Friday, September 9, 2005 Friday night after a hectic run trying to make our arrangements for Portugal, I ate dinner with some girls from the program that I didn’t know very well. I had been enjoying a slightly more relaxing afternoon, until Jared called to say that the website for the travel agency that was taking the bus out to Portugal had been broken and we had no reservations. He and four others had rented a car, but there were still several girls that wanted to go and they were more or less counting on me to rent a car. Of [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday & Thursday Sept. 1, 2005 Getting used to eating dinner at 9pm and then going out with friends may be one of the hardest things about living in Europe; we all met at 11pm in front of the school and went to a huge hotel we had seen on the walking tour we took of the city. Some girls we ran into during the tour were here studying from the states as well. They said there was going to be a huge outdoor showing of the movie Garden State on one of the big streets at 10:30pm. Garden State dubbed [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday August 30, 2005 After a 4:45 am wake up in the hostel David and I tried to call a taxi. Lo and behold our phone card from the front desk last night did not work any longer, so we had to wake up the shift manager who sleeps in the lounge when they are closed. He was not particularly happy about it either. Fortunately he called a cab for us, and when it arrived we negotiated a very fair price to get David to the Train station and me to the airport. David and I parted ways and I took [View Full Entry]

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Arriving in Milan after an early rise and flight by Ryanair, we experienced for the first time what it is like to encounter a third language and culture in one day, entirely foreign to both of us (David’s excellent French proved more than proficient for our time in Paris). Having several hours until our train departed from Milan to Florence, we made our way via the subway to the Duomo (cathedral) in the center of town. Milan’s metro is quite confusing, but a helpful array of sparsely multi-lingual homeless men happily stand waiting to help you purchase the right ticket from [View Full Entry]

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On our first day David and I walked to the Louvre, Musée Rodin, the tomb of Napoleon, the Musée d’Orsay, and finally knocked over some interesting Parisian food at the famous cafe Les Deux Magots. After buying the Museum card that allows us to hit 36 of Paris’ major museums and monuments for free (€18 for 1-day card), we joined the mile long line to enter the Louvre. Seeing the Winged Victory was a throw-back to a book I read freshman year at JBU called Mrs. Bridge; having also read the book, David and I were able to laugh at the [View Full Entry]

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Orientation week at JBU has come to a close, and at last I am in Paris. No, I am not in Paris, I'm in Florence, but since I didnt' have time to write in Paris, we'll pretend like I'm in Paris, on a river, well next to a river, and the sun is pouring through the surprisingly chocolate-colored Eiffel Tower. I'd like to give my thanks to my dear friend Billy Nye for his spectacular generosity and for putting up with me sleeping on his love seat in his little tiny J. Alvin dorm room for a week (which is about [View Full Entry]

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