While at Thierry's I went to the cemetery at Montparnasse to see Jean-Paul Sartre's grave. The day I went I got an sms (text message) from Alex. "Where are you and what are you doing? Do you want lunch?" So I went back to the station as soon as possible and told him that was where I'd be. He then said to meet him at the closest McDonalds to the tower. So I walked around the tower, trying to find a McDonals, and I walked around it about two times before I sent him a message back and we met at [View Full Entry]

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I caught a plane from Zagreb to Paris on Nov. 17th. I arrived in Paris two hours later. I had about thirty minutes to get through immigration and customs, find the B line of the RER (one of Paris' train systems, they have many, most go underground as well as above ground so it is hard to call it a subway and there is one specifically called the metro...but I wasn't looking for that one), get off at St. Michel in the Latin area of Paris and find Alex. For obvious reasons I was about two hours late. Alex told me [View Full Entry]

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Because I was running a little low on funds I started looking for ways to spend the least amount of money possible. I could have went to Paris and stayed with my travel friends Alex and Thierry, but I though Paris would be too expensive. I also could have went back to Marco's, but Italy was wearing me out. And like most decisions made by a young man I chose the option with the girl and went back to stay with Ivana in Zagreb. Like at Marco's, I didn't do a lot of sight seeing but mainly just lived. Some might [View Full Entry]

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During my stay at Zagreb, Ivana and I ran to Budapest for a weekend. We only spent one night in Budapest, and didn't have a guide book, so I think we saw very little. But we both enjoyed it. Ivana is planning on going to a school in Budapest for her Masters. The train schedule to and from Budapest isn't so nice though. We left Zagreb at 5 am and got to Budapest at 10, and we left Budapest at 5 pm and got back about 12 am, so the weekend didn't involve much sleep. We didn't book anything in advanced, [View Full Entry]

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Sorry about being way behind. But I'm back in action now. So when I left Grenoble I was to go to farm near Briançon. I had a pretty strange bus ride, was asked many questions that I couldn't understand. The bus system in France is awful. I only had 5 minutes between my buses and we were 10 minutes late, luckily the second bus was 20 minutes late getting there so I left without a serious problem. If I would have missed it, I would have been stuck in a town called Gap. The buses only run to Briançon three times [View Full Entry]

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I had my second couchsurfing experience with a 40 year old man named Joel. It wasn't planned though, see I thought the farmers would let me arrive on Saturday, but on Thursday they told me "no." So I went on the emergency couch search and posted a help message. And Joel responded. He picked me up at the train station and took me to his village, just ten kilometers away. He had a private room for me and the first thing I did was sleep. Like I've said, traveling takes everything out of me. It turned out that Joel is going [View Full Entry]

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I stayed for a week, maybe more, in a small village outside of Bologna, Italy. My cousin Danny had hosted, Marco, the son of the family I was to stay with. Extended travel takes a lot out of me so I was pretty much rendered useless for the first day (a pretty typical outcome when I travel). Marco and I had been talking via email for a few weeks and I discovered that he was in a band and had a guitar for me to play. But his guitar would not stay in tune so we went down the street to [View Full Entry]

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I got off the boat and had to wade though the people asking for me to stay with them. I felt it was time for a change of pace and booked a hostel a few nights before. I wrote down the directions on my notepad and got on the bus. I rode the bus with Gary and Ellie (we happened to have the same bus, but not hostel). The directions told me to look out for a Karum sign, but I wasn’t seeing it. We passed a couple of signs that said “Youth Hostel” and Gary asked if any of them [View Full Entry]

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For those who don't know Ljubljana is either pronounced Lube-lee-ah-na, or Yube-lyah-na I heard it both ways...so who knows. But I prefer the first. We arrived in Ljubljana at about 11 on Saturday. Our hostel wouldn’t let us check in until 3, but let us drop off our bags so we could enjoy a walk around the town. It was kind of grey so I decided it was time to get a coat. While shopping around stumbled upon the market and the town center. Ljubljana really reminds me of Portland with a bit more pizzazz and insane beauty. The trees are [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Bled midday and started searching for our hostel. Once we found it we understood why it was so cheap. There was no receptionist on duty, no towels, and the showers flooded the bathroom. Not to mention the occasional broken bed. I was pretty pooped so I took a nap, as did Chelsea and Daniel, but Julia and Madeline went for a run around the lake. When they got back and I woke up they said they’d ran into Matt and that around 6 we were going to go over there and have a feast. We went to the [View Full Entry]

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