Saturday --- Lindsey and I took the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station to meet my friend Mark. I had not seen Mark in four years and I was beyond excited! We had first met at the University of Utah when he was an exchange student and he was one of my housemates when I lived in Derby in the summer of 2001. I was kinda nervous to be honest since it had been so long but after seeing him it was just like yesterday. You don't have too many friends like that and I am lucky he is one of mine. We ran into him at the end of the Heathrow Express platform and went to the shop to buy some warm cans before hopping on the tube. Mark and his fiance Natalie had just bought ... read more

Tuesday --- Lindsey and I arrived at Vienna's Westbahnhof just past noon. A new city! A new experience! Oh but what was with the clouds? And damn it was cold! I remember saying "Let's hope the weather gets better." Unfortunately it did not. Unfortunately the weather had more of an impact on my opinion of Vienna than I hoped. Damn you weather. It was only September. Our hostel, the well known Wombat's, was located a convenient three minute walk from the station on Mariahilfer Straße. We tried to check in but couldn't until two so threw our packs in the storage room and walked around the main road. We checked out a grocery store and a bank but they wouldn't exchange our forint, only dollars. Finally we were able to check in and Lindsey wanted to ... read more

This is the place to visit if you're ever thinking the glass is half full. It really is shocking to see what humans are capable of doing to one another and Auschwitz is a leading example of this. But places like these, as unfortunate and disturbing as they are, are necessary to visit and learn about. As the philosopher George Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And while I'd rather let the photos speak for themselves, I'll leave these few observations: The size. Auschwitz was much smaller than I had imagined, while Birkenau was much larger (Birkenau is 30 times the size of Auschwitz). Auschwitz was the administration camp while Birkenau was the extermination camp. Monowitz, the industrial camp and the largest of the three, no longer exists. The ... read more

Monday --- We landed in Sandakan just after 3 p.m. I could tell from the descent that this was a much bigger city. We grabbed a taxi and headed to the Novotel Hotel that Sherry had booked for 2 nights as her treat. We soon realized that the hotel was miles away from the city center and in a shopping mall type area. Not our scene. Fortunately, the Irish girls back at Uncle Tan's had recommended The Meridian Hotel as a nice stay when in the mood to spoil yourself. And we were definitely ready for that after being in the jungle for 3 days without running water. After some debate we hailed a cab and took off for the Meridian. Stepping into the posh lobby I noticed the Ramadan Buffet and smiled. Soon we were ... read more

Thursday --- The van picked us up at 6:30 in the morning for our tour to the Bridge over the River Kwai and the Tiger Temple in the Kanchanaburi Province of Thailand. We were the second ones picked up, so it took a while to grab the other members of our group before driving northwest out of Bangkok. I fell asleep for a bit and when I woke we had arrived at a World War II Cemetery for Allied POW's. We walked around and I noticed how young the soldiers had been at the time they passed. It was pretty depressing. We got back on the van and a short while later arrived at the Bridge over the River Kwai. Our tour price included admission into the war museum a couple hundred yards from the bridge ... read more