http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Drake/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Drake en-us Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:18:17 BST Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:18:17 BST Wednesday May 2 2007 I arrived in Zermatt at 830pm Tuesday night. I made it to my hostel just in time to check in. The guy at the desk was typing up a note for me as I walked in the door so that was lucky. It was soooo good to be back in Zermatt. It was the one place that I knew I absolutely had to get back to while I was in Europe. I loved it so much before and there was still so much ther http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/South-West/Zermatt/blog-155145.html Sunday April 29 2007 Meggiersquos sister studied abroad a few years ago and traveled to Switzerland. She heard of this tiny town in the mountains called Gryon. Meggiersquos sister told her that if she did not go to Gryon that they would not be speaking once Meggie returned to the states. It is just that amazing of a place to go. So Meggie Jacqueline Monica and I decided to check it out http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/blog-155094.html Saturday April 28 2007 Meggie Jacqueline Tom Ross and I left Zurich together around 6pm. We headed for Interlaken. I hadnrsquot heard much about Interlaken before we got there but Jacqueline insisted that it was the ldquoAdventure capital of the worldrdquo. So we went and even the train ride there was amazing. The mountains were incredible and the sunset over the lake was even bett http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/South-West/Interlaken/blog-155086.html Friday April 27 2007 Jacqueline Monica Meggie and I flew from Vienna to Zurich Switzerland on Friday. We were immediately greeted by friendly people even at the customs check in. We had a 10 minute conversation with the lady that checked our passports at the airport. She didnrsquot really care that people were in line. She wanted to know where we were going and wanted to tell us her fav http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-East/Z-rich/blog-155070.html Thursday April 12 2007 We got into Granada about 9am after a 12 hour overnight train from Barcelona. That was one of the worst train rides I have had because we were in regular seating and had to sit up straight the entire time and the chairs did not lean back or anything. It was hard to get any sleep on that train but it saved us some money so we didnrsquot have to get a hostel for the nig http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Andalusia/Granada/blog-155064.html Sunday April 8 2007 We left Nice at 5am to head for Barcelona. We finally got there at about 6pm. We immediately went to find our hostel. Wellhellipwe found out that you get what you pay for. We made a reservation for 2 nights in a hostel that costs 12 euro a night. We quickly realized that no one spoke English at this hostel. We were put in a 20 person room with only 2 bathrooms only one http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/blog-155052.html Thursday April 5 2007 After a 6 hour train ride we arrived in Nice and quickly found our hostel and once again met up with Tyler and Peter. The others that we were meeting there came later that night. The 10 of us were put together in a 10 bed room which was fun. The hostel served cheap food and drinks so that we did not have to go out at night to find things to do and eat. The first day we http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d--Azur/Nice/blog-150997.html Sunday April 1 2007 Meggie and I left Saturday night March 30th for a 14 hour over night train from Vienna to Paris. The train wasn't all that bad surprisingly and went by fairly quickly. Because it was a holiday weekend all of the sleeper cars were already reserved so we reserved a regular seat for the 14 hour journey. So we were sitting in a 6 person cabin the whole time. Fortunately hal http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/-le-de-France/Paris/blog-150235.html March 2425 2007 Jacqueline Tyler and I left the dorms at 4am on Saturday morning to catch a 5am train out of Vienna headed for Prague. While I was in line to buy the ticket to Prague in Vienna I met a guy who was from Arlington Heights 15 minutes away from my house in Lake Zurich. Wierd. The train was empty and we folded down the seats and slept the whole way to Prague and got there at 1 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/North/Prague/blog-142764.html February 15 2007 A few weeks ago I went with my friend from Canada Mike to Schloss Schnbrunn on the outskirts of Vienna. The history of the plot of land dates back to the middle ages but the palace that we see today was built in 1700 as a grand hunting lodge for Leapold I. In 1728 Maria Theresa moved into the Palace and expanded it even more. She had it converted from a hunting lodge to a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna-State/Vienna/blog-142164.html March 1618 2007 My buddy assigned to me by the school here in Wiener Neustadt Matthias is the best buddy that anyone could possibly ask for. This weekend he invited a few of us the other Adam from Drake and two canadian girls Monica and Jacqueline to go to his father's cabin in Corinthia in the Austrian Alps. After a 3 12 hour drive from Wiener Neustadt we arrived at the cabin and qui http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Carinthia/Villach/blog-139677.html Sunday March 4 2007 After a very sombering experience at Mauthausen I decided it would be good to do something more upbeat and fun. On the train ride home from Mauthausen Tyler and I decided we would find a train to Bratislava that night. I knew absolutely nothing about Bratislava so I first had to ask him what country it was in. Of course it is the capitol of Slovokia.So after we got off t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-135085.html Friday February 24 2007 Our German teacher Herr Sulzgruber thought it would be good to take our class on a tour of Wiener Neustadt. He is an officer in the Austrian army and has also written several books on Wiener Neustadt and its past. We started our tour at the Reckturm. It means Rack Tower in engish. It was built used as storage of torture equipment in the beginning of the 13th centur http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/blog-135054.html Saturday March 3 2007 On Saturday a few of us decided to go and visit a concentration camp in Austria. It is located in Mauthausen Austria and was the largest camp within Austria. Getting to the camp was a bit of a struggle though. We woke up Saturday morning to catch the 730 bus to the Wiener Neustadt train station then took a train to Vienna then in Vienna took the subway to another tra http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Upper-Austria/Mauthausen/blog-135001.html On Friday night almost all of the international students from the school boarded a bus headed for Venice. We left at midnight and arrived in Venice shortly after 8am. The trip was planned by the International office here at the school to let us experience the Carnival of Venice.The Carnival in Venice is said to have originated from a victory of the Serenissima Repubblica that is Venice in t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-130416.html Our flight was scheduled to leave O'hare at 233pm on the 6th but because of snow and some stupidity on United's part we did not take off untill after 730pm. Because we took off over 5 hours late we missed our connecting flight in Frankfurt Germany. It was a little bit of a worry but it worked out well and we got on another small plane to Vienna less than an hour later. Once we arrived in http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna-State/Vienna/blog-127436.html