Emails from
another time.
This will look familiar to some of you. These are the emails that Josh wrote out and sent to all of us back home. Unfortunatly not everyone got them, and I am sorry. Here they all are with the dates that we sent them out for you to read, they describe our adventures in Europe. As an added bonus I included a final email(All Good Things...) that was never sent, because we could not find a Internet Cafe in Madrid, that tells about our adventures in Madrid and Barcelona. I hope that you enjoy reading them as much as I did making them.
| Inaugural message from the airport... |
| Friends and Family, |
We are at the American departure gate at JFK waiting to board our 767. Everyone is tired and not talking to each other. Just kidding. Next stop is London this evening. We plan to hit the town tonight before introducing ourselves to the hosteling lifestyle. We'll check in from Cool Britannia tomorrow! |
| Josh |
| Night one was quite an adventure... |
| Observers, |
| We arrived at our hotel in London around 11:00 last night. They had no record of our confirmation so we were on the street. Don't worry Mr. and Mrs. Schlag we slept on the street, or in another hotel, or something like that! The hotel we did find hooked us up with a couple of matchbook size rooms in the basement and no electricity in the morning. We found a better place this morning but we had to put Kim up as collateral against the room charges! All is well and we'll be in touch later after we embarrass all Americans at London's finest tourist attractions. |
|
Josh Kim Kirk Liz |
|
P.S. Pubs close at 11:00 PM, plan accordingly... |
| Partly sunny, and occasionally dry, with a freshening and variable wind... |
| Good Morning, |
| It should be about 4:00 in the morning at home. I'm sure you appreciate this more than a phone ringing. We got up right and early yesterday and found new, more affordable lodgings for the next two nights. Our new home is someone's living room with 5 five beds, four of us and some street dweller, and a bathroom the size of a fiat trunk. We have a new appreciation for uncomfortable showering now. We walked about 100 Km or 2 miles, I can't tell the difference, to Harrods, where Kirk paid £1 to use the executive washroom. We then hiked to Buckingham Palace just in time for the changing of the guard. Although we didn't time it consciously we were right on time and got the best seats in the house. After another 100-Km walk we arrived at Big Ben, The Parliament, and Westminster Abbey, which we toured. We did a bunch of other stuff too but this is costing us £1.20 for every fifteen minutes! We planned to head out to a pub for dinner, but ended up taking a four-hour siesta in our room. Oops! We ended up getting dinner at The Angus Steak House, in Earl's Court. A couple told us that Paris is on the verge of a labor war between the government and striking workers. We are now reworking our plans to put Paris off for a few weeks. Hopefully they can work it out so we don't miss it all together. We'll see. We hope all is well back home. |
|
Josh Kim Liz Kirk |
| P.S. Don't use the pay phones in London! They suck pounds quicker than liposuction. |
| No more London Fog... |
| Groupies, |
| We got a delayed start today as we negotiated with our hosts over a reasonable price to get Kim out of hock. She was relieved because we were able to bring her along on our trip to Windsor Castle. A good portion of the castle was destroyed by fire in 1992 and they have done a magnificent job repairing and restoring. The castle and the Queen's property are better than ever. After returning to London we hit Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, St. Paul's Cathedral, The London Tower and the Tower Bridge. The girls were a little anxious to eat at this point so we searched for a nice pub. Apparently the British aren't familiar with food for dinner and skip directly to beer. We went to a favorite pub of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens but they stopped serving food at 5:00! My vote for McDonald's got outvoted and we found another restaurant. We'll see what these world traveler's think about good old American fast food when they can't read the menus in the rest of Europe. Luckily, the international language of beer seems to be taught to all school children over here at a young age, so there's no problem there. Kirk's in a pub talking to locals, Kim's taking a shower, and Liz is on the phone with her boyfriend (there's a surprise!) Don't you like how we all stick together? I'm sending this message tonight because we are off to Gay Paris at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Although there is no public transportation in the city we are going to give it a shot. We can walk from the Chunnel station to our hostel and bike to Versailles, so we're pretty confident. I'm looking forward to the Chunnel train tomorrow morning and the Eiffel Tower in the afternoon. We'll be in touch as soon as we find a cybercafe in Paris. |
|
Josh Kim Liz Kirk |
| P.S. The shower hasn't gotten any larger! |
| Viva La France... |
| Observers, |
| Before I get to Paris I'll mention the pub last night. Kirk got to know the pub owner and is wife along with a genuine British hippie! The pub owner hooked us up with some free shirts and a towel. We love those Brits, actually he was Scottish. Today we took the Chunnel train to Paris. Kirk and I enjoyed smoked salmon and ham in first class while the girls had to kill their own chicken and fry it up back in second class with the steerage. I believe they were actually sitting on our luggage instead of seats! After arriving in Paris we checked in to our hostel and headed out to The Eiffel Tower. We got lost. We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower where it was a blustery 12 degrees. That's Fahrenheit folks, not Celsius! Actually the city is beautiful and there is no better place to see it than from atop the Tower. We returned to the hostel where Kirk and I meet our roommate who is from Australia and has been on the road for 6 months! The girls are rooming with two chicks from Nebraska. GO HUSKERS! We went out to dinner and had no idea what we ordered. The waiter did not parlez vous English. And we don't parlez vous francais! It's fun trying to communicate with folks and getting a blank face that we interpret as "what is your problem, you ugly American!" All of the folks we've met in Paris thus far have been very friendly. Tomorrow we are off to Versailles, The L'Arc De Triumphe, and Notre Dame. As it turns out the Metro strike only lasted for a day or so, so we can get around without a problem. We're glad we decided to hit Paris now and not later. Unfortunately, the museums are still closed due to a labor strike. The only other notable experience today was seeing so many French soldiers with machine guns. We took a vote and determined that the cold war was over, so we don't know what's up there. All is well especially Kim's hair dryer, curling iron, make-up kit and young male porter from Venezuela! Hope all is well back home and we apologize for the horrific spelling in our e-mails. Since we pay for net access we're in a hurry. |
|
Josh Kim Liz Kirk |
| Gay Paris... |
| Bonjour, |
| First let me apologize to those of you who I haven't replied to. We love getting messages from home so keep them coming. Mr. Schlag, the Chunnel train was really cool. Most of the trip is above ground and the channel part goes by quickly. You can get from London to Paris in three hours for about $100 bucks, which is great. Dad, as it turned out the museums were closed today so we didn't get to go in any of the museums in Paris. We did get photos outside of Musee D'Orsey and The Louvre at sunset. We started this morning by taking a train to Versailles on the countryside. Neither my words or the photos we will bring home can possibly explain how magnificent Versailles is. It was undoubtedly the most wonderful place I have ever been, and that's saying a lot, I live in Connecticut! We planned on making Versailles a quick tour and then returning to the city. We must have spent five or six hours there between the chateau and the gardens. Apparently, the French invented the term scattered showers because every half-hour or so it would pour and then it would be sunny and hot. We have pictures of Versailles in overcast wetness beside shots in the shining sun. Each of us went through at least five rolls of film today, three being in Versailles alone. That is easy 600 pictures in one day! None of us budgeted for film developing so that would be a nice graduation gift (hint, hint). It was simply amazing, loved it, loved it, loved it! After returning to the city we went to Napoleon's tomb, which was closed, but is still a lovely building. We then walked to Notre Dame, which is out of this world. It had just stopped raining when we arrived at Notre Dame and there was a huge rainbow directly behind the towers of the church. Hopefully it will come out because it was a magnificent shot. We also saw a wedding on a boat in The Seine as we were viewing Notre Dame. We then walked to The Louvre and took some nice photos outside as the sun set. We then hiked the Champs E'lysee and found the Paris headquarters of Andersen Consulting. For those who don't know Liz is going to work for Ernst & Young, Kim for Price Waterhouse Coopers and Kirk for Citigroup. None of them had offices on the Champs E'lysee one block from the L'Arc De Triomphe. As we approached the L'Arc it was getting dark and they turned on the lights. WOW! Napoleon built the Arc in the 19th Century to commemorate his victories. It does a great job of competing with any American war memorial and then some. The Arc also houses the French Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Now, everything we did today was all to pass time until it got dark so Liz could take a photo of the Eiffel tower all light up. It was well worth the wait. I thought the Tower was amazing during the day but when you get under the superstructure under lights you really get a sense of how enormously fantastic it all is. We were on our feet for 14 hours today waiting to get that picture. I hope Mark likes it. Just kidding. We are off to Amsterdam in the morning but we received some intel from some hostel mates that is a little disturbing. Apparently these guys couldn't get a train to Amsterdam before Tuesday! If we run in to the same problem we'll have to rework the schedule. The girls should be off to Bruge in the morning if they can get to Brussels. We're are all having such a great time hanging out together that we decided to meet again in Italy in a couple of weeks instead of wait until Monaco in three weeks. The girls were concerned that Italian women would attack Kirk and me so they are coming along to run interference. Other than being absolutely exhausted all is well here, and France is history. |
|
Josh Kim Liz Kirk |
| P.S. Never trust first impressions. When we first arrived in Paris we thought it sucked. We could not possibly have been more wrong. We are all truly sad that we have to leave so soon but we'll be back. |
| Holland, The Netherlands, Dutch, English, Whatever... |
| Vicarious Travelers, |
| Can't write much from Amsterdam because we haven't done much and this keyboard I have is impossible to manage. We split our ranks this morning in Brussels. As it turned out we had no difficulty getting to Amsterdam despite our intel from Paris. Kirk and I are doing fine and I imagine the girls have settled into the swing of things in Bruge. We are about to head out on the town here but are worried that it might not be our scene. We'll send the verdict from Berlin. |
|
Josh Kirk Kim and Liz (in spirit only) |
| P.S. The languages are beginning to get more obscure. We had some clue in France but as we head east they keep adding letters to the alphabet! |
| Welcome to Berlin, $30 please... |
| Hot Tamales, |
|
We hear the weather back home is a little blistery. Berlin right now is at 68 degrees, with sunny skies, and a light breeze. Jealous? We apologize for not writing in a couple of days but the Internet isn't as accessible in Berlin as other places we've been. Mr. Schlag, have a Molson for us, we're having some Warsteiner for you! Mom and Margaret, sorry I haven't called, the phones here are a little screwy. I hope everything is well at the office, I'll be in touch today or tomorrow. As for the ongoing saga of how two American boys’ tour Europe embarrassing the Stars and Stripes wherever they stop, here we go. We left off in Amsterdam about to head out to the red light district where there are a lot of churches, libraries, and art museums to check out until the wee hours of the morning. Just kidding, the red light district is a little beyond what most Americans have seen before. Let's just say you can get anything for the right price. We didn't bother researching any of the pricing, of course, but it was interesting to watch how other people acted. We meet a group of students from New York on the tram, which by the way you don't really have to pay for in Amsterdam and there's no recourse from the authorities (I'll explain the significance of that in a bit). Anyhow, among the group of New Yorkers was a young couple. Let's just say the red light district is nowhere to bring your girlfriend if you want here to still be your girlfriend when you leave. She was really pissed at him. After that tour we went back to the hostel for a couple of beers. The hostel we stayed in was in between the red light district and The Heineken factory (our new favorite place in the world). It housed about 350 travelers in both dorm type rooms and private rooms. We were in a dorm type room with people from Maryland, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It was a beautiful, safe, and clean hostel. The next morning after dropping our stuff off at the train station we bought tickets for the 10:00 tour of the Heineken brewery. As a rule we don't like to start drinking before 10:15, but we were willing to make an exception. The tour was quick and interesting. Heineken is the number two beer in the world, next to good old Budweiser, the King or Beers. I guess that makes Heineken the Queen of Beers! After the tour you sit down in a pub and drink as much Heineken as you can in a half-hour or so. We ended up sitting with some guys from Las Vegas, one of which grew up in Manchester, CT and went to UCONN! We made plans to hook up with those guys later because they were on the same train to Berlin. We then stumbled to the Anne Frank House. The Frank family hid out in a back room area of Mr. Frank's factory when the Nazi's occupied Amsterdam. The place is exactly as it was when the Nazi's finally found them and sent them to concentration camps to die. After the war, when asked if they should try to replace the things that had been stolen from the Nazi's, Mr. Frank, who survived, said no, that people needed to see exactly what Hitler's troops had done to his people and 6,000,000 others. We then had lunch at a cafe on a canal in the city. It was very romantic as crap floated by in the horrendously polluted waterway! We then tooled around the Reichsmuseum and saw some nice art. Unfortunately, a great majority of the Van Gough collection housed in Amsterdam is actually in America right now. We hooked up with those guys from Las Vegas, chilled out, had dinner, and caught our train around 10:15. We were set up in a couchette, which is a compartment about the size of a refrigerator, where six people squeeze together like sardines and enjoy a peaceful nights rest. Our compartment was populated by three Americans, an Englishman working in Berlin, A Dutch girl working in Berlin, and some other chick we didn't talk to because she got on after we were asleep. The train arrived in Berlin at 7:00 yesterday morning. We checked our luggage at our hostel and hit the road to explore the city. When we first got to our train station we didn't get off! Then when we got to the next station we figured we go for it! The Englishman helped us find our tram and tickets. Apparently the Berlin transit system has a student discount program so we took advantage of it. We were headed to the Tiergarten area of the city to go on a walking tour. The second train we got on had plain clothed transit cops checking that people had tickets. The European City transit systems we've seen are ridiculously easy to scam for a free ride. The thing is we had no intention of riding without paying the correct fare. When we showed our tickets to the cop we learned that the student discount was for school kids, not old far ts like us! Anyhow, not only did we have to buy new tickets, but also we got fined $30. We heard another story similar to that when we were doing our laundry from a Chinese girl. Apparently the transit authorities like to take advantage of foreigners, or at least not give them a break, when they've made an honest mistake. By the way, German keyboards suck. We ended up making it to the walking tour and had a nice time and learned a lot. Apparently, 80% of all the cranes in Europe are currently being used to build the New Berlin. This city is the largest construction project currently being undertaken in the world! Despite all the confusion and loud noises we were able to see some landmarks and learn some history. The fact of the matter is that Berlin was so completely destroyed in WWII that there just isn't as much to see as there was in Paris or London. Give it ten years or so and Berlin will be a major, political and cultural center in Europe. Interestingly, the government tore down so much of the Berlin wall that they had to reconstruct some of it for tourists! We are going to a 21-Kilometer section that has been turned into an impromptu art gallery this afternoon. Kirk wants me to tell you that he won a piece of the wall because he knew something about German history. I want to tell you that I bought a piece of the wall because I'm a putz! The walking tour included stops at the wall, The Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, Hitler's Bunker, and The Reichstag, which will be the new seat of the German government. The Reichstag building has been around for a long time and is currently being renovated. The architect designed a glass dome that replaced a copper baroque dome that was destroyed by fire right before Hitler came to power. The Nazi's burned it down, blamed it on a communist and convinced the government to give Hitler absolute power. Representatives who voted against that initiative ended up on trains to the concentration camps! The glass dome is symbolic because it has a circular walkway that visito rs can explore free of charge. The walkway and dome look down on the center of the main government chamber to remind the politicians that the people are forever looking over their shoulders. That symbol is in stark contrast to the television tower that the communists built on the East Side to monitor its citizens and jam radio and television signals from the west. Big brother was always watching on the East Side. Next to Checkpoint Charlie on the West side a German business man build a large building right along the wall that was the headquarters of his company. He installed message boards that displayed news from the west that could be read in the East. In response the Soviets built rows and rows of apartment buildings right in front of it to block the messages. We started talking to a couple of guys on the walking tour that ended up being from Connecticut. We can't figure out how every day we keep meeting new people from one of the smallest states in the union! Last night we hooked up with a chick named Laura who is from Sacramento, attends UC Santa Barbara, and has been studying in France for the last year. She's touring Europe now before heading back to California. We were three Americans sitting in a Greek restaurant in East Berlin talking politics over what turned into a lot of beers. It was a little bizarre. It is still evident to this day that living conditions under communist rule were not very good, and Berlin was considered to be elegant by Soviet standards. All the beer meant that we were the last two lazy bastards to leave the hotel this morning. We are two of about twenty men and women in a big room together. We each have a locker and share bathrooms. The hostel is a renovated Soviet factory on the East Side. This morning we headed out to the Television tower which is now a tourist attraction that allows you to view the whole city from about 400 meters up. It amazes me how the communists completely ignored form for function in all of their architecture. The Soviet era buildings in East Berlin a re very unattractive, and are falling apart. We're in a great Internet cafe on the West Side right now sending this e-mail as you all roll out of bed to the humidity and heat. We are off to Prague in the morning where Internet access will probably be even more of a challenge to find. Hopefully it won't be too long before we write again because these long messages are Deutsche Mark consuming. By the way, I sent a bunch of postcards that have both French and Dutch postage. This isn't because I'm an idiot, which I am, we forgot to mail them from Paris and had to wait until Amsterdam. Enjoy the extra postage. Kirk did remember to mail his cards from Paris, although he couldn't read what we thought was a mailbox so he may have just ended up throwing them away in the trash! |
|
Josh Kirk |
| P.S. Here's an inventory of the extra keys I've found on this keyboard: °§äöÖÄßµ. The z and y kezs are reversed and the apostrophe is all screwed up. |
| Welcome to the Czech Republic, 64 Dollars Please... |
| Virtual Travelers, |
|
This is getting ridiculous. Every time we use our 1500 dollar Eurail passes to book rail passage we end up having to pay some extra fee. First it was a fast train, well we can deal with the slow train. Then we had to pay for reserving a couchette on the overnight train. Next it was an extra charge because Kirk is older than Christ and there is some age restriction. On todays (by the way punctuation is going to be a mess in this message because each key does twelve things and I cannot figure out how to access any of them. You will notice the lack of dollar signs (train ride to Prague we had to pay an extra 64 dollars because The Czech Republic does not honor Eurail passes. When we bought our tickets in Berlin we were faced with a little language barrier. We thought we had paid the extra for The Czech Republic, but alas we had not. If we had known this and clarified things the ticket would have cost 10 dollars at the station. Lesson learned. Anyhow, after sending yesterdays short novel we did tool around Berlin a little more before heading back to our hostel. We were relaxing at the hostel and we met a couple of great girls from North Dakota. One is studying to be a commercial pilot and meteorologist and the other is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Psychology while she prepares for the LSATS. Kirk taught the Psyche Lawyer how to sew buttons on her shirt. A little skill he picked up in the Navy. In fact the only skill he picked up in the Navy. I ended up going with the girls and some French guy to the most popular club in Berlin. The place had a few bars a couple of dance floors and a lot of odd-looking people, I may have been the most out of place. We had a great time though and headed back to the hostel around 3 A.M. The problem is that the S Bahn and U Bahn metros stop running at midnight. There are some late busses but after walking around the site of the new Daimler Chrysler and Sony European Headquarters for a half-hour we decided to catch a cab. The only problem was that the taxi drivers are prone to taking advantage of foreigners. The first attempt we just asked how much it would be. One of the girls spoke German so she did the talking. But the other girl and I were speaking English behind her so the guy knew we were Americans. He quoted us a rate of about 37 dollars for a 5-minute ride. The second attempt we smarted up though. The German speaker practiced what she wanted to say and tried her best to be German while the other American and I shut up. By the way we lost track of the Frenchman. He rolled home around 5 am telling stories of how successful he was with some of the men at the bar. I guess the scam worked because the taxi ride ended up costing 7.50. We woke up this morning and went to the East Side Gallery, which I spoke about in yesterday’s message. Then we pretty much caught our train and arrived in Prague around 4 PM. By the way I forgot to buy postcards in Berlin so I am going to alter some free ones we got at the Heineken factory. I hope you get a kick out of it. We were not able to find lodgings in Prague last night by phone so we waited until our arrival. The first guy we talked to on the train platform was trying to find borders for his house. We negotiated terms and went to check the place out. It is on the hill, one side overlooking Prague and the other a garden. It is a pretty good deal for 10 dollars a night each. Prague is a very inexpensive city in all the right ways. Coke is 2 dollars a glass and beer is 20 cents a glass. We have not seen much of the city yet as we have been working on lining up lodgings for Vienna, Munich, Interlaken, and Venice. Tomorrow morning we will take a tour of the city and then head out to a 650-year-old castle for the afternoon. Prague is a former Eastern Block City typical of the troubles faced after the fall of the iron curtain. They are working hard to promote their history to tourists. It seems to be working pretty well because their are a lot of Americans here. Overall, however the parts of the city we have seen are dirty and poorly maintained. Hopefully, things will get better tomorrow. As far as the people go, Czech women take the cake for Europe so far, only second in the world next to North Dakota women. Kirk is still interested in the German men. That is all for now from Prague, we will check in from Vienna next. Cheers, |
|
Josh Kirk |
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P.S. We are glad to hear it has chilled off at home. Today it was 75 to 80 in Prague with clear skies and a pleasant breeze. When we started these messages it was more of an overview. Then it became a little more play by play as we got positive response. Now it is play by play, with color commentary. We will be adding a microphone in the huddle to monitor more of the boring crap we feel inclined to pass along. Brevity has never been one of my strong points.
No it has not - Kirk |
| Learning from our own advice... |
| Vicarious Adventurers, |
|
A few house cleaning items before we begin. First of all, James, the reason Kirk gets made fun of more than me is because I have the keyboard. It was good to hear from the girls and know that they are alive and kicking. We have been split up for a week now and we have another to go before seeing them again. It should be a special reunion. Thanks again for all the positive feedback from friends and family, keep it coming. Finally, I wanted to make a couple of general comments about things we have been observing. Everyone in the world has a Hotmail account. That is no exaggeration. We have met people from a dozen different countries and without fail they all have Hotmail accounts. Looking over the shoulder of folks checking their e-mail in cyber cafes and at the hostels, everyone is checking Hotmail. If I were going to put my advertising dollars into the web I would go with the Hotmail site. Secondly, are cellular phones. If you think cellular phones are prevalent in the States, you haven't seen anything. We were told that Americans are easy to spot because we wear tennis shoes and white socks. I work the other way. A person isn't European if they are not wearing and using a cell phone all the time. I wouldn't be surprised if 70% of Europeans, even in the east own cell phones. We left off in Prague after getting a negative first impression of the city. Later that evening we wandered to the city center and found a square surrounded by buildings that spanned 600 years of architectural design. Many of them were light up producing quite an overwhelming effect. As it turns out the city is beautiful. A mix between old and new, and large and small. The city itself is relatively manageable on foot although they have a nice metro system that was built by the soviets. Many of the underground cars still have soviet lettering on the outside! We should learn from our own advice and not rely on first impressions. Although, I found the hodge podge of architectural design to be a little chaotic at first, but Kirk liked it off the bat. As I spent a little time organizing things in my head it was better, although the chaos never really subsided. The center points of the city are a 14th-16th century castle overlooking a 14th century bridge that has become the entrance to the cultural, art, and commercial sections of the city. The former communists have done a beautiful job of adjusting to capitalism in the last ten years. You would think you were touring a street festival in Manhattan, but you would be in Prague. We also found a cafe in that square and had a few beers under the spires of the many churches. The next day we hooked up with a walking tour of the city and learned more about what we had seen the night before. The tour focused on the Prague Castle and city center. The castle has been the residence of Czech leaders for generations and is currently the home of their President. A citizen could actually knock on the front door of the President's home and ask to meet with him. There was little apparent security and he was home as we were looking into his windows! After the walking tour we pretty much tooled around the city for a little while trying to find some souvenirs. We headed back up to the house for a little nap, which lasted until 10:00, after which we couldn’t find dinner and had to drink on an empty stomach. On our way back from the bars we ran into a Czech soldier who was on twelve days liberty. He hit the bottle pretty hard that night and could hardly walk. He was excited to see Americans, however, and told us how much he wanted to kill us. He wouldn't really have been much of a threat though, even if he was sober! He knew about as few English words as we knew Czech and everything he knew about America came from films and movies. Needless to say, we made it home without being executed by the Czech military and were on a train to Vienna yesterday morning. We sat next to a couple of Americans and got to talking. As it turns out the two girls are both working for Andersen Consulting this fall and one of them will be in training with me this September! Small world, huh? Sorry ladies haven't met any new Price Waterhouse Coopers or Ernst and Young people, but I'll keep my eyes out among the general riff raff! In our feeble search for a hostel we found nada. The first six tries came up with nothing. As we were walking around we noticed another guy following us who seemed to be on the same mission. We found a phone, made some calls and got into a place as three, not just two. It was good that we found him. We found a Chinese place downtown in the shopping district. To give you an idea of the wealth in this city, I found a pair of shoes for $1000. Kirk's thinking of picking up a pair! We hooked up with some Canuks last night along with our roommate from San Francisco and talked North American politics at a bar down the street. We are about to head out to see more of Vienna. We have a tour scheduled for later this afternoon and hope to see a Mozart concert this evening in a Baroque hall in the Museum District. |
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Cheers,
Josh Kirk |
| P.S. Have you ever seen that Seinfeld episode about how everything is always even Stephen? Well, that's how our trip has been. For some reason everything just seems to work out, always even Stephen! |
| It really is a small world after all... |
| Virtual Travelers, (I like that greeting the best. I think we will stick with it) |
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I cannot figure out how to type an apostrophe on this keyboard so this message may sound a little over formal. Not that you folks do not deserve formality! I think we left off in Vienna about to attend a concert. We were not kidding. The concert was a mixture of opera and ballet with an orchestra playing Mozart and Strauss. It was held in a small Baroque concert hall. Very nice. I think I am in love with the first violinist! After the concert we returned to our hostel where we met our new roommate, Jason, an Aussie who runs tour groups around Europe. Needless to say the conversation turned to drinking and we hit a college bar downtown. We were the only Americans in the place and it was kareoke night. You have not lived until you’ve (figured out the apostrophe) seen Austrian College students singing American songs in Kareoke. For once we were able to laugh at someone rather than being laughed at. We were having a great time until we ran out of money. I went outside to find an ATM and never returned! I got all turned around in the streets of Vienna and couldn’t find my way back to the bar. After a half-hour search through some of the unprettier parts of the city (I did learn that Austrian rats are large and I now know where to find a prostitute in Vienna) I took a taxi home around 2 am. Kirk and the Aussie strolled in around 5 am after some Austrian chicks showed them a good time at an after hours bar. Since I was the only one who got any sleep I was responsible for getting us on the train the next morning. We had our own compartment and laid out the seats into beds. I have learned how to sleep under absolutely any conditions. It’s a great skill. Upon arrival in Munich we found our hostel and decided to take a bike tour to situate ourselves with the city. Munich was settled in 1581 and is the capital of Bavaria, a German province in the south. It was in the west during the cold war so it didn’t loose the last few decades of growth like Prague and East Berlin. Our bike tour lasted four hours and was lead by a Kiwi named Mark. He had flown in from the Tibetan Freedom Concert in Amsterdam to do our tour. He was hurting but made it a great time nonetheless. Now I’m going to try to make an actuarial joke. Half way through the bike tour we stopped at a beer garden for a drink. Now imagine twenty kids on bikes after leaving a beer garden where the beers are gigantic. Sprague, work out a risk assessment of that situation and tell me what Aetna would charge to insure this guy’s company. Provided Aetna hadn’t sold all of their property and casualty business. Needless to say the ride back was interesting. Oh, as we were waiting for the bike tour I ran into a kid from UCONN that was in one of my accounting classes. I think he’s going to work for PWC in September. There were also two other girls on the tour from the Nutmeg State. That’s our first example of a small world. After the tour we hit the world famous Hofbrau Haus with some of our new friends from Russia, Jersey , Colorado, and Duke. We couldn’t help reminding them who won the Championship. It also helped that Kirk was wearing a Championship T-shirt. We also took a second to remind the group from Ohio State how things turned out for them. No Michigan representation to finish up the final four. GO UCONN!!! Beers at the Hofbrau Haus are served in 1-liter glasses, one of which I stole and will be mailing home tomorrow! Kirk was heading to the WC and heard his named called out by a girl. This happen s all the time so he didn’t think anything of it. The voice was Kim. Apparently Kim and Liz were drinking on the other side of the bar which is the size of a football field! We had no idea they were in Munich so you can imagine our surprise. Kim and Liz were staying in the same hostel as the med students we met from New Jersey. We went back to their place and couldn’t get in. We didn’t want to say goodnight so we headed to a bar across the street for another beer. Once in the bar we looked around and noticed a very odd girl guy ratio. It was a gay bar! We had our beers and headed home by taxi. After sleeping in this morning we went to the site of the 1972 Olympic Games and BMW Museum. The Catholics have the Vatican City, the Muslims Mecca, Kirk the Hofbrau Haus, and I have the BMW Museum. It was the center of all that is good about Germany and possibly the rest of the planet. Boys, don’t worry I hit the gift shop pretty hard with my AMEX card. I get Delta miles you know! Kirk wanted me to mention the monster Munich pretzels that when stretched out are taller than the women in Prague. Anyhow, after leaving the center of the engineering universe we headed out to Dachau around 6. Dachau is a Nazi concentration camp from WWII, which by the way closes at 6! We’ll go back tomorrow. I was a little sketched about visiting a concentration camp when we were planning the trip but I’ve decided that its important not to forget what happened to the Jews, communists, homosexuals and everyone else in those camps. We need to educate future generations. On our way back to the Hofsbrau Haus we ran into the girls again and had dinner. The Germans know how to eat. I forgot to mention that we visited the summer residence of Ludwig II, Bavaria’s Mad King at some point in the past. I can’t keep all these monarchs straight. Kirk has a thing with fountains and I have a thing for royal residences. It’s no Versailles, but Ludwig II was no Sun King like Louis XIV. We were drinking with some Germans and a Swede at the Hofsbrau Haus. They we re kind of annoying so we took off. At some point before that the girls decided to jet as well without telling us. Thanks ladies, that’s pretty uncool. Kim, I don’t want to get married anymore! We’ll harass them again in Italy next weekend. Today’s the halfway point of our trip and we’re feeling it. The bar tabs are nowhere near where they were in London and Paris! We look forward to a good night’s sleep tonight before finishing up Munich tomorrow and heading to Interlaken for some white water rafting and bunjee jumping, not! Paris is still the highpoint for me and Prague for Kirk. If the women in Prague could all live in Paris, I`d be all set! We’ll write from the hospital in Interlaken after we break our legs hang gliding. Oh, I forgot that one of the tourists on the bike tour and at the Hofsbrau house is starting with Andersen Consulting in the fall as well. Small world! |
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Josh Kirk Kim and Liz (in spirit only, but they’re at the top of the spirit shit list) |
| P.S. Dachau closes at 6! The Europe for Idiots Guide Book that we’re writing will mention that. |
| The Alps… |
| Virtual Travelers, |
| We just arrived in Interlaken, Switzerland. We are in the heart of the Alps. Try to find it on a map. The place we are staying is called Balmers and is more like a spring break resort in Cancun than a hostel in Europe (www.balmers.com). We are about to head out on a small plane to the top of an alpine glacier where we will land, hopefully, not crash, on the top for some sight seeing. If you don't hear from us for a little while send out a search team! |
|
Josh and Kirk |
| P.S. The girls in bikinis in the courtyard here are making us miss Kim and Liz a lot less! |
| Rejoicing in our reunion... |
| Virtual Travelers, |
| We are alive in Florence once again with the ladies. I'll write more tonight. It's been an exciting week. We are heading out to see the Statue of David and The Duomo right now. |
|
Josh Kim Kirk Liz |
| Still rejoicing in our reunion... |
| Virtual Travelers, |
| This is going to be a little quicker than normal because we haven't yet seen what the Florence night life has to offer and it's getting late. Kirk and I left off about to leave on an airplane to the summit of an alpine glacier. Well, it didn't work out the first day they couldn't find the plane and on the second the weather didn't work out. We ended up going canyoning which meant we slid down river rapids, jumped off waterfalls, and repelled down cliffs. It was cool and we bought some of the photos that their photographers made available. That was in Interlaken, Switzerland where the girls were a few days prior and went river rafting. They said it was a rough and tumble ride, but great fun non-the less. The girls went to Munich after Interlaken where we met them. I think this may sound familiar to many so I'll move on. Kim wanted me to mention how much she loved the Hofsbrau Haus! The girls moved on to Salzburg, Austria where the Sound of Music was set. They went frolicking through the fields singing Do a deer, female deer, Ra, you get the point. They also went to some salt mines and saw a dinner show. Back to us, now. After we left Interlaken we went to the capital in Bern and saw some bears in the bear pit. We had some serious time to kill before our train to Venice so we went to a small Swiss town named Brig. We figured that we would be chilling for about four hours in the Brig train station to kill time. We ended up taking some beautiful pictures of the Alps from a park next to the oldest castle in Switzerland. A couple of guys studying in Brig befriended us and showed us the town. One guy was from Norway and the other South Africa. They were pumped to meet Americans so they invited us to a party at a local bar with a bunch of their college friends. The partyers were from twenty different countries but all spoke English so we felt right at home. What was supposed to be a boring train stop turned in to a great night and a nice hangover upon our arrival to Venice! Cut to the Venice train station... We met the girls on the train platform and got ready to spend a half-day touring Venice. The girls we very cheerful because they had just left a train compartment on an overnight train where they tried to sleep with four other people in seats. Kirk and I slept in relative comfort in our couchette with one other person. I didn't want to mention this but these three are pressuring me. We met a Venetian teacher in the train station. He had to be in his sixties and had probably not stopped drinking sine 1967. This guy was shit faced and pissed off at me because I am an American. It just about came to blows before the station manager stepped in to fend him off. We saw our new friend, the teacher on the other side of Venice later in the day where he continued to yell "son of bitch" at us. This guy was a real piece of work. Welcome to Venice... Venice was fun and was punctuated by getting lost every twelve seconds. Liz showed us that she is quite a negotiator when she talked a street merchant down from 80,000 Lire to 30,000 Lire for an authentic imitation Prada hand bag that's from $40 to $15. Good work Liz. Kirk is taking her to negotiate the price for a new car when we get back to the States. Venice was our first introduction to Gelati, Italian ice cream. This stuff is great and comes in about 40 million flavors that you have never seen ice cream in at home. Cut to Rome... Ah Roma! Rome has both bad and good aspects to speak of. The list of good is much shorter so we'll stick to that. Rome is a beautiful ancient city with great potential that the local government, their 67th since WWII, has failed in leveraging. We visited Roman ruins, The Coliseum, The Italian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, The Pantheon, a bunch of fountains and Vatican City. Saint Peter's Basilica, the church where The Pope does his thing is absolutely magnificent. We hit the Sistine Chapel before the Basilica after waiting in line for about an hour. The Vatican forces you to tour through several museums for an hour before actually arriving in the Sistine Chap el. I will mention this a couple of times, but Michaelangelo is an absolute genius. The Sistine Chapel is the most beautiful piece of artwork we have ever seen. It is overwhelming in scale and importance to the planet. It was gorgeous. Back to St. Peter's Basilica. Next to Versailles the Basilica was the most fantastic place I have ever been. The time and attention the Catholic Church and countless Popes have taken to build and maintain this facility is overwhelming. There are monuments to many of the most important Popes and they are all buried there. No sign of John Paul himself, though. We also were lucky enough to see The Pieta Statue, which is Michaelangelo's (genius) rendering of the image of Mary holding Jesus after he fell off the cross. We'll show you our pictures when we return and they'll speak for themselves. WOW! We continued our enjoyment of the Italian ice cream by having more every chance we got. There are about 12 million flavors of this stuff that we'll never have a chance to test. Too bad! Cut to Florence... We came to Florence with no idea of where we would spend the night. Generally, that is not the best policy. We arrived around 9 PM and struck out at the first couple of places we tried. Three's a charm, though and we were able to find a great room with four beds and our own bathroom. The place is in a great location right in the middle of everything Florence has to offer. After getting under way this morning we went to see Michaelangelo's (genius) David, The Duomo, where we went to the top of the fourth largest cathedral in the world. We also trekked to one of the Medici Palaces and checked out the great views of The Tuscany Province from atop the raised gardens. This region is phenomenal. Had more ice cream! I forgot to mention that before we went to the Duomo we had to go back to the hotel so the girls could dress appropriately for a church (no daisy dukes)! We left the restaurant where we had just eaten our 14th pizza each since we arrived in Italy. The hotel was only a block or two fro m the Cafe down the same road. Kim, Liz and I headed down that road a little until we realized we were one tourist light. Kirk took a left out of the restaurant and was following some Italian women. We were actually watching him jaunt down the street laughing and expecting him to realize he was alone. Nope! Kirk just kept on going. After waiting for him to return, which he never did, we went out after him. To make long story short Kirk disappeared for a little while but we hooked up with him later at the hotel. Quick notes: Italian food is great and Italian wine is cheap. Seriously though, Italy is a blur and rests in our minds about as quickly as this e-mail has shared it with you. We will be home in ten days or so and the last twenty are becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate. We are looking forward to developing our photos to jog our memory before telling you all our stories. Tomorrow morning we are off to Cinque Terre, which is a group of five villages on the cliffs of the Italian Riviera. We are actually staying the night in Pisa (leaning tower) about an hour south of the villages. After that voyage we are off to Nice on the French Riviera. I forgot to mention that for some reason we have all had phenomenal luck this whole month on this trip. Hopefully that luck will hold when we hit the casinos in Monaco! Then off to Barcelona, Madrid, and home. You'll hear from us before then, though. We apologize for the speed of this message, you can downshift your brains now! |
|
Ciao,
Josh Kim Liz Kirk |
| P.S. We're tired. |
| Living La Vida Loca… |
| Virtual Travelers, |
| I think we left off in Florence just about to hit the bars. As it turns out Florence is full of drunken people but no bars! Actually, we weren't looking in the right place and ended up settling for an outdoor cafe for a few drinks. I got an e-mail from a buddy of mine at Andersen Consulting telling us where to go in Florence, but I read it too late. Thanks anyhow Jer. Quick side note: I mentioned that Europeans purchase their first cell phone at age six and use them everywhere imaginable. Elaine Bennis once called a sick friend of hers from her cell phone and did a walking get well soon call instead of visiting, and it was decided that it was highly inappropriate. I guess Europeans aren't big Seinfeld fans. We have noticed that a lot of folks in France and Italy have a small microphone\speaker device that connects to their digital StarTac phones that allows them to have a hands free conversation as they walk or drive or scooter or whatever. The thing is if you don't see this little earpiece it appears as though these people are having a great conversation with themselves! Enough on that, it didn't turn out as comical as I'd hoped. We left Florence early the next morning on a train bound for La Spezia, Italy and then Montarossa, one of five villages that make up Cinque Terre on the cliffs of the Italian Riviera. These small towns are a place that was forgotten by the world some time ago until the Americans finally found it this week. Just kidding, the fishing villages are practically untouched by western capitalist influences (no golden arches!). It isn't hard to see though, that as time passes and they become more popular the inevitable progress of American chain food and hotel operations will move in. I love America! We did a little hiking between a couple of the villages and chilled on the beaches. I have tanned more on this trip than ever before in my life. Not too much burning, Mom. We were a little nervous upon arrival in the villages of Cinque Terre because we didn't have a place to stay. As it turned out neither did anyone else that we met on the trip in. I met a guy who had a lead on a room broker in Riomaggiore, the largest of the five villages. Liz just came over from another P.C. to report that her research on European bathing equipment is complete. Ever since the hotel in Italy we have had a strange device in our bathrooms in addition to the toilet, sink, and shower or bath (no curtain). We immediately thought that it was a bidet, because we had seen them before in the states. We couldn't, however, figure out how to make this thing in the bathroom do what we thought bidet's do. Apparently a European bidet is not intended for the same function as in the States. Our best guess is that it is used to wash the feet, not the bum. A lot of Europeans, however, need to learn how to wash the whole body and not just the feet. So in this quick aside we have either amused you or made more evident than ever how naive we are. Back to the guy who was helping us find a room. I immediately forgot the directions he gave me so I thought that it would be wise to follow him as he found something for himself and his friends. There was a woman loitering in the train platform asking people if they needed a hostel to spend the night in. Instead of jumping on that opportunity immediately, I decided to continue following the other guy (we like to mooch off of other people’s research as much as possible). We got a little ways up a hillside and I noticed that the guy was talking to the proprietor of the hostel that the old lady was recruiting for. The hostel owner was an ugly, fat, toothless Italian wonder. I guess he had decided not to go with his initial contact and take this opportunity as it presented itself. We followed him into the place that looked a little sketchy at first. We saw the guy later and as it turns out the place was a shit hole. I decided to confirm the original directions with the guy and headed out in hopes that we could use his contact. We ended up meeting "Edi", the rooms broker on the other side of town. He hook ed us up with a wicked awesome pad (I don't use the words wicked awesome generally, it's for the ladies who are from Northern Connecticut). The place was someone's apartment that was made available for renters. We had two bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom (with bidet!) washing machine, dishes, TV, and the whole nine yards. The place ran each of us $18 per night! We decided not to tell our friend that ended up in the shit hole how cool it was because technically it was his place. Whew, talk about making a short story long... Got screwed by the transit police again (only $5 this time to the Italian Gestapo). I won't get into the details but it wasn't extraordinarily bright on our part as you can imagine! After peeling ourselves off the beaches of Cinque Terre we got on a train headed for Nice, from the Italian Riviera to the French Riviera. Upon arrival to Nice we found our hotel, that Kim got for us because she is good with foreign languages, Kirk dialed the phone (thanks Kirk, bang up job!). Liz and I were watching our bottle of wine empty as they were calling Nice for a room. Anyhow, the place was great in Nice as well. Actually, we absolutely cannot screw up lodgings for some reason. I may be jinxing us by saying that but we only have one city left, so screw it. Needless to say we got another bidet! Also, we were lucky to have a corner room with a lot of windows. When we get into a new room we all call our beds immediately. I like to be next to the window so I called the twin bed closest to the window, passsing up the double bed across the room that Kimmy got. Dammit! Unfortunately, an enormous blue neon flashing sign that said, HOTEL, HOTEL, HOTEL, Kenny Rogers Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kenny Rogers Kentucky Fried Chicken, HOTEL, flashed right outside my window. It lit up the room pretty well despite our attempts to block it out. Luckily it turned off before we went to bed. (The Kenny Rogers Kentucky Fried Chicken reference is for the hard core Seinfeld fans reading this e-mail, others should ignore it). The next m orning we headed for the beautiful beaches of Nice, which are completely devoid of sand and bikini tops! Yeah Baby. Kim and Liz asked me to note that they did not take off their tops and that they are not cool. Kirk and I sun bathed topless. After tanning and staring for a few hours we cleaned ourselves up and headed to the Principality of Monaco just down the road. Our plan was to hit the Prince's Palace, check out some yachts, and play some tables at The Monte Carlo Casino. We did two out of three. Upon arrival at the Monte Carlo it was evident that we didn't belong inside. We settled with taking pictures of the cars outside, which probably averaged $250,000 a piece (that’s dollars, not lire) and the gardens. We then headed back to the train station in Nice, got our bags, and waited for the overnight train to Barcelona. We hit a liquor store for a couple of bottles of vino to help us sleep in the couchette. We killed one bottle on the platform waiting for the late train to arrive and the second in the car itself. Quick note on Italian trains although Nice is not in Italy. Italian trains pretty much run whenever the hell they want to. Much like the complete lack of evidence of any traffic or emissions laws in Italy so too is its rail system devoid of any consistency. Like I said in the last e-mail, Italy has some inefficiencies that are difficult to adjust to as Americans who had just visited Germany, Austria, and Switzerland where things quite literally run like clock work. Despite German efficiencies, Liz asked me to add a bad word about the German Postal system that damaged both of the steins that she purchased in Munich. I would tend to think that it was more likely Cliff Claven who did the damage, but we'll never know. I hope my stuff gets there safe. Um, where the hell was I. Oh yeah, thanks Kirk. We were getting on the overnight couchette train to Barcelona, which just as advertised ran overnight to Barcelona! Well actually to Port Bau, Spain where we grabbed a connecting train at 6:30 AM. While in Port Bau Kim once again delivered on her ability to hook us up with great rooms, although this time the guy spoke English. The train ride into Barcelona sucked because the seats were uncomfortable and some asshole was playing a crappy bootleg tape on a recorder aloud as he transcribed the lyrics. That guy was a real moron. Well, we got our room, showered, and had lunch. Now that we've been in this Internet Cafe for two hours our day is beginning to get shot. We are planning a quick siesta, gelati break, and then dancing till dawn. We haven't made any plans for tomorrow or the next day. We just pretty much know that we have to be in Madrid sometime next week for our flight home. That's it from Barcelona, home of the 1992 summer games. Hopefully, we won't meet the Spanish Gestapo this weekend. |
|
Josh Kim Liz Kirk |
| P.S. Sprague and Malcolm are planning a welcome back party for us next Friday at T.G.I.Friday's in Manchester. This may be a surprise to Sprague and Malcolm but I think they can figure out how to get to a bar 23 seconds from their apartment next Friday night. Actually that's our apartment, because they apparently moved into our new home this weekend. Since I have been in Europe throughout this whole process I'm sure I'll be getting the crapiest bedroom. But that's cool. If you're interested, our phone number is (860) 649-8800. If you call and they don't know what the hell you're talking about tell them to check their e-mail. |
| All Good Things… |
| Everyone, |
| Well it is all over, we were never able to send out the last email so here is my version of what the email should have been, this is our last 4 days in Europe (Barcelona and Madrid). We stayed in a great location in Barcelona, right off of La Rambla, the main drag in the city. It was filled with shops and bars and outdoor performers and most of all people everywhere at all hours. After we sent out the email we headed back to the room for a little R & R and a quick siesta. It turned out that Josh and I were the only ones who slept, the girls hit the liquor store and bought $2 bottles of wine. Unlike the in the States, a $2 bottle of wine in Spain is damn good. When Josh and I woke from our siesta we had a couple drinks of wine and all of us headed out for dinner and to check out the laser light show at some fountains in Barcelona. The show was really, really cool, they played some music and these fountains erupted in different colors and different shapes. We sat there watching it and were in awe. After the show was over we decided to stop for a beer and then off to bed… I was not ready for bed and neither was Kimmy, we knew of a bar called L’Ovella Negra (The Black Sheep) and decided to head there ourselves. Seeing that we were going out, Liz and Josh also tagged along. The Black Sheep was a pretty neat place, a lot of tourists where there and they had a great sangria. For those of you who don’t know what sangria is, its iced wine. It tastes GREAT! Just ask Kim or Liz. The bar closed at 3:00 and at this point we were all a little (Ok, a lot) tipsy and Kim and I wanted to hit a Discotech, so we all wandered into Robin Hood, a local club on La Rambla. In the US all the clubs are closed at 3:00, in Spain people are just starting to get there. We left about 5:00 and people were still just getting in the club! I guess that it was open until 9:00AM! Needless to say we got a very late start on Sunday. Once we rolled out of bed (14:00) we had lunch and decided to check out La Sagrada Familia , a church that had been under construction for over 100 years, designed by a famous Spanish artist/architect Gaudi. We all headed for the top and let me tell you I was scared to death, I’m a little afraid of heights. Next we looked at things to do that night and decided to see a Flamenco dancer show. We found one near the hotel and where entertained by a group of Spanish men and women dance around in colorful costumes. That was a really good time, the show ended pretty early so we all headed back to Black Sheep for a beer or sangria. After one drink we all headed back and called it an early night. It was all about the beach on Monday! We got up dropped our bags at the train station and hit the beach. That is all that we did during the day, bake on the beach. After getting some sun we hit Planet Hollywood for lunch/dinner and headed back to La Rambla to do some last minute shopping and hang around. We then hit the train station and went to Madrid on an overnight train. We got to Madrid about 8:00 and checked into the hotel and tried to figure out what to do. Josh was feeling a little under the weather so he took some medicine and got some sleep. Liz Kim and I got the idea to hit the Madrid Zoo, the largest in Europe. Another small fact, Madrid is hotter than hell, the temp reached almost 110 F! We eventually made it to the zoo with a lot less water in our systems, but not before an interesting detour. While getting to the zoo we had to cross through a park… Ok, Ok, we didn’t have to, but I got us lost so we were cutting through a park. This park was a normal city park, between the Zoo and an amusement park. As we were going I was trying to figure out how to get to the zoo and Liz says "Ask the hooker." I thought she was joking, boy was I wrong. It seems that all of the daytime hookers in Madrid hang out in this park, we saw at least 20 of them, dressing in thongs, short skirts or lingerie. Mind you this is a normal park, not in a sleazy part of town and it is 13:00 hours. In addition there were empty condoms strewn all over the path, it was a very surreal experience. At this point in time, I didn’t have a great opinion of Madrid’s parks. Finally we found the zoo and wandered around for a couple hours. All in all it was a damn good zoo, they had an aquarium right there and all kinds of different animals, we got to watch a seal show. Towards 17:00 we decided to head back to the hotel and get Josh. Upon arrival to the hotel Josh was much better so we all decided to siesta before going out. That night we went to O’Neils, an Irish pub and then Kim and I headed to a cheesy discotech. Liz and Josh went with us to the disco but left after a short while. Wednesday, our last day in Europe! Wow, hard to believe that it had been a month. Today Liz, Kim and Josh wanted to head to Toledo and go shopping and look around. I really didn’t want to go so I stayed in Madrid and did some sightseeing of my own. First I went to The Renia Sofia, Madrid’s modern art museum. While I was there I saw Picassos famous Guernica which he painted to protest the bombing of the city of the same name by the Germans’ in the Spanish Civil War. After leaving I went to the Prado, a world class art museum. Most of you know, I am not really into art, but I did enjoy myself but I burnt out rather quickly and had to leave. Off to the Jardin Real, Madrid’s botanical garden. It was beautiful, a great place to go and just sit among the beauty of nature. After relaxing for a little bit I headed out to Madrid’s main park to see a statue called ‘The Fallen Angel’ which is the only known statue dedicated to the devil. It was a cool statue to see but the park was a real cool place, aside from being 115 F outside (no joke!). After hooker central the day before I was nervous about going to another park in Madrid. It turns out prostitution alley was a fluke and Madrid has a great park system, so I spent the rest of the day hitting parks around Madrid and stopping by at the University to see Spanish college kids. We all got back together at 8:00 and headed back to O’Neils for a few more beers and off to bed. Thursday, home sweet home. Getting back was a nightmare, but we made it and everything is all right |
|
Kirk Josh Liz Kim |
| P.S. I’m going back and doing this again (but not for as long)! |