Edinburgh

Alright - Edinburgh was interesting

We got there at 7am I believe and we were very tired (Sleeping on the bus is never a fun task). We got there and we were going to meet our first couch-surfing hosts at 3pm so we had some time to kill. We threw our bags into a 24-hour locker and headed out to walk around Edinburgh. It still was quite dark and we wanted to wait until it got a bit lighter out so we found a Costa Coffee and chilled out for a few hours. I personally took a few naps during that period of time.

Once it got light out we started walking around Edinburgh. The town is kinda split up into this Old Town/New town Set up. There really wasn't much of interest in the New town, except some random shops - so we headed over to the Old town. We were basically walking around randomly for awhile, We went up to the Edinburgh Castle - Which had a BEAUTIFUL view!



We then went through a few shops and walked around aimlessly until we spotted the a Tour host for those free Walking tours we went on in Dublin and London. So we Jumped in the middle of that tour saw multiple things including the Grass Market which was named that because they used to sell hay there. but there was a bunch of cool shops are there. There were a lot of bars there that had really interesting names like "The Last Drop" and "Betty Mulligans" Which both had to do with the fact that outside of these bars is where they used to hang people - So the Last drop was the place people would go to get there last drink (or drop) before they went to go get hung and have another (Last drop) Hah - get it?

And there are alot m ore stories, but I dont really feel like posting anymore - so if you're interested I'm sure you can find them on google - if you want.

Then we went up to a cemetery, Discussed some random stories about the people who were buried there and then Greyfriars Bobby - which is a story of a dog who stayed by his masters grave for 14 years then died shortly after. However they ended up making a Pub after this Dog as well as creating a statue of the Dog. Lets just say - I want a dog like that.



So yea - the tour ended with a story of THE STONE OF DESTINY...Which took the tour guide 20 minutes to tell...so if you're interested - again ... google it -hahaha

After that point we met up with our Couchsurfing buddies, got some Coffee/Tea and chilled out watching TV/ Playing video games for the rest of the night

The Next day we went Hiking around Edinburgh - It was fun. I like hiking Here are some photos... (haha - i really don't know what else to say...haha)








The next day we just relaxed at the Flat for a bit - Played Video Games/ Watched a movie and did our laundry...Oh and we decided to buy a crappy guitar for the trip (More of Nathan's decision than mine but Meh - I dont mind having a guitar around)
That night we went and got some drinks with our hosts - I'm starting to realize that casually getting drinks with people in europe is kind just part of the culture out here...its not as much of as going out to get drunk but just to relax and enjoy being with the people here.

Our Bus was the next day... which.was fun, because we missed it.

Side-note - We ended up getting a Eurolines Pass- Which allows us to travel via bus as much as you want to select places around europe for 30 days. However, Eurolines Subcontracts bussing companies in some places like the UK and Ireland. Well in the UK they use National Express. So I gave them a call and asked them to book us to Paris. They do that and we get on a bus later that night at 2200 - So we just spent that day just chilln' in coffee shops until we needed to go to the Bus station.

We get to London, only to realize that National Express really screwed up our tickets and we couldn't get on our bus because it wasn't one of those *selected* places stated on the Eurolines pass. So we had to book another bus to Paris from London. Which this time we were able to book directly through Eurolines and bypass National Express which actually allowed us to get into Paris at 2130 not 2230 even though we had to leave London at 1200 not 700...which is weird - but whatever.

So we finally get to paris and wondered around a bit before finding a hostel (Per usual).

Oxford

Hello Everybody!

I’m writing this while I’m in Edinburgh and to be honest it seems like Oxford was such a long time ago. So here’s to hoping that I remember everything that I did in Oxford.

So...Oxford - Yea

We got to Oxford the night of the 22nd. It was raining when we got here (Who Hoo!) and we were not quite sure where there might be a hostel (besides Nathan’s iPhone - which here’s an interesting fact - the iPhones Google Maps and GPS is definitely not as accurate as it is in the states :-( ) So we ended up walking around quite a bit trying to find a hostel, found one, and then booked 2 nights. We were quite wet/tired by the time we got there so we just relaxed for the rest of the night and attempted to dry out our clothes :P

The next day we got up around 830-9 (which has been typical while we’ve been over here) and started walking around Oxford. The architecture there was quite interesting and I really liked the atmosphere of oxford. We first went to Christ Church - Walked around that for a bit - then went through the stores of Oxford - they have a really cool covered market there that i liked alot. Which also had this nice little cookie shop called Ben’s cookies - hmm cookies :-D )
Then we went on a Museum run . We hit a few free museums and then the Pit Rivers Museum and then at that point we were a bit tired and headed back to the hostel. I grabbed a quick nap, then went coffee shop jumping for the majority of the rest of the day. After I was done with that I went to Eagle and Child Pub (Where CS Lewis used to write) grabbed a quick cider and then headed back to the hostel.

The next day we went back to London and bought a Eurolines pass (Allows you to travel unlimited via bus for 30 days -159 pounds) and booked our bus to Edinburgh. The bus departed later that day at 730pm - Meanwhile we had 5 hours to kill in London. I ended up going to starbucks because I was feeling sick and wanted free internet(Surprisingly in London it was much more difficult to get Wi-fi than the other towns I was in) While I was there I was just able to relax - update my blog - and meet random people. It was quite funny actually, while sitting in that Starbucks I was approached and had decent conversations with 3 different people. It was quite nice.

Oh - also at that point I was getting a bit sick (sore throat, sinus thingy).
So we leave London at 7pm and got into the station (after 2 transfers) in Edinburgh at 7am - Gotta love long bus rides :P.

...Sorry no really good photos from Oxford Guys, it seems like we're getting kinda lazy when it comes to the photo side of things - Sorry!

London

So we arrived in London at the Victoria Coach Station, and Immediately attempted to find a hostel...2 hours later we finally found one!!
We booked 2 nights and dropped of our luggage, Got food (We were dying to get it) then walked around for a bit - saw an interesting Book store, A Sherlock Holmes museum, A quick walk through Hyde Park and then back home to the hostile.

We got into the room (Which was Co-Ed - so that was interesting) But we started talking to this Aussie girl, Sara, and we just struck it up real well and had a great conversation. We took a break around 6 and went to go make dinner(some pasta that Nathan made this awesome sauce for - very good) Then we ended up back in the room and ended up talking to Sara until 11ish. It was alot of fun.

The next morning we woke up for breakfast and then went on the walking tour of london with Sara, and thats also where we met another Aussie, Evert, and those two were the two we basically spent the rest of london with.
This tour was much bigger than the one in Dublin, which I wasnt huge on but it was ok...
We were able to end up hitting the Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard which was cool and there was ATON of people



Oh and unfortunately there were no guards we could mess with and attempt to make them smile or anything :-(
We saw multiple other things on that walking tour - the WW2 Museum, Big Ben / London Tower.



After we were done we went back to the hostile and took a nap because we were exhausted - we didn't sleep well on the bus ride to london and just decided to get a good nap in.
Then for the rest of the night we really just relaxed and enjoyed some good time/talk with the Aussies :P

The next morning we went to Harrods - which was an awesome - really high end shopping store in London and we played the game "Whats the most Expensive thing we can find in this store" - I won with 187,000 Pounds - For a watch...really??

Well during that period we lost nathan - and spent 30-45 minutes trying to find him :-/ We ended up not being able to find him so The Aussies, Sara and Evert, and I adventured out and went to Hyde Park. Which was a lot of fun because these two Aussies Never saw a squirrel before, so once they saw one it was priceless! So we easily spent 1-2 hours in that park just having fun with the squirrels.



ONe thing that was alot of fun was that while we were there a squirrel came up to me and climbed on my leg as if i was a tree!! And that actually happened 2ce! Sara got a photo of it so Hopefully I'll be able to post that soon!

After that was over we were done with that - we went to a few stores, then we decided to leave Sara by herself to continue doing the shopping (Kinda an obsession of hers apparently) and Evert and I went back to our hostiles.

I was able to do my laundry there and take a short nap. Nathan Finally came back at that point and we had dinner / went to starbucks so we could get online. Then for the rest of the night we just spent some more time with the Aussies and Packing. Sara Flew back to Australia the next day and me and Nathan were going to Oxford the next day.

The next day - we took Sara to the Station where she grabbed a cab - We put our luggage in the Luggage room in our Hostile then walked around, Saw the London Bridge, London Tower, The Marketplace there, The Globe theater, the Tate Modern, and the St Pauls Cathedral. After that was over we went back to the Marketplace for Lunch - I had a Kangaroo Buger :D Hmmm) and then went back to the Hostile while we waited for the Bus to Oxford (At 7).



We got to Oxford - Did some more wandering(In the rain! - which it was actually pretty warm rain) before we found a hostile

Galway

Well I'm thinking it'll be easy just to summarize each city instead of each day :P

So the next day we woke up and tried to decide what to do. So after wandering around for awhile we saw that the ticket from Dublin to London was 48 Euro at the station. So we decided to head over to Galway Ireland and hoped that we could find a cheaper price online while in Galway.

We took a 12 Euro Bus ride over to Galway and got there between 4-6. We walked around for a bit, but unfortunately it quickly turned dark on us so we decided to back to the hostel and just relax for a bit. Thats where I did my last few blogs - Nathan went to bed.

We woke up around 830 and decided that we would go on a Bus Tour of Galway and the surrounding area, which I dont think we'll end up doing that again, simply due to the fact that it seemed WAY to touristy and the whole time you are surrounded by people doing the same thing the ENIRE day. But we hit some cool places.

The most Impressive places we hit were the Cliffs of Moher




Oh and there was a Irish Rainbow Mom ;)



An another attempt at a panoramic...


Then after we finished that tour we walked around (it was around 7-8ish) and we went out, met some new people at some Pub/Restaurant types and apparently the Irish go out on Sunday but they start at like 10-11 and if you finish at 4 its early -haha.

Then we went back to the Hostile, and crashed for the night.

The next morning we spent some time around Galway, Hit the "Awesome" Spanish Arch - which was quite disappointing....


Then we hit the Cathedral there, attended a mass, and checked out the University there as well.
After that was done we headed to the station and headed to the bus station. Then through the next day we spent traveling to Dublin VIA Bus, stopped at a Cafe as we waited for our Buss to London, Took a Buss/Ferry to London and got to London around 9/10am the next day.

It was a first for the Ferry and we actually found this really awesome room at the front of the Ferry that we had to ourselves so we relaxed and kicked off our boots and relaxed. :D




And then we were in London!

Dublin/Hoath&Brae - Day 3 - 15.1.2010

This was my favorite day - by far so far this trip. We woke up early and got our free breakfast at the hostel. Then headed to their public train system "The Dart" We got a 2-man all-day pass and went to Hoath and Brae. We first went to Hoath.



Hoath
By far - Highly recomend this place to anybody going anywhere near dublin!
We woke up and it was really a beautiful day. and Got on the train to Hoath

It was actually pretty interesting - Not alot happened except that we went out on a port as well as did some "Hill-walking" (They dont call it mountain Climbing) and then went to Brae and had coffee/Dinner.
(Which btw - that was where the really cute french girl blew me a kiss :P ;) )

We really were just able to relax and enjoy ourselves this day.








We got back and were looking at things online when we spotted Nikki from the night before. I went oover and started talking to her. and Apparently She actually just met a girl, Katie, we all struck up a conversation. Then when things died down a bit we saw this girl sitting by herself having some soup and Nathan started talking to her(Vera). We all ended up having a really good conversation and then considering it was a Friday night we all decided to go to a Pub. It was a real Irish one with some good live music and alot of people. I really Enjoyed it!

Day 2 - 14.1.2010

Ello!

So today - was pretty chill. it was the first night that we actually SLEPT in Dublin. Which you read about in the last post. Well I finally fell back asleep at 5am and then woke up around 10 for a total of 8 hours of sleep. This day we really just spent relaxing. We walked around a good bit of Dublin and Saw St. Patrick Cathedral and also went to Mass at this other cathedral / church as well as stoping by this other church which was really nice.

After that was done it was around 4 and we went back to our Hostel because we were hungry and wanted to have some of our PB&J that we bought the previous night. Then headed back around Dublin, We were able to hit the Stephens Green which is an amazing park in Dublin. It was so Beautiful (See Photo Below). (Oh and I know - its not the best photo-stitch I've done...but this computer takes a bit too stich them and I didn't want to redo it - It'd take like 15 minutes :(



Oh And here's a good story - While at this park Nathan Decided that the Ice that was over one of the ponds would be strong enough to hold his body weight and decided to attempt to put some of his weight on the ice (Which btw was melted away from the land) And then promptly went into about a foot and a half worth of water!! It was pretty funny, but apparently not very cold because when we went back to Hostel He totally change his sock...haha.

Nathan's Wet Sock


That night we went to Seomra Sprao and just relaxed for a bit. We found a guy that was there who was origionally from Las Vegas and then moved to Ireland for school. He was really cool and helped us out with some lingo as well as telling us with some places to go. We then had some tea were social with some other locals that were there, and went on our lovely way. :D

We came back that night around 11 and met some fellow americans Nikki and Ian. Then suprisingly enough we ended up talking until 2am! haha. There were pleanty of times during that night that we were like - "Oh we're tired - we want to go to bed..." But we just kept on finding new things to talk about.

That was a great way to end the day
:D

Dublin - Day 1 - 13.1.2010

Hey Everybody!

So here we are - its 16.1.2010 - And yes, I'm attempting to adapt to thier ways of doing things, using Meters, Celcius, and even thier format of using dates. And I'm finding that the states are really messed up! We should totally be on the same system that Europe as well as the rest of the country is on! Meters makes so much more sense - especially with the convertion to KM, CM ect. and Using celcius is so much nicer than fairenhight. And the date system makes it so it is counting up from the beginning of the year to the end of the year...much easier than the states...but Whatever.

Now As for Dubln! We flew out of chicago on Tuesday the 12th at 730PM at Night and got in the Dublin Airport at 830AM with around 4-5 hours of sleep - took a bus into Dublin City Grabed some money and foudn this really cool Hostel Called Abbey Court. They have Free Wi-Fi, A decent amount of free food/Tea and a Free Breakfest all for €10 a night - Which is pretty sweet!

So we crashed there for a bit - put our bags away and relaxed for a bit. Then after realizing that if we stay still for to long we were going to fall asleep at like 11am - which really would not help the JetLag so we decided to go get some food. We found this Local Diner Grabed a bite to eat and then walked around a bit before hitting the...

Dublin Walking Tour
Dublin Castle
Which was also - Free and Awesome! haha. We were able to go to the Dublin Castle - which is one CRAZY Piece of archetecture! It had all sorts of different type of brick involved and then halfway through the external wall just decided to go to all sorts of multi-colored primary color patches. Kindof hard to explain - however I'll load a picture soon so you guys can see! Also the Statues at this Castle were quite(As the tour guide put it) "Pathetic". There were two - however I only took one photo for whatever reason. It was the Blind Justice Statue, and it was fun to hear our Tour Guide ranting about this one! First of all that statue did not have a blind fold, kind of ruining the point of the name of the statue and the symbolism behind the statue, Secondly It was pointed in at the courtyard of the castle (Where all the hearings would take place) and apparently that statue is supposed to be a symbol to the people and having it facing in toward the people DOING the governing was a huge mistake, then Lastly the scale that she was holding was a working scale so the scales are ALWAYS changing because Dublin gets a decent amount of rain.
And I'm sure he ranted on about some other aspects of it - but its been a few days and I dont quite remember.


Coffee Shop/Temple Bar
Then after that the tour headed to this local coffee shop - where we all got coffee/tea. Although it was quite awkward because it was quite a small shop and we had to fit ALOT of people in. But we got our drinks then headed off to Temple Bar.
At temple bar - which is a location within the city where there are alot of touristy bars, its not actually a bar - we really didn't do much in that area except the tour guide told us about a pub crawl sponsored by the touring company that was happening that night.

Trinity University
Then we walked through Trinity University campus and talked about the architecture of the place and also the Book of Kells that was kept at the University as well at the "Long Room". We also talked about a good bit of the history of Trinity University.


Oh - and it was a beautiful day


After the Tour was done we(Nathan and I) Went on a tour of the book of Kells and the Long room for 8 Euros - which looking back on it it was probably over-priced but oh well. After that we went back to our hostel - relaxed a bit and enjoyed ourselves.
C(No photos were allowed in that room so I dont have any :( Sorry! )

Dinner
That Night we went to this place called Seomra Sprao (Sp?) Because a guy from Couch Surfing Invited us to have a Vegan dinner. There were a bunch of people there and we were just relaxing and this guy named conor came up to us and showed us around the place, we had food, and played some games then went back to the hostel.
(For some reason I didnt get any photos of this place - I guess I didn't want to look to much like a tourist in front of everybody)


Hostel : Abbey Court
(Which as a Sidenote there is this hostel in Dublin called Abbey Court in Dublin and it is only 10 Euro a Night(For a 12man dorm) as well as it has free: Breakfast, WiFi, Computers, and Luggage storage. It was really nice. We were really tired so we went to bed around 9. I slept like a rock for those next 3 hours. Then I woke up at 1 AM and couldn't fall asleep. I was stairing at the top of bunk for a few hours and then finally I got hungry, and went downstairs made myself a PB&J or two - used the computers then went back to bed. I finally fell asleep at like 4-5, then we woke up around 11 - unfortunately missing the first free breakfast.
(And no mom - I didn't take photos of the places I stayed either - sorry - that is just plain to much documenting)

Well yea - don't expect this thoroughness for each day - That would be insane!

Pre-Trip Chicago

Alright - So Nathan got here on Saturday around 5pm. We got back home relaxed had pizza and hit up a bar that night.

On Sunday I woke up early to check out The Willow Creek North Shore Church Campus. Had a good time enjoying some techy time and then headed back. We had Chili for dinner then decided to hit up Chicago for a brief period of time. We went to one of my favorite stores "Saturday Audio" which deals in high-fi Audio. Enjoyed that then Went to a coffee shop for a few hours. After that we hit up Park Community Church so I could lend one of my audio engineering buddies some gear, and check out one of the services.

Then Today, Monday, we went down early to Chicago. We hit walked by the Sears tower (didn't go up) - then walked through Grant park - where I started my collection of panoramic photos. Heres the first

and YES I Did this all by Myself - And I like it alot!



Then After that we decided to hit up the planetarium - because it was free admission day - My advise - unless you are under 12 - DO NOT GO THERE! haha It was more of kid thing so we kinda left fairly quickly. and then from there we took some pictures before hitting up the apple store!



We stopped by the apple store - Grabbed some foodage - then went to Millennium park


and then We hit up the Art institute and then went home!

WE LEAVE TOMORROW on our 730PM FLIGHT! AHHH - Crazyness!!

Itinerary

For you interested in our Itinerary.

NOTE: This is Simply Tentative and in no means is what we will be sticking to!

Here's the plan!

So here is the plan! In reality - We're probably going to wing the majority of it. Ha! Right now I like the part up to Vienna and then I thought that I might fly to Rome and hit Florence and Piza then Fly home - But I'm not sure. I'm not used to it but I think I'm just going to be flexible and feel out what we want to do.

As of right now - We are planning on relying on Couch-Surfing as well as Hostels for when we stay at places.

Then for transportation - The Main Idea is to use this site - rideforcents.org or hitchike - I know a bit on the sketchy side - but I'm willing to give anything a try once - if i dont like it we may just end up buying a busing pass. Although while I'm there I definitely want to try out one of those high-speed trains. I think those would be really cool to travel on.

Here's the basic Plan if you dont want to look to closely at that map
Dublin - Uk (Oxford/London and some small towns in-between) - Paris - Brussels - Amsterdam - Hanover - Berlin - Prauge - Vienna - Budapest (Then this is where it might change) its one of these two

PLAN A : - Bern, Switzerland - Marsellis - Nice - Genova - Venice - Florence - Pisa - and Rome

OR

Plan B : After Vienna - Fly to Rome - Florence - Piza - Venice - Then Fly home.


The only real reason I'm contemplating Plan B is because I do have an internship with a company - Clair Brothers - Lined up after I get back from Europe. Its a company that I Would Absolutely Die to work for and I do not want to miss out on an opportunity, and simply by going to Europe I'm Putting off the intership so I dont want to prolong it to much. We'll see what happens though - Its all tenative and probably up for change.


As For Packing -
I was able to borrow this really nice Backpack from my sisters friend for free - so I'm stoaked about that!
And I got alot of gifts over Christmas that is basically covering the initial start up cost of the trip.

I'm borrowing my sisters camera for the trip - which will help me save a good amount of money, and then I'm also borrowing my brother, Jason's iPod touch (He reciently got an iPhone) so that will make it a bit easier to get online.

Besides that I made a deal with my other brother Joel - where we swapped some hard drives around so his portable external is officially mine - so I'll be keeping that with me as well! Which will be nice for a back up for all the photos i'll be taking!

Thats all I can think to write for now! Let me know if you think I'm missing something!

Pre-Trip - My Decision to Travel

Alright guys - this is my first Blog entry for my trip to Europe!!
{Just a Fair Forewarning - I never have considered my self the best writer or anything so please excuse any tangents I get on as well as any grammatical errors - Heck I'm an Audio Engineer - Not an English Major}

I just set this up today and I'm hoping to be using this a lot while in Europe, but I'm not quite sure about it because I really have never steadily blogged before (besides when it was required for one of the film classes I took at Huntington but that's besides the point). So yea - This is the beginning of what is going to be an amazing trip.

I am going with a good friend of mine that I met at Huntington University as a Freshman, Nathan Hunt. We both went to Huntington our first year of college and then both promptly left our second. I transferred to Columbia college in Chicago and he transferred to George Fox in Oregon. On one of his trips back to go visit some friends at HU, partway through our sophmore year, we were able to meet up and we grabed some food. Randomly during that time I brought up how I thought it would be awesome to travel Europe after I was done with College, then sarcastically proceded to ask him if he would be interested in going. Of course he said yes, and at that point in time we left it at that.

However at the beginning of the Fall Semester 2009 we both realized that we were going to be graduating early and be officially done at the end of that semester. Thats when we actually started tossing the Idea around of - "Hey, we actually could do this!"

My initial concerns were mainly work related. at that point in time I was still working for Willow Creek Community Church - the DuPage Campus as their Audio/Systems Engineer. At the beginning of the semester I was really enjoying what I was doing, however, part way through the semester my hours got cut, which pretty much caused them to cut the part I liked doing most, the systems engineering work. Then toward the middle of the year it became apparent that sometime in the near future the church would no longer have the budget to keep me on staff. Which I started to realize as the end of the year came around - I really was ready to move on from Willow anyways. Not being able to do the system engineering work that I wanted to really hurt my passion to work for the church. I basically was mixing the weekend service each weekend and that was it. I was happy about that part because it trained my ear as well as helped my mixing technique - but I still loved the systems work to much and not having that was slowly causing me to burn out.

So I realized that partway through the semester that THIS was the time to take a trip - if any. My Schoolwork was ending, my Work was closing off and Freelance work was down because it was during slow season and with the amount I worked while in college between Willow and my freelance work I had enough saved up to be able to do this trip. So it all seemed to fit into place - and in reality, I needed a break.

The last 2.5 years have been crazy for me. At one point I was working 55 hours/week at Willow (hourly) and also taking 18 credit hours. It was exhausting. And even though I had an opportunity to start an internship right out of college I basically told myself "If I don't take a break now - when will I?"

So that is how I arrived at the decision to take this trip! I think its much needed and I really am looking forward to traveling seeing other countries, getting out of the states and growing as a person from this experience.