Claustrophobia—it was suddenly all I could think about. The walls of the buildings were enclosing me. My 5’1 stature felt like it could reach up and touch the bottoms of the balconies without stretching. The makeshift fences littered with people were on top of me. I couldn’t make a move without bumping into a drunk. I took a deep breath to remind myself that I was only walking the route with the guys. I wasn’t dumb enough to actually run with the bulls. The 825 meters seemed forever to walk. Worst yet, being the typical American, I had absolutely no [View Full Entry]

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The real fight of Pamplona isn't in the street with the bulls or in the arena with the matadors, instead, it's along the route amongst the spectators. I had been told ahead of time that if you wanted to get a spot along the route to see the 8 am Bull Run, you should get there no later than 2 am. Well, at about 4 am the morning of the first run, I finally started my trek to find a spot to sit. About a quarter of the way down the street, I found a 2" wide railing behind the police [View Full Entry]

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I´m in Pamplona. The running of the bulls is insane. I have video of a guy getting gored and a good pic of him being carted off. I´ll blog more when I have more than 2 minutes of internet time available. tomorrow I leave for france. no idea where, but I´ll be heading that way! [View Full Entry]

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Same deal as before--a link to Snapfish. No captions at the moment. Enjoy! http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=162464841/a=99209882/t_=99209882 [View Full Entry]

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I´m sure everyone is out celebrating w/fireworks and the like. I spent mine walking around Barcelona and have the blisters to prove it. While walking tonight, a group of mostly still college kids w/various internships out here walked by. One of the girls was from the Dells (Wisconsin Dells for the non cheese heads) so I hung out w/them. Listened to some great jazz in a park and then headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for some Americanish celebration. It wasn´t much. Pretty much packed w/Americans under the age of 20 excited they could drink legally. Not really my scene, but [View Full Entry]

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I´ve decided to give a not so brief on what I´ve been doing. I spent about 6 days in London and a majority of that was spent in a queue--in the rain. I can honestly say I haven´t even seen the major tourist things--Tower of London w/the crown jewels, the Eye w/the view and St. Paul´s Cathedral. I definitely hit up all those places, but I was walking around and figured I would pay to go in another day (honestly, I was hoping for a really nice day to have some good pics) but I never got around to it. I [View Full Entry]

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Ok, so I can´t put more than 50 pics up this site, so here is a link to Snapfish to see the pics. They don´t have any captions so you either have to use your imagination, common sense or pull out a guide book:-) http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=162426385/a=99209882/t_=99209882 You have to register to view the pics, but it´s free and it´s the best i can do. Enjoy! [View Full Entry]

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So I had these grand plans that I was going to queue it up for Saturday's centre court Wimbledon tickets on Friday evening... Rewind: I had booked a hostel for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights in London, but decided that to save money, I would just keep my bag locked up at that hostel and camp out overnight in the queue for Saturday's matches. Well I wake up Friday morning to a lot of rain. I do what I can tourist-wise and get the sense that the rain is not going to let up anytime soon. So I'm thinking it's a [View Full Entry]

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Just in case anyone reads the news about the apparent bomb threat in Central London that happened early this morning (2amish) just a heads up, I was asleep in a separate part of town and didn't even hear about it until 11:30 when I got all my stuff packed up to leave the current hostel I'm in and went online. What really hit me when I read it was how little it didn't worry me. I don't know if living in DC for 4 years has made me impervious to terrorism threats or what, but it's almost as if this is [View Full Entry]

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There isn't much to update on yet, but I got into London this morning. Had an uneventful/sleepless flight from Chicago to London. I shouldn't say sleepless entirely, I maybe managed an hour or two, but no more. I found my way to my hostel in Kings Cross, slept for a couple hours, walked around a bit and am now getting around to letting people know I'm alive. FYI: Kings Cross is just like Harry Potter described it, Platform 9 3/4ths and all. (Yeah, I'm a dork) Ok, well I'll update more when I actually do something worthwhile to mention. Tomorrow is [View Full Entry]

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