. i think i'll tour the island where they make glass saturday; sunday i'll be with elizabeth kays and her relatives. after than I head to milan, and then fly to dublin.

sorry for the total lack of proper english here, but italian keyboards are different from ours outside of the qwerty key setup, and i haven't gotten used to them yet.

rimini has been great. so relaxing. spent all my time doing nothing, either walking the beach, sitting reading or walking to the mall to see how they do things there. the italian equivalent of walmart was fun to see - their employees get about on rollerskates. also interesting was the store layout, which is designed like a maze to trap people in and make them walk past everything in order to get out. people in america don't stand for that, except in casinos.

as for how the city looks, think the italian version of Florida. foreignors haven't discovered the city yet, and it's wonderfully nice, beautiful, clean, modern, etc... mostly everything rome and naples weren't. while i loved rome, it was dirty, crowded, busy, and stressful. i could definitely come back here anytime, preferably with a group of people to enjoy it with. amazing vacation spot.

rimini has also been cheap, although the heat has caused a drastic increase in gelato consumption which cuts into saves. also spent way more than i planned on for my night in venice tomorrow, as every single room in the city under 80 euros is taken. so much for spending two nights there... cities in italy are too close together to sleep through the night and its cities are far too dangerous to sleep anywhere else, so i got a decent room at a nice hotel. i won't mind a real shower bed...

will probably update again in dublin, when i'll have some more pictures and videos up, i hope

got tired of history and crowds and catholic artifacts... so i decided to leave rome. i visited pisa and firenze just to see their most famous sites (Piazza Duomo & David, respectively). then i got on a train and headed out to the beach town of Rimini, on the adriatic sea. not many americans know of the place, but picture what florida or los vegas is to us and it's that to italians - their hot vacation spot.

best part is is that it's cheaper than rome, it's not that crowded now and my hostel is less than 200m from the beach. i think i'll stay until saturday afternoon, when i'll head to venice.

Italia

I've been in Italy for three days now - a wonderful country. From Patra I had a 16 hour ferry ride, which I slept for most of. I arrived in Bari and took the train to Naples, where I stayed the night and all the next day. Visited Pompei, and then took the train to Rome where I slept last night. Toured the city today, and will likely stay until late afternoon Wednesday - try to hit Firenze (Florence) in time to find a hostel.

Impressions:

at first the landscape looks pretty boring... between Bari and the stop in Taranto the landscape was very flat, and although pretty it was dull to look at. The train was down past Taranto so we all got on a bus for Naples. There were about 12 of us who took the same trip from Athens to Naples, so we had some fun with that. Still, 31 travel hours wasn't fun. Forunately on the bus ride the terrain got more interesting, with mountains everywhere. The Italians and the Greeks take opposite approaches - Greeks love to build in valleys, while the Italians appear to love building hours in the most inaccessable spots imaginable. I've seen houses build into cliff walls that I wouldn't want to climb, much less live at. Entire villages are found on the tops of large hills. They also delight in their bridges and tunnels - all are named, with their length and important information prominently displayed.

Naples I didn't like too much - it would be a great spot to get away from everything, but there isn't much in the way of sightseeing. A pretty, romantic town, it was also nosiy, crowded and running down in places. Still, I saw a horse show, walked along the coastal plaza and spent 5 hours trying to find my hostel - that place was impossible to find. It's also a dangerous city, as pickpockets are everywhere. Even the dogs are always stealing from each other...

Next day I walked back to the train station, and went to Pompei. No idea the ruins would be so big, and I enjoyed it. Saddest part was definitely the people buried alive - some rolling in agony, others curled up crying. Tried to get lunch in the city center, but everything was closed down due to the Genoa-Naples football match. Fortunately I stopped to watch the game at one of the local places, and the owner said he'd call his wife over to cook for me. Naples won - everyone was in a very, very good mood. Watching the game with the crowd was the most intense I've seen sports fans, and from me that's something.

Rome has been good so far. Amazing how much there is to see... I've hit the main sites outside of the Vatican, which I'll go to tomorrow, and the university museums, which I'll do Wednesday. Most interesting so far was the Time Elevator, a new place that takes you on an hour tour of the history of the city. You sit in motion similators, have a curved screen in front of you and sit back and enjoy the ride. Very immersive, to the point that you fly over an ancient sailing ship in a storm and the sprinklers turn on and fans start blowing really hard. Great time, and fairly cheap, too. Definitely go if you have time. I expected it to be a little childish, but it wasn't at all. Almost scary at times, such as the wolves with Romus and Remus or the death of Caeser.

on a fun note, in the ancient temple of Vestius a group has established a cat sanctuary where they take stray cats and give them food. It's in a small piazza, and there must have been at least 50 cats lying around sleeping, playing and looking up expectantly at people for food. completely unexpected, but a lot of fun.

now it's quite hot, and I decided to break from walking to type this all up. supposed to be hot for several more hours and break in the evening, so i might go see Ocean's 13 at the cinema in Republica Square.

will update again, probably in florence.

mom - i've emailed you a few times, but it says your address no longer exists at that name. the $500 is fine.

Patra, Greece

Well, I'm now on my own. Siena left this morning at 8:00, leaving me behind to do whatever I felt like doing. I checked out of the hotel, got on the metro to the train station and got on a train for the first time in many years - but certainly not the last time. After an hour ride from Athens to Korinthos (Corinth) I switched trains to arrive here in Patra (Patras) two hours later. I have a 17 hour ferry ride from here to Italy, and by this time tomorrow will likely be on another train on my way to Naples. While there I'll visit the famous Amalfi coast, the ruins of ancient Pompeii and possible take an afternoon trip over to Capri.

The past few days have been fairly slow paced for me. As I had little shopping to do and with only one group trip planned I relaxed and rested up mentally and phyiscally for the trip ahead.

It's kind of a shame that now that I'm quite comfortable with Greek culture I'm up and leaving for a completely new country. I've found myself adapting to Greek customs more and more lately - rather that nodding my head for yes, I've caught myself doing the half-slanted head bow customary here. I've picked up enough greek to order a meal without using English, which the owner at the local cafe noticed and complimented me on. I can simply order souvlaki, rather than pointing and hoping he understands - he gave me a euro off in celebration.

The train ride out showed me again how pretty the countryside here is. You may not know it, but Greece is the most mountainous country in Europe, with over 75% of the surface covered with them. I'm not surprised - there was never a time when I couldn't see a mountain. Sometimes the train tracks took me along the very edge of the mountain, right next to the sea, and on the other side I could see more mountains. Where there are no mountains everything is in use. Villages are everywhere, as are their four major produce plants - olive trees, pistachio trees, grape vines and little sour oranges that they use to throw at politicans (or so I've been told).

Only eight weeks left in Europe...

More Pictures!

Yesterday it rained in Heraklion, which is rare enough - supposedly it was the first June rain in decades. Even rarer, though, was that the city was covered with a dusting of sand from the Sahara desert, brought north over the sea by windstorms and caught in the rainfall. Every surface has a coating of sand that looked similar to pollen, and I can still it on the streets.


Today we visit a winery owned by Yanni, and then get back on the overnight ferry to Athens. In two days I'll be on my own.


The jail Socrates was held in before his execution:






















Sunset from the highest point in the city:

















Famous Venetian fort wall, watching over the harbor and guarding a harbor wall well over a kilometer long (don't know exactly) - took over an hour to walk both ways:






















Heraklion, by the old Venetian City Wall:























The ancient Minoan palace of Knossos, one of the largest, oldest buildings in the world

























The 2004 Olympic grounds:






















Lunch in Monastiraki, downtown Athens:
















Another country village on the way to Delphi:

/edit - added some pictures

I've been in Heraklion the past few days, capital of the island of Crete. Crete is part of Greece - it contains four states of the 52 that make up the country. The states are much smaller that our states... as Greece itself is about the size of Albama, each Greecian state is more comparable to a county of ours.

Heraklion is a nice city, although nothing special compared to Athens. It's very green, with lots of trees along the major roads and town squares. It's impossible to walk down the streets without running into low-lying bushes or trees, unless you're in the true downtown district. The other interesting part of the city is the Venetian Wall that surrounds the old town - 4 km in each side forms a triangle around the old town. I spent yesterday morning walking this, and also walked out along the sea wall that protects the harbor. After getting back to the hotel I slept for the afternoon, then we had dinner and a discussion with Yanni, the owner of the hotel and one of the hottest stars in the Greek business & political world. At only 32 he's already on the Heraklion state congress, and is running for national congress and will almost surely win next year. Highly successful, if he wants to he could be president of Greece within 20 years. Talking to him about the hotel industry and the Greek business world was great.

Today has been a slow day, as I haven't felt like doing too much. I walked down to the city center for lunch - Cretan food is a strange mix of Greek and Italian food, due to tastes left over from the Venetian occupation. I had a Cretan Lasanga-like dish, which didn't taste nearly as good as the picture looked. Still looking for a true American hamburger... Yanni says that the one at his hotel is good, as his wife, who is American, wanted at least one true hamburger to have. Might have one tonight.

Here's the first half of the pictures I plan on uploading... couldn't get the others online before the laptop's battery died. I'll put the others up soon.



Downtown Athens, you can see the mixture of the old and new in the crowded city:


















The rock where Peter preached to the Athenians, talking about their statue to the unknown God:





City guard in front of the parliment building:





Greek country village, on the road to Delphi




The view from Delphi:


View of Athens from the Monestary of St George, highest point in the city
















Night view of the Acropolis & Parthenon from the rooftop of our hotel


















Cats and dogs are everywhere in athens:















Heraklion city street:

Went to the most beautiful beach I've ever seen today - an inlet off of the Agean sea. I forget the name, but it's where the Greeks sailed from in the Trojan war.

Tomorrow we visit Mycence, Epicarus and leave for Crete for five days. Not sure if I'll be able to update much between now and when we come back, but at least you'll know where I am.

Yesterday I walked on American soil.

Today we'll spend all day at the beach.

Wednesday, May 31st, 21:53

Saturday we took a tour bus up to Delphi to see the ruins of the famous Oracle. We got to see much of the middle countryside on the way – it’s a beautiful land, full of small villages, winding roads, farmland and rolling hills. I’m not really sure I had truly understood what rolling hills were until I saw them here – picture the blue ridge mountains, only with short plant life and without the sharpness of tall, jagged rocks and edges. While many mountain ranges look like they were simply dropped in place, Greece appears to have been carved with care.

Delphi was once the most important site in the world – for centuries it was the pinnacle of power in its large sphere of influence. Even the Persians paid homage at to the Oracle, consulting it for advice. Rarely in history has a group held as much power as the priests did here, centuries before Christ lived. It was easy to see why this place was chosen for such a sacred spot… such a beautiful place. Wandering up the path to the ruins I could look out and see the land below reaching out for miles, only stopped by other mountains. I’ll have pictures later, but there may be some up on the group’s blog site now. After a long climb we reached the top where there was a stadium for athletic games. Naturally we decided to race even after the long climb up, which turned out to not be the best idea ever…

That night we grabbed some dinner in Plaka, listened to some Indian street performers playing music from ‘The Last of the Mohicans’, visited the national gardens (saw a species-confused peacock that thought it was a cat) and then saw the changing of the guard. Amazes me how these men can stand perfectly still for an hour. It took about two minutes of us watching him for him to even blink. We then got lost around Omonio Square trying to get home – not exactly the best part of town to be lost in. It was fun, though. Getting lost always is, unless you’re like one of our group and wander around the city for six hours before finding your way home.

Sunday we went to Syntagma as a group to see the weekly parade for the changing of the guards – much more pomp than there was the previous night. Then saw several various sites, such as Hadrian’s Gate, the Ancient Agora, the Temple of Olympian Zeus & the rock from which Paul preached to the Athenians. Some of us went back to Plaka for lunch – split Octopus & Squid for appetizers. Both were good, especially the octopus (suckers and all)

We then got lost on the tram trying to get to a beach. Eventually found the public beach and spent time there, but it was crowded and windy and there was barely enough room for a Frisbee. Took a completely packed tram home – some of the worst 45 minutes of our lives. Coming back to the hotel we went to the rooftop restaurant for an incredible meal – grilled quail, red wine & some of the best chocolate cake I’ve ever eaten. We stayed up later than normal; sipping wine & staring across at the beautiful night view of the acropolis. I’m not sure there’s much that compares to that view.

Nothing much happened Monday. It rained. Alot. We went to the national archaeological museum and saw a lot of marble statues. Got lost in the city, again (this time on purpose). I think I then napped? Not quite sure, exactly. By now the days are starting to become much calmer – I’ve gotten over the feeling of “Oh, wow, I’m abroad and have to be doing everything” and begun to take things the European way. We’ve slown things down, spend a lot of time on the roof just sitting and talking, and don’t always feel the need to be rushing out to do something. We’ve already started eating later – lunch at 2 and dinner at 8:30 is common. Even when we’re busy, we seem to take things slower than we did. We’d rather just walk around and do nothing than visit site after site.

Tuesday was very similar to Monday, minus the rain. Still very peaceful.

Today we went to some random museum which had more modern artifacts than the previous ones, from the Christian & Turk era of Greek history. Not too interesting, but better than more marble. We then had our first business lecture at the Athens University of Economics & Business; where we heard all about the Greek economy. I’d rather look at more marble statues…

Visited the 2004 Olympic Complex, which was really cool. Completely deserted, so we got to walk all around and see everything. A few of us then went to The Mall (actual name) to see Pirates 3. Words cannot really describe this theatre – it was about as fancy as Proctors or the Palace Theaters. The entire mall was amazing. Crossgates seems very, very lame in comparison.

Not too much else to say, now. Busy past few days. I can’t believe we left home over a week ago. Tomorrow will be similar – we’re visiting the Athens Stock Exchange, the US Embassy and then having dinner at the highest point in Athens, next to the Monastery of St. George.

Another update will come in a few. Meanwhile, check out the group blog for some pictures; I believe Sham updated the second or third picture page with some photos I’d taken.

Quick update from Greece - this email is from the Siena group mailing list; I'll repost it here. Later, if I have time, I'll put up some of my own thoughts.

------

Greetings from Greece! We all arrived in Athens safely…a little jet-lagged and weary, but ready for adventure!

It was a little drizzly yesterday (Thursday), but most of us took a mid-day nap. The rain cleared up in time for us to take an evening metro ride to Plaka (old town area), and explore a bit. We had a half-day city tour around Athens this morning (again, a little drizzly, but the forecast for the rest of this week looks good!)...and climbed up to the Acropolis to view the Parthenon, etc. The students are all doing well, exploring the city a little bit and getting used to the food, using Euros, etc. Everyone is happy and healthy...always a good thing!

Dr. Sham has stated a blog of our trip. We expect to add some photos on Sunday. If you'd like to follow our adventures, click on this link:
http://web.mac.com/philoctetes77
The Userid and password are both Greece2007 (case sensitive, so please type exactly as written).

Have a nice day,

Debbie

Deborah L. Kelly, Esq.
Assistant Professor of Management
Siena College

Friday, May 25th, 16:59 - Athens

We arrived safely in Athens early yesterday morning, around 9:30 local time (time difference is -7 EST, so it was close to 2:30). After checking into the hotel and throwing our bags down my roommate, my professor and I walked down into Omonia Square to grab a giro for lunch. Crashed back in the hotel for a 5 hour nap, when we all met in the lobby and headed down to Syntagma & Plaka for dinner, which are the major shopping areas in Athens.

While wandering around on the outskirts of Plaka I found myself in the middle of a police raid of building - about a dozen officers in full SWAT gear (plexiglass shields) jumped out of a van and ran into a building. All of the locals thought it was nothing out of the ordinary. During dinner at an outside cafe we found ourselves surrounded by Liverpool football fans, whose team had lost to Milan the night before in the Euro 2007 championship, all of who sang fight songs for hours.

Today we took a brief tour of the city by bus, stopping by the old modern Olympic Stadium before heading to the top of the Acropolis. We spent a few hours at the summit before heading down to Plaka for lunch. While in Plaka we caught a pickpocket, who was following us around for a few minutes. She was very, very bad at what she did - it was so obvious that she was following us around. Once we started staring at her and laughing she left.

One of the interesting things about Athens is the number of stray dogs that the entire city treats as their own - they're cared for by vets, and fed by shop owners, etc. They'll go to sleep whereever, whenever, and no one cares at all.

Tomorrow we head up to Delphi - I'll update again next week.

Greetings All

Throughout my trip I'll periodically be updating this site with some notes about my trip. I will try to update at least once a week, but I can't make any garuntees.

If you want to reach me while I'm away, send an email to deynar@gmail.com. I'll reply as soon as I can.

For now, I'll leave you with my temporary schedule for how I've planned my trip:

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Greece:
May 23rd: Siena College, 10:00 am
JFK, 2:00

June 8th: Siena group departs
June 9-10th: in Greece. Visit Thermopylae, other sites suggested by Dr. Sham
June 11thish: Overnight ferry from Igoumenitsa, Greece to Bari, Italy

Italy, between June 11th & 17th:
Bari – Amalfi/Naples
Naples – Rome (two days)
Rome – Assisi
Assisi – Florence/Pisa
Florence - Venice
June 17th: In Venice on the 17th with Elizabeth Kays & relatives

Ireland:
June 18th: Fly from Venice to Dublin
June 18th – In Dublin with Irina.
June 19th – 21st: In Dublin with Irina, Charles & John. Potentially visit surrounding area.

June 23nd or 24th - Fly to Amsterdam
June 24rd: Amsterdam, meet Maurits Kersten

Between June 23rd and July 15th:

Amsterdam, Brussel, Luxembourg, Paris (visit David & Chris) Orleans, Geneva, Bern, Zurich, Innsbruck, Vienna, Saltzburg, Munich, Prague, Auschwitz, Krakow, Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen.

If there is any time left, head into Norway/Sweden. Unlikely, however.


British Isles:
July 15th: Meet up with Gill Biliski in London
Check into Hilton London Olympia, @ 3:00.
July 16th: Pick up Sean Kelly @ Heathrow, sightsee
July 17th – 19th: In London at the Olympia. Check out morning, 19th.

July 19th – 24thish: Visit Stonehenge. Visiting a Welsh Castle. Visit other stuff, going north. Possibly spend some time in Ireland - quick ferry over.
Spend a night with Rob Goodwin in Sheffield
July 24thish: Meet Sean’s friend Rory Reynolds in Edinburgh for first half of week. Stay with him, explore Scotland.

Sometime between July 24th & July 30th: Leave Edinburgh, stay with Rory’s parents in Glasgow.
July 30th: Morning Flight from Glasgow to Dublin. 5 Hour layover. Meet up with Irina & Daniel for lunch. Early Evening Flight from Dublin to JFK. Deborah Kelly meets us @ JFK @ 7:00; home late on July 30th.