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 the station. The wind was blowing like mad in front of the tower though. I guess should say something about the tower. It isn't much of a "tower" as we might call it, but just ... read more

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, so we ended up just walking to the main section of town and hoped that we find something. And luckily we did. I used this tactic in London, and it failed miserably, so I was ... read more

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 a day, and I was taking the last one. The buses were late mainly because at every stop the driver would get out and have a cigarette and maybe have a chat with whoever was ... read more

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 his cousin’s and picked up his cousin’s guitar. His cousin didn’t need it because he was going to be staying in Germany for a few weeks. He is a painter and his art is being ... read more

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 turning a stunning red and orange this time of the year, and they cover the landscape. But then at about 1 or 2 everything in the city closed. And everything is also closed on Sundays, ... read more