Blogs from Europe - page 13927

Your not in France anymore when prositutes line the main highways under sun umbrellas looking to make someone a lucky man, whilst that man is on transit to the nearby airport. It hits you in suprise and it is damn classy. Particulary the "we don't even need to stop to take off my clothes" aspect of their atire. Wonder if those on arrivals or departures get more buisnes? I LOVED Barcelona!! (not because of the prositutes). It was fantastic. The culture is fantastic wine and fantastic tappas, music and dancing, the colours are bright loads of red). Archictecture is amazing, especially all the Gaudi around the city. The unfinished cathedral particulary spectacular. The city's landscape and lights particularly attractive. The waterfront and beaches beautiful, expect mind the plastic bags when your wading out in the water. ... read more

Next we saw Oxford which was really cool. One of my best buddies, Rachel Sparks (aka Sparky) went here for a semester so I was excited to see where she lived. Oxford was really incredible- so old and yet so full and busy. We walked down the streets and played tourist. We looked in old bookshops and I saw my first starbucks in 8 months. Weird, being from Seattle, not to see them all over the place. UG bought me a coffee : ) We saw the different campuses and walked around looking at all the pubs and student hangouts. We also went to the Eagle and Child where the Inklings used to meet. Evidently its been remodeled and the back was knocked out to make it bigger but the front room is the same. We ... read more

There's not a lot to do in Cesky Krumlov, but it is the greatest town ever to just chill out and relax. I can't tell you many people I met here who said they had only planned to be here for a night or two, and had been here four, or eight. The hostel we stayed at has a free keg for their guests every Wednesday night, and wouldn't luck have it, we arrived on a Wednesday. They also had this great big patio with a BBQ. The second night we were there, there was live Bohemian Jazz at the restaurant next door. Sitting on that patio, drinking a Budweiser (the real Budweiser, from nearby Cesky Budjovice, not the American stuff) , BBQing on the grill, listening to the Jazz band, let me tell you, life ... read more

Here's what really amazes me about Rome... We've spent years sitting in classes, hearing teachers talk about the Roman civilization and about how innovative Roman architecture was, and sure we've seen pictures of great buildings and learned the history of them, but I'm seeing them come to life before my eyes. This may sound cheesy, but it's something that you can only experience. No matter how much you look at pictures of something, there's nothing like walking down a narrow, winding street and then stepping out into a piazza, immediately confronted with the Pantheon. It's huge! And what amazes me even more is thinking, "How did they do this?" I mean we have tons of machines and thousands of resources, and the majority of things we create today don't begin to compare to this; they don't ... read more

This was one of the send offs - our Vincents friends gave us a great night and very generous goodbye gifts - Thank You! We all sang like angels in Ugiyo karaoke bar. Here are some pics!... read more