Vienna: “I am George, Killer of Snakes!”

We arrived in Vienna in the early afternoon, after a short easy train ride from Munich. While exiting the train station, Alex was confronted, or questioned, well we’re not really sure, but a guy around 18-24 with purple lips who looked like a walking zombie walked close to Alex and mumbled something. It was a bit frightening. After we escaped this Resident Evil like scene of life, we discovered our hostel which was near the train station and was easy enough to find. We were greeted by a friendly lady with perfect English who showed us our 3 bed room that was about the size of a large closet. It was nice to have a room to ourselves, and everything was very clean, but there wasn’t much room to move around. After we had settled in our room, we decided to go out and explore the city.

We made the 15 minute walk to the city center and along the way, we decided to try out an Austrian KFC. It was quite tasty. Vienna has a large walking street with stores, shops, and restaurants on each side, which we made our way down. After a short while, it was time for dinner, so we made our way back to the hostel to get try to find somewhere to eat dinner at. It just so happens, we were lucky enough to have a restaurant right by our hostel called Mozart Strube that had delicious Schnitzel and French fries or a salad for a good price. We all decided to have the turkey schnitzel which was delicious, and tasted a lot like Tyson’s chicken nuggets. After our bellies were full of delicious Schnitzel (chicken fried steak, or in our case turkey) we decided to hang around our hostel bar/common room, and then off to bed.

Day 2 began with us eating some delicious baked goods for breakfast, before we headed off to see a few of the sights and sounds that Vienna had to offer. We made our way to the Royal Palace (Where the something family lived) where a giant statue of Mozart stood out front, with a patch of grass in front. In the patch of grass, yellow flowers had been planted to form a treble clef in front of the statue. We really liked the statue and setting, but nearly as much as a particular Asian family that spent about 30 minutes taking photos in front of it. We almost decided it wasn’t worth trying to get a picture in front of, until we finally snuck our way in front of the statue to get a quick picture while the family was taking a break. After we moved on, they continued with their own personal photo shoot with the statue.

We made our way past the museum district of Vienna, but unfortunately nothing was open due it being a Sunday. The outside of the palaces and museums; however, all looked very impressive from the outside. We walked our way further towards the downtown area where the (SOMETHING CATHEDRAL) stood. The outside looked very similar to Gaudi’s works that we saw in Barcelona, and the inside was quite beautiful as well. And dusty. The outside roof was tiled in zig-zag designs and it was quite strange. We ate some delicious American food, and we set off for Prater Park, my (alex’s) pre-birthday extravaganza.

Prater Park is like a carnival in America except it never moves, it is a permanent carnival. Also, there is no admission to the park due to all of the rides being independent. This means that each ride charges a different price, and it also means that not all of the rides will be open if a particular owner doesn’t want to open the ride for the day. We started out with some bumper cars. There were some nice collisions between Alex, Brittany and me (David) since the only other two people in cars were small children with their parents. This did not stop me from hitting them a few times out of impulse. After some back soreness, we decided to explore the rest of the park. It was a lot like an American carnival mixed in with an actual theme park like 6 Flags. There were some good rides like haunted house rides, mini roller coasters, 1 big roller coaster, and a Wild Rapidsesque water ride (which was running in the 40 degree weather). There were also some smaller rides that you’d see more often at a carnival like ferris wheels, pony rides, and bumper cars. One of the more interesting rides was a spinning ride that you sit down that was similar to the ones that spin you so fast you stick to the wall. The ride blared American pop music and the operator (for some odd reason, each ride had an operator who also had a microphone that they used to speak German commands at while the ride was going, or to try to lure you towards their ride) encouraged riders to get up and dance while music was playing. This of course, was a mistake due to the fact that operator only slowed the spinning to entice people to dance. Shortly after anyone began dancing, he immediately sped the ride back up sending them flying back to their seats. Another notable ride was a giant slide you could slide down in a potato sack. We decided to go into a Fun House, which was pretty good and somewhat frightening at times. After that, we toured some more of the park before going on their main Ferris wheel. There was another Ferris wheel that looks like it has box cars attached to it instead of seats, that moves very slow and is for picture taking/ viewing the city. We decided to go to the regular Ferris wheel that moved at a normal speed, which also gave the riders the option to spin the seat in circles. We unfortunately found that out close to the end of the ride. After our tour on the Ferris wheel, we decided to head back to the hostel to get ready for dinner.

After some time to think at the hostel, we decided to have another schnitzel dinner. It was once again delicious and fried. We stayed a bit longer enjoying a few beers, and then decided to find a livelier place for Alex’s birthday. This place, turned out to be called Pandora’s Box, and it was quite an experience. Upon entry to this quaint establishment we were greeted by an unfamiliar stench, that I learned may or may not have been marijuana. Some strange man started yelling at us as we approached the bar, and the barmaid was having a hard time understanding the word beer, birra, beir, cerveza, por favor. In the haze of smoke and strange circles of people we went to the back to what looked like two bench seats out of a van and a coffee table. We stayed and talked for a while keeping to ourselves, keeping a wary eye on the people going in and out of the bathroom repeatedly. We were getting a little uncomfortable, but this all soon changed in the form of George. Papa georgio, killer of snakes. This plump Indian-Austrian approached and asked if he could sit. Recognizing he was the man that was yelling at us from before, we said sure. We started off by asking where we were from and upon hearing Texas, started yelling, or singing, I can’t differentiate, a song about Texas. He then sings some Johnny cash songs that I had never heard but nevertheless enjoyed. He proceeded to tell us why Russian women were the toughest. He said some women had come up to him in the bar and started kissing his face. Slip number one, we all knew no one would be kissing him, but anyway he went on telling us that she kept looking at a man in the corner that looked like Louis XVI. Then she asked him if he had a gun, which he replied no. Well, she said it would have been better if you did so you could shoot my pimp. HAHAHAHAHA he laughed, and we laughed, and we laughed in great bewilderment of this new friend. He then proceeded to read my palm, he can see auras. I will meet my love in 3-4 years he said, what a guy. This smelly man provided us with more entertainment than anything going on in Vienna that night. We had no idea half the time what he was saying, except the fact that he has killed anacondas, and cobras in his native India. I asked him about rattlesnakes, he said that’s like mike Tyson fighting an infant. George, killer of snakes taught us ways to escape anacondas and kill cobras with shovels, information I feel Bear Grylls would not have even known. We then introduced us to his friend peter, which assured us George was crazy, and ran away at his first opportunity. I feel I’ve learned more from George than one could learn in a million trips around the world. Safe travels, George. After that we realized it had turned 12 and I was officially 21, but judging from my birthday activities, the numbers could easily be reversed.

Day three: Alex’s birthday, take two. What was I to do on my birthday? I had already met the end all be all of man, had some great conversation and drank my first of age beer. What else could I do but go to the zoo? The zoo was a huge cement building 10 stories high in the middle of Vienna. IT was promising. We walked in and to our amazement, it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it was a really awesome aquarium/reptile zoo that also had monkeys. Monkey’s that were attracted to David and were about 5 inches away from him (The zoo had several open areas where birds and monkeys could fly or climb up to visitors if they pleased). David said he could have played with them all day but Brittany warned him not to touch them in fear of contracting the Ebola virus. In the same cage as the monkeys were alligators, sting-rays, fish and sea turtles and a multitude of birds. It was amazing! There were also anacondas, pythons, cobras, and mambas. George would have been in heaven. There were also a plethora of tropical fish and sharks! Hammerheads and reef sharks were there among others. After the zoo we went exploring and found a cool open air market, which Brittany loved of course. We got some amazingly cheap Chinese take-out that tasted like good old china, or pei-wei, whichever you prefer. I also purchased a wolf shirt, a tee shirt with a wolf on it just for kicks. We also walked to a park and soaked in the wienerness of Wien. It then clicked to me why it was called Weiner schnitzel, which I admit was pretty bad. We then went home, took a nap, and went to eat at a very modern Asian food place called “yellow bar”. (I don’t know) It was delicious sushi and Asian food and ironically it felt the most American out of every restaurant we had eaten at.

Day four: We decided to spend our last day in Vienna at a museum called Haus der Musik. It is an interactive museum that is aimed to please any 10-12 year old. Oddly enough, there were many more people over the age of 50, also enjoying the vast arrays of sounds and sights. We were greeted at the beginning of the museum with a darkened room that was supposed to simulate the sights and sounds of the womb. A rotating fetus/zygote was projected on the wall as the sounds of water and heartbeats pulsated the speaker walls. After being thoroughly disturbed, we moved on to different exhibits explaining how to transcend musical reality through different sounds and perceptions. Many of the exhibits had touch screen computer monitors and headsets that allowed you to sing and use your own voice. This was amusing as David would sing loudly into the microphone and make farting noises and everyone around him entering the room could hear it. The second story of the museum was dedicated to Viennese Classical Music and had many exhibits including Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, and other composers. The exhibits included many letters and personal artifacts of these famous men including wooden doors, stoves, and pianos. The last part of the museum had a huge wall of different sounds coming out of what looked like shower heads. It was weird, but nevertheless fun to pose for pictures pretending the showerheads were attacking us. Haus der Musik was a great success and we decided the only way to make this day perfect would be to end it at Prater Park. Prater Park during the day in full of middle school students. Of course the first thing we decided to do was ride the bumper cars. This proved to be a big mistake as we were in the rink with 2 middle school boys that were out for blood. The noise sounded and as we drove around trying to bump each other, these monsters attacked us. First I(Brittany) was attacked from both sides and as I tried to recover, Alex was hit by three people. His necked snapped back and after I made sure his spinal cord hadn’t snapped, we decided to get revenge on these children of the corn. I made it my sole mission to destroy them and leave them crying like babies. When the ride ended, we limped away, defeated by the evil Austrian children. To make us feel better we decided to ride a named Break-dance that spun around played loud American music. David and I thought this would be good for our whiplashed necks, but we were wrong. The ride started out being fun, but mid way through, we both started feeling sick and hoped that it would end. We both constantly focused on keeping our food down while the Austrian ride operator yelled German over the PA system, which we obviously didn’t understand. It didn’t end for what seemed like forever, and after enjoying both the bumper cars and that ride, we decided to call it a day and go back to the hostel. We ended our night with more schnitzel and beer and got ready for our early train ride to Budapest.

new pictures up at the following:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/euroexplosion/
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/euroexplosion2/

Munich: “Big Snowballs are getting in my mouth”

As we rode our train through The Alps from Venice to Munich, we instantly realized that Germany would be vastly different than Italy. Perhaps it was the snow we saw all around us during our train ride. Perhaps it was the fact that we have all been wearing long johns for the first time since we’ve been here in Munich. Whatever it is, it has been a change we have all welcomed.
Arriving in Munich, we immediately took notice to the full size humans walking about. We had not seen that in weeks. Our hostel, Jaegers, was under construction but the inside was not so bad. After getting acquainted with our hostel, we headed out to our first German meal at a beer hall called Augustiner Brausuber. We can safely say our little eyes glistened when the huge MaB’s came out, beer glasses equivalent to 1 liter. Alex and David ordered the Braumiester, or brew master, which consisted of potato dumplings, two slabs of meat, ravioli, all smothered in cream of mushroom soup/gravy. The most delicious thing I have eaten ever. We also had huge Weissbiers and david had a Radler (half beer half lemon soda). Checklist: normal sized humans, normal size portions of food, huge beers, and the nicest people we’ve come across. Germany is great. After the first night we all pledged our allegiance, to Augustiner beer, one of the 6 famous and legendary beers of Bavaria. In fact, the only six beers allowed being drunk at Oktoberfest. The others are Lowenbrau, Spaten, Hofbrau, Hacker-Pschorr, and Paulaner, all brewed in Munich, and surrounding areas.
We came home to our roommate, harry, as I call him, Brittany calls him Eugene levy, and says he is a little bitch baby. (I only call him that because every night we come into the room and he has turned up the heat to a blazing 150 F. When I finally figured out how to turn down the radiator he is wrapped up in a blanket with the covers to his eyes, like somehow in the 20 seconds the heater has been off he is so cold that he has to wrap up like a little bitch boy burrito.) He is at least 34+ and so very hairy that every morning we have to look at Chewbacca’s back hair clogging up the shower drain. Unhumanly amounts of body hair. Like Robin Williams knuckles (or Kevin Derderian’s feet – David). The hair renders the bathroom useless until someone takes one for the team and washes down the entire bathroom. Nothing can describe how horrifying this task is.

We went on a walking tour our first full day in Munich and was lucky enough to have sun the entire tour. Sights included: The Feldhernhalle(Memorial to Bavarian Generals), Viktualienmarkt(famous market), Marienplatz, The Royal Residence, Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), The National Theater/Opera House, Memorial to the German Resistance, Maximillian Strasse, Church of St. Peter, The Old Town Hall, The Hofbrauhaus, The New Town Hall, Max-Joseph-Platz, Beer Hall Putsch, New Synagogue, The Glockenspiel, St. Jakobplatz. We also learned about Oktoberfest, maypoles, the history of beer gardens, and of course Hitler. We finished the walking tour and went to have drinks at the Hofbrauhaus, very good dunkel and starkbier, but the weiss was not near that of augustiner. There is a 3-4 week period for lent where every brewery has a strong beer or starkbier, which has a ton more alcohol in it. It is not advertised, we got tipped off by our friend Heidi (our tour guide who also moonlights as a pretzel girl at the Hofrauhaus), and only those in the know can get it. We ate dinner at the beer hall Augustiner-keller. It is one of the oldest beer halls and has the brewery on site. It also has a downstairs dungeon/bunker where live bands play polka and Bavarian folk. We had the sweetest old lady as our waitress and assisted us on our beer decisions. “We have two beers the special beer that is dark or the regular lighter one, both tapped directly from wooden barrels”. “Well ok, we’ll have the special one!” The meal consisted of a huge “pork knuckle” and other germanic barbarian delights. A liter of the special beer proved to move an average sized man to the “tipsy” side of the spectrum. Supposedly the monks, who first started brewing, brewed this extra strong beer for lent, when they fasted, and called it liquid bread. Again we went home to the little man-baby nestled in his blanket cocoon.

Our third day was a bit uneventful due to the fact we tried to go to Dachau on a tour, but not enough people showed up so the tour was cancelled. As a consolation, we decided to go to the biggest beer garden in Munich, the Englisher Gardern. On the way, I (David) wanted to show Alex and Brittany a spot on the river where a pipe under the water causes a constant wave. At this point, several Germans regularly wear wetsuits, and drop into the wave with their surf boards and surf this wave. Unfortunately, we never passed this point because I couldn’t remember where exactly it was, but luckily to prove to them that it actually occurs, we happened to pass a news paper stand that had a picture of Germans actually surfing at this spot I remembered. Once we arrived at the garden, it was not a green, lush, and full of people like I remembered it. Instead, the trees were all dead and there were about 12 people around the area that can easily hold thousands. We enjoyed a very cold beer, and after about 30minutes in the cold, decided we had enough of the beer garden. We later had a delicious meal of Japanese food that we walked through a bit of a snow storm (light flurry) to get to. This is when Alex announced the title quote and we all had a good laugh. After dinner, we decided to try to make the morning tour for Dachau the following day, so we went to bed a bit earlier than usual.

The next day we woke up early and were greeted by a high of 38 and a low of 24. We decided it was a good time to on a tour, and went to the Dachau, the first concentration camp, on a guided tour through the grounds and the memorial site (We showed up for the earlier tour and were happy to see enough others showed to make the tour possible). Dachau was the only concentration camp to run the full 12 years of the 3rd Reich and also the training grounds of all the SS troops. Dachau was also the blue print for all other concentration camps in terms of the overall layout, so we got a sense of what all the concentration camps looked and felt like. Needless to say this tour was a very depressing. Our tour guide was certified guide of the camp and was full of information. It was especially interesting to hear about what the Germans living around this camp thought was going on. Unfortunately, a family of trolls (later described as mongloids, Cro-Magnons, or some sort of human subspecies) that was on the tour with us did not like hearing the whole story and decided to have a debate with the tour guide. This was a bit distracting, but luckily did not ruin the memorable experience for us. The tour ended up running longer than we anticipated, so we were all quite famished once we returned, so we had a lunch/dinner of Subway, which was a nice change of pace from the hearty German cuisine that had been taking its toll on our digestive systems. (This is an understatement. Some of us have been paying the price for these meals for the last 3 days). After the meal, we went to the grocery store to grab a few last traditional Bavarian beers we had yet to try, and decided to call it a quiet night in our hostel due to our early train ride to Vienna the next day.

new pictures up at the following:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/euroexplosion/
&
http://www.flickr.com/photos/euroexplosion2/

Venice: Pants not needed

We arrived to Venice from Rome and were in a bit of shock. We had all seen pictures of Venice before, but we were still impressed that there were absolutely no cars in the “streets,” and that boats on canals were the main means of transportation. We hopped on a “water bus”, which is like a metro on water, and made our way to the hostel after a 45minute ride. After navigating through the tiny streets, we found our hostel, which was up 2 stories of the steepest steps we’ve ever seen inside a building. In fact, the floor board next to the stairs at one point was completely vertical. We settled in our hostel and explored the islands of Venice for the rest of the night.

Day 2 started, and unfortunately our hostel was not serving a delicious meal of bread and sugar free cereal, so we ventured to find food. The streets are so strange, and small, the smallest we’ve seen. We found a place for pastries, and that was the best we could do. Nobody eats breakfast in Venice. I opted to go exploring, and we crossed a ridiculous number of bridges making our way up and down the islands, and over the Grand Canal. We then ventured to find another restaurant in “the book” and after I masterfully navigated us through tiny alleys, paths, and secret passageways, it was closed. No surprise there. We then had to eat next door at Peter Pan Pizza. After lunch, Brittany decided it was a good idea to feed the famous Venice pigeons, and let them climb on her. She wanted to be a pigeon person. Unfortunately, they began to scare her, so Alex took over and became a pigeon person. After we laughed a long time, we walked around Venice admiring the many churches that seemed to be on every corner. We also made our way to a park and decided to play on a play ground for a bit. Then we hung out under the shade and watched children playing soccer in the park, and on the way, saw a man walking down a path, yelling while wearing no pants whatsoever. It was strange, but it seemed like he was enjoying himself so we didn’t hold it against him. After this long day of pigeon feeding, exploring, and pant less old men spotting, we decided to have a Venetian Spritzer (Wine, liquor, and bitter mixed together) before having another pizza dinner. It was delicious. We spent the rest of the evening sitting in the square outside our hostel drinking and eating before calling it a night. The next morning we were on our way to Munich…

Above to the left is our pant less friend. Also we have new pictures up at the following:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/euroexplosion/
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/euroexplosion2/

Rome days 3 & 4: “Let me get one of those, uh, pasta balls.”

Day 3: Day three we went out on search for a little inner peace at the Vatican City. After a scrumptious breakfast of hardtack and granola we walked down all the long streets, about 2 miles from the hostel at least. We approached the Vatican and I was in a little disbelief, for on the map there is a big barrier wall that goes around the whole city. I had envisioned a fortress, but it meshed well with Rome, virtually no border. We waited in line at the basilica, and again I was unimpressed be the lack of Swiss guards. All that changed when we entered. I couldn’t help but compare it to the Notre Dame, but with the amount of marble and detail in all the sculptures, there really was no comparison. We walked around and looked at all the peaceful resting popes, some greener than others, and made our way to St. Peters foot. I was hassled by an attendant, who told me to take my hat off, and then told me not to disrupt mass by taking pictures, a two-for. Saint Peters tomb was pretty astonishing.
After the basilica we went round to the museum, which had no line at all. At this point we realized how hungry we were and couldn’t really give a good effort to the museum as we rushed through. We hustled through trying to get to the Sistine chapel, but we did stop to admire work by Raphael, etc. We got into the Sistene Chapel, and were pretty amazed. David and I looked around confused and finally had to ask where the creation of Adam was. It was right over our heads! I felt like an idiot. I had assumed it encompassed the whole ceiling, but like everyone but me knew, it’s just the centerpiece for the masterpiece Michelangelo created. The last judgment was equally captivating, and I could hear, but not see, the shutters of everyone’s cameras going off. I kept faithful and did not take any pictures. We rushed, literally, out of there in search of this great restaurant the Brittany found in the book. A note about the book; I hate the book, the book always steers us out of the way to a place that is usually closed. Not to disappoint me the restaurant we so hastily skipped to was a deli, packed to the counter with Romans, and no place to sit.
After deciding that we didn’t have any idea what food was being served at the first restaurant, we continued walking, trying to scout somewhere to eat along the way when we found a little place. Lunch was decent but afterwards succumbing to temptation I ordered a banana gelato split, all to myself. David went to the counter to order (we were sitting in those plastic walled porches) and came back in to the bombardment of two waiters yelling at him. You apparently can’t order inside and come sit outside due to the major inflation of price for sitting. So there was David, standing inches from the barrier starring at us, eating his gelato. He continued this until it was all gone. Quite hilarious.
We went back to the hostel later that night, and met a really nice brother and sister traveling pair from Minnesota, that we drank a couple of beers with. Surprisingly it is one of the few times we meet fellow travelers that we enjoyed talking to. Some might call us close minded, but there are some serious dorks, and their band geek friends who take the spotlight at pasta parties and dinners at the hostels. The dork part isn’t what gets us, as much as them pretending they are the most worldly and knowledgeable creatures traveling across Europe. We of course get these impressions when listening to their loud conversations from a different table.

The next day was of course Brittany’s birthday. We started off going to an open air market that was really cool. An old lady played the accordion and had little puppets that danced on her feet. We also bought and devoured some delicious dried fruit that ranged from kiwi, to pineapple, to strawberries. They were basically delicious chewy candies. We travelled from there to the pantheon, where Raphael was buried. Another amazing site, that quite mind-boggling. We had some delicious, food where I had another pizza, while the married folks had some pasta, and other goodies.
We went back to the hostel where Brittany wanted to sleep, “cuz it’s my birthday”. That night for birthday dinner, David and I went out and we bought an assortment of pastries from a store and found some candles. The pastries, were very bland, I doubt if any sugar was used to make them. One was a green blob. It also tasted like a green blob. The dinner part was a delicious trek to the corner pizza store. We ordered some cheese bread, and tomato bread, (they were out of most every pizza) and then David said, “…and let me get one of those pasta balls”. I was amused, not only did the guy not have a clue what he was talking about; there is not even pasta in these little fried balls of rice and ragu. Brittany had been calling them pasta balls all day and that phrase stuck in David’s mind.
There I was with another helping of pizza. I had only two meals out of 4 days that were not pizza. Its official, you can get pizza’d out. Rome, the eternal city, what a wonderful and magical place we found this to be. When in Rome… order some pasta balls.

Rome days 1 & 2: “Virgins, look at the penis. It’s a very nice penis!”

We successfully made our trip from Florence to Rome with no problem. (Sorry for the delayed update, but our previous hostel only had 2 computers that offered internet, and no way to connect to it with our own computer). After arriving we quickly made our arrangements for our trip to Venice at the train station, and then made the long trek to our hostel, with our 40lb backpacks on. It's always a blast trying to find hostels with these things on our backs. We finally found our hostel after a nice 25 minute walk, and 5minutes of us staring around at where we thought the hostel should be, just to find a small sign telling us the door we were facing, was it. Once we got inside, we had to walk up 3 floors to get to the hostel doors. (The hostel was similar to the one in Nice where it was just a portion of the building occupying the 2nd and 4th floors). Also, we had to walk up 3 flights of stairs to get to the 2nd floor, because every building in Europe seems to start at floor 0, instead of 1. We went inside and were told that the check in wasn’t until 3pm and since it was only 1, we’d have to occupy ourselves for the 2 hours in-between. We ate some delicious pizza and then sat in a park with bums looking at a map until we could go back and check in (sitting with bums with Alex’s idea. He wanted to know what his people were like in Europe). We returned back to the hostel to find out that our room would be on the 4th floor. Since there was major construction going on inside the building (which was a joy to wake up to each day), we’d have to take the death trap elevator to our room. The elevator was wide enough for one human being and deep enough for about 3. It had a cage door that you opened, that was then followed by double wooden panel doors you had to enter to get into the elevator. We finally arrived to our room and put our things down once our dance with death was over on the ride up. We opted to take the stairs down, since nobody was actively sledging paint off the walls or ripping up the stair tiles. They saved these activities for 8am every morning. We made our way down the stairs and out into Rome. We decided to walk to the Spanish steps where we were greeted by several gypsies throwing magnets in the air that made a horrible buzzing, popping sound (which was supposed to make us want to buy them), and also by a man squealing while playing guitar. Neither noise was very pleasant. The steps were immense and amazing to say the least. There were tons of people everywhere sitting around and enjoying beers and wine. There was also a large group of people wearing Arsenal jerseys, since apparently they were playing Roma that night in the Champion’s League (Soccer). Once we had time to take pictures and serve as the background in several strangers’ pictures, we moved onwards to the Trevi Fountains.
The fountains had just as many people as the steps did, and were equally impressive. We each took turns throwing pennies backwards, over our shoulders, so that we would return to the fountains swiftly (or so I, David, believe is why we were doing it). We left the fountain after a little while and made the hike back to our hostel. Luckily for us, our hostel had a free pasta party each night (we only attended once) that we decided to try out the first night. The pasta wasn’t amazing tasting, but it was free, so it tasted good enough. We had also bought a bottle of 99cent wine (Don Simon), and drank that as well. After the “party”, we returned to our room where we met our 4th roommate and had a nice, short awkward conversation that included us telling her our names and that we were from the US, and her telling us she was from the Czech Republic. After the exchange, we decided to call it a night and go to bed.
Day 2 began with our roommate saying good bye and us never seeing her again as she parted ways with us as soon as she could it seemed. After we got over the grieving process of saying goodbye to a dear friend, we decided to go eat the free breakfast (bread and sugarless cereal) that was provided by the hostel. Once our stomachs were filled by the nutrients and minerals that are associated with sugarless cereal, bread, and jam, we headed off on a full day of site seeing. We got to The Colosseum around 11:30am and found out that it was closed until 1pm. We decided to walk around the outside of the Colosseum, as well have fake chariot races at the Circus Maxim. After the intense races, we refueled our energy with some pizza, and were ready for the Colosseum round 2.
Once we got back to The Colosseum for our second go around, we decided to jump on an English speaking tour of it, as well as the Roman Forum and the Palantine Hill. We couldn’t resist the tour since we were constantly being bothered by the tour promoters, party promoters for backpackers (PARTY AT THE COLOSSEUM), and overweight, C Grade gladiator impersonators. *A side note, Brittany told us all about these body builders who posed as gladiators around The Colosseum who everyone took pictures with. Well apparently they aren’t around at this time of the year, because all we saw were old, fat, short guys wearing sweatshirts under their fake armor and pretending to be gladiators. We (Alex and I) of course made a few comments towards Brittany about what she knew of body builders, and what they really looked liked. * Our tour began with our guide telling us all about the history of The Colosseum as he pointed out where Napoleon had rebuilt part of it, and how an earth quake had damaged part of the upper wall around half of arena, etc. He also began his quest to be one of the funniest, dirtiest, tour guides any of us had ever had the pleasure of being around. His Italian accent also helped him in this department. He then began telling us how only 6 virgins attended the gladiator games, and pulled a girl up from our group to show us what a virgin would have looked like. He then pointed to a lady in her 50’s and said, “Not you. You haven’t been a virgin for a long time”. Needless to say, we all laughed and comments like these flowed from his mouth for the entire hour long tour. As we entered the Colosseum, he pointed out to the “virgins” of the group to “Look at the Penis on the wall. It is a very Nice Penis. Look, look,” (Hence our entry’s title). He also liked to commonly high five one of the men in our tour (who decided he would answer all questions) when the answer was “Women.” This was the answer to the following questions: “Who wasn’t allowed to sit down and had to stand up on the top tier of The Coliseum?” and “Who wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom and got doggy bags instead?” Each time the guy in our group answered “Women,” our tour guide liked to high five him and say “YES, and that’s how it should be today,” in his sleazy Italian accent. Hilarious.
Our tour turned out to be hilarious, and educational. Unfortunately, our time with the amazingly funny tour guide ended after an hour, and we went on the second part of our tour of the Palantine Hill and Roman Forum with a Scottish tour guide who looked a lot like Christian Bale. He was funny as well and very in the know when it came to Roman History. His tour was very good, but unfortunately, did not have as many highlights as the previous tour. After our second tour was over, we stayed in the Roman Forum for a little while longer, before we got kicked out once it closed. We then headed back towards the hostel, and had another pizza dinner on the way. We (and by we, I mean me, David) also bought some Peroni, a local beer, on the way home and drank that as we messed around in the hostel’s common room & crappy internet. The day had been pretty long and tiring, so we went to bed shortly afterwards.

New photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/euroexplosion

Florence: Where the beer flows like wine

Name that movie.


Getting to Florence was a task in itself. It was an eight hour train ride through Milan and then to Florence. The mile hike to our hostel was well worth it when we saw the palace that was to be our home for 3 days. Not only having a room to ourselves with a bathroom, the hostel itself had a pool, a Turkish bath (sauna), and a restaurant. It has also proved to be in a great location for exploring the sites and getting to great restaurants. We also have a flat screen TV in our room, which happens to have Italian MTV on it. This has lead to us watching shows no longer shown on MTV like “Next” and “Room Raiders” for the shear enjoyment of being able to understand the English being spoke. After we settled in, we looked at our future travel plans and found that we would be traveling on Brittany’s birthday, which is not ideal. With this revelation, we decided to stay an extra day in Florence and luckily we did, because the museum that houses the statue of David was closed on Mondays. Once our extra day was booked with the hostel, we made the trek back to the train station to purchase our tickets to Rome, which was the easiest train transaction we’ve made since we left Paris. After we got the tickets, we made our way to a Japanese restaurant that was recommended to us by our hostel. It may be a bit odd that our first Italian meal was actually Japanese, or gaiponesse (Italian spelling), but it had been a while since we had Asian food. The food was good, but unfortunately we miss judged the amount of food that would be served with each place, so we ended up leaving hungry. (Hungry was an understatement, David ordered a side of fried rice as his main course). Luckily for us, there was a “fast food” Asian restaurant near our hostel, which we stopped at for eggrolls on the way home (and has also served as our main snack location anytime we are headed somewhere and aren’t sure when we’ll be eating).
The first day consisted of exploring the mile long stretch of leather and pashmina tent vendors, and then going to the Duomo, Giottos Bell tower, Point Vecchio, and several other cathedrals and palaces. After having the most delicious lunch, where we found out that wine was cheaper than water, we went to get gelato at a famous store that only serves flavors that are in season, such as lemon, mandarin, and a delicious cookies and cream. As to this was not good enough for David and Alex, they proceeded to buy 8 Euros worth of more fake gelato from some other store, which they actually preferred. The night was topped off with a dinner at another delicious restaurant. Later that night, we had an unexpected visitor stumble into our room.
Some drunk guy- “Umm…” As he stares into the dark room “Are you Ryan?”
David- “NO...Get out of our room.”
As we closed the door and made sure that it was locked we heard the drunk guy walking up and down the halls screaming “Carmen…Carmen…Where are you…Carmen”. The drunk guy tried the handle to our door a few more times and with no avail he decided to pace up and down the halls yelling. This was the end of day 1 in Florence for us. I hope Carmen locked her door, skipped town, or never spoke to the douche bag Dan again.
Day 2 started off with a trip to a pizza place that one of our travel books suggested. We ended up getting there 20 minutes early, but the staff didn’t seem to mind and let us sit at a table while they wrapped up their pre-opening meal (the entire staff was sitting at the back table eating, so I assume it was a pre-shift meal). Once the tasty pizza was put away in our bellies quickly, we made our way to go see our good pal David (the statue). Since Brittany’s last experience visiting David included a 2 hour line, we had high hopes that the time of year we were traveling would prevent such a thing. We were right, and were into the museum housing him within 20minutes of arriving. The staff assured me (Alex) that there was no photography allowed, and I assured them that the camera in my hand pointed at good ole David was turned off, which is wasn’t but I only got off a few sub-par shots of the beastly statue. We were all amazed at the detail and the focus of humanly proportions that Michelangelo had, certainly more amazed at certain parts. We meandered to his bee-hind, which the only seats were situated and stared for a while. Brittany assuring us that we were acting like 12 year olds, said to keep on moving and get out of there, for surely everyone was staring at the 20 and 23 year olds laughing at the statue. Different strokes for different folks, I like a little humor with my art. (We were not making a scene; someone’s a little over dramatic). TIME OUT! I, Brittany, did not tell them to stop laughing. I asked them to quit screaming the word “balls” for they were in utter amazement that David’s (the statue) genitals were not to scale. As I argued, siding with Michelangelo, that the proportions were correct, they started yelling at me not to use my hands when measuring David’s (again, the statue) unit. The day winding down, we found ourselves again at McDonalds. The golden arches of my heart… the gold being Mcplaque in my arteries. They serve curly fries at this McDonalds, super-awesome. After a search for a supermarket, here we are, retired to our room. Train to Rome tomorrow, 10:30 sharp!


Pictures posted friendos

Sorry for the confusion...

To clear up a question that I have now received a couple of times, no I(David) was not shot with a real air-soft gun, air rile, or bb gun (whatever you refer to them as). A guy in Barcelona simply put his hands in the position of a rifle (forming an air rifle) and then popped his mouth with his thumb (like you used to do as a kid to make a similar sound to when you open a jar of pickles for the first time). I'm sorry if anyone misunderstood that portion of the Barcelona blog.

Barcelona: A land of shitters, bikers, and thieves

Day 3 of Barcelona began with us once again laughing about the street pooper. After the laughter settled, we set out for our first formal introduction to Barcelona, a bike tour with Fattire Bikes. We arrived at the meeting point about 30minutes early and waited a bit for our guide, JJ, who informed us that he was South African, but had been traveling since 1994 around the world as a scuba diving tour guide. He took up the bike tour gig 3 years ago and said he needed something new to do on land before he grew gills. Another interesting note about JJ is that even though he was South African, he told us that he had spent a lot of time scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, in which he must have spent a lot of time there since he appeared to have more of an Australian accent than South African. We were eventually joined by two American girls who were on their spring break from studying aboard in Switzerland, and then we were off. Our bike tour started off with us following JJ through small streets, bobbing and weaving through pedestrians everywhere. Another noteworthy point to make is that we figured out quickly that one of the girls that joined us was not the best bike rider. This was very apparent when she almost hit several people during the tour and also crashed into a post after Brittany had just ridden by it and yelled out a warning about it. She also rode onto jagged rocks while we all rode by her on a smooth sidewalk. We don’t think that she actually saw any of the sites; she was too busy trying to dodge people, children, pets, poles, and cars. During the tour, we saw the following sites: Placa Sant Jaume, Placa del Rei-Royal Palace, Bcn Cathedral(La Seu), Plau de la Musica, Arc de Triomf, Sagrada Familia, Parc de la Ciutadella, Vila Olimpica, Barceloneta Beach(which sucked because it is man made and is super small), Port Vell, El Borne, Basilica de la Santa Maria del Mar.

After the tour was over, we said goodbye to JJ (no goodbye was really necessary to the girls who joined us since they barely said much to us or even each other) and were off. Luckily for us, the day started off sunny and drastically changed to rain right at the end of our tour. We ended up eating at a falafel place that let you add all of your toppings by yourself, which proved to be very good and messy. We then wandered around for a bit and then retired to the hostel (which we had a 6 bed room all to ourselves every night so far).

Day 4 began with us just slightly laughing about the street pooper, and then we decided to make our way to the Guell/Gaudi Park, which was on the side of the hills of Barcelona. The park consisted of mosaic benches, columns, and 2 houses that looked right out of a Dr. Seuss book. We ate lunch up on top of the hill (which was very windy), and made the trek back down to the town. That night we wished to truly enjoy Spanish cuisine and we ate at the Subway, Deliciouso. The next morning we woke up early to catch the train out of town. On the subway getting there a smelly, smelly man came and encroached on our personal space. Thinking it was just because of the crowded train, we paid him less attention than we should have. After moving around David he wedged himself between Brittany and another person and as the train stopped, left with more than he got on with. This smelly disgrace of a person walked out with Brittany’s wallet which he had taken from her purse when the train bounced about. Not 2 seconds passed before she noticed it right after we got off the train, but the man was gone. Passports were safe so we continued to the train station to catch the train and call about credit cards. The man got no cash only credit cards and Brittany’s driver’s license. Brittany called the bank as soon as we sat down and after a brief struggle with the incompetent banker she assured her that the cards had been cancelled and everything was ok. What a relief that would have been if it were true! Turns out not only did she not cancel Brittany’s cards but she cancelled both of DAVID’S cards. The shear mechanics are mind-boggling as to how she could screw up so bad and somehow illegally cancel his cards without any proof that he even knew about it, which he did not. Later after ridiculously long phone calls with Wells Fargo, the supervisor advised the stolen cards were in fact now cancelled. Only time will tell if HE was any more competent than his counterpart.

Nice and Monaco: We arrived in Nice late in the night but quickly found our hostel. The hostel was a big building but only occupied one floor. Very confused we wandered around until a lady that lived there asked what we were doing and directed us to the front door. The hostel was nice, no pun intended, and we were in a 4 bed room with a mysterious roommate which we later met. That night ended gloriously at another McDonalds across the street. The next morning was when we noticed all of David’s credit cards were getting declined and had to deal with the whole bank situation. After our spirits lifted back up we marched down the main drag to “old town” in Nice as well as the beach. The beach was one of the most beautiful beaches we had ever seen. The water was royal blue and houses and what looked like castles or forts speckled the cliffs that stood at either end of the beach. The sand was in fact not sand at all but smooth rocks polished by the ocean. The fair 65 degrees outside permitted us short sleeve shirt wearing for the first time of the trip. The water however was not so nice and was very cold. We ate breakfast at an open air restaurant and had delicious pancakes, bread and jam. The restaurant was next to another open air market, while not as big as the one in Barcelona was, equally as cool. We went back to the beach and enjoyed the weather and walked along the shoreline (where we observed the section of the beach that seemed reserved to only topless women, and men clad in banana hammocks) back to the hostel where we hatched plans for a journey to Monaco. The train, for only 3 euro and 25 minutes, was our best option and we bought our tickets and headed off. Monaco’s train station is all underground and spans the width of the city-state, so escaping was not easy. We finally found the surface and looked upon buildings and empty streets. Monaco was strangely quiet, and we did not see more than 3 people on the walk to try to find the Monte Carlo’s Sun casino (The only Monte Carlo casino that didn’t require a shirt and tie). The silence was only broken by the occasional Ferrari or Lamborghini that passed us until we reached the port, where we saw what seemed to be the largest collection of expensive boats and yachts in the world. Monaco was a maze and finding the casino was not easy. We followed the coastline until we couldn’t walk anymore where we found an elevator that took us up to another street, where he meandered around until we found it. The casino was nice enough and we tried our best to win as much as we could with our little budget. 100 euro min bet blackjack was not what we were after so we opted for the slots and video poker! No one won anything and we justified our losses through the experience and entertainment the casino brought us. We came back to Nice around dinner time, which we decided it was a good time to do our second load of laundry, as well as enjoy a nice dinner of rotisserie chicken, potatoes, and salad. After dinner, we called it a night and prepared for our train trip to Florence, Italy.

new pictures are posted!

Paris to Barcelona: Retard Probable

Our final day in Paris (Day 4):
So our day began with us waking up and deciding to make our way to the famous burial of over 6million Parisians, or the Catacombs some may call this place. For having as many bodies buried in the area that the Catacombs does, you would think that the entrance to the historic site would be large and very apparent to any regular tourist. However, we discovered that his was not the case which leads to about 10minutes of us trying to find the small door/ticket office to enter. The Catacombs happens to be a 1.7km walk through what seemed to be a dungeon 20 meters under the ground. The first half of the walk was the section that used to be an abandoned quarry, and then came the millions upon millions of bones, stacked everywhere. After the initial shock and awe, we decided that the area was a bit creepy and musty for our sake, and made our way through the bones rather quickly (it also didn't help that we couldn't read about half of the signs along the way due to the absence of English). After the Catacombs we made our way to the Arc Triumph which is in the middle of a roundabout that consists of 9 unmarked lanes (which leads to a car accident every 30minutes on average). After the Arc, we decided to make our way back to the hostel, in which we were forced to make our way through a mile stretch that included about 30 of our Yugoslavian beggar friends. Luckily we navigated through them without getting pick pocketed or cornered with their note about their diabetic hamster that needed surgery. Once we got back to the hostel, we decided to grab another delicious falafel for dinner, and then call it an early night for our 5:30 am wakeup for our 7:20 train ride to Barcelona.

The ride was full of worry and unease. Not knowing where and when to get off really confused us and listening to the announcements in French gave us no comfort. Luckily we got off on the right stop to a little town called Narbonne. After the extraordinary 5 hours in the train station we boarded another train hoping we were going the right way. The train staff didn’t check our tickets until we had crossed the border into Spain so we assumed we were on track. Delay after delay, a Rasta wearing French woman finally got kicked off the train, probably a stowaway. We arrived and found the metro feeling comfortable with our skills and knowledge of Spanish. We walked down to find paint had splattered all over me (Alex) and David’s bag and jacket. I was also told I had a booger in my nose by a thoughtful Spanish lady. A little disheartening. Our first attempts at communication at best, were on par with 6th grade Spanish class. Not only do we not remember as much as we thought, we really didn't learn the same Spanish that is spoken in Spain. I'm guessing a tex-mex hybrid. We found the hostel and searched off for food. On our way to our future dinner destination, we encountered another odd European event that may or may not have been aimed at us (David) in a derogatory manner. While walking on the sidewalk we saw a small man running towards us in a half sprint. We he was about 5 feet from us, he all of a sudden turned to me (David), and aimed an air rifle at me and popped his mouth with his thumb (which was quite common back in the 4th grade to do). After he shot me with his air rifle he continued running down the sidewalk laughing hysterically to himself. This is when we decided that not only are there several crazy European people who target me (David) for their own amusement, but there are also a lot of crazy people who like to sing, talk, or laugh to themselves that we encounter on a regular basis...After this event, we decided to eat at a bar that served delicious tapas. Delicious, cheap tapas and we sure ate our fill. We told the waitress to just stop us when she thought we were ordering too much. Again we failed at our attempts in Spanish most notably David who froze up like the street performers we later saw, when trying to order.

ON THE WAY BACK TO THE HOSTEL, I was confused as I gazed upon a man with his pants halfway down straight in front of us. Brittany suggested we cross the street which soon turned out to be an act of fate as we stared back at the bare bottom of a drunken Barcelonan. A distinct sound roared out of him and we soon were sent into hysteria, as the poor fellow "pooped" all over himself from the standing position. Brittany dragged us away, for we could have stayed and laughed until our brains exploded. The guy was just fed up with it and pooped on the street. That’s it, just pooped. On the Street...

Day 2 was a garble of mishaps at the various train stations, but after finally booking the right train we went to the main strip Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is the main pedestrian street that is full of street artists, pet stands, flower stands, and street performers. Some of our favorite street performers included an alien, guy sitting on a toilet, a huge dragon (that was scaring Asian tourists) and Satan himself. We also went to the la boqueria (mercat de sant josep). It is a giant open air market that has tons of stalls with fresh fruit and veggies, fish, meat, eggs, and fresh smoothies. Also small restaurants are in there that prepare the fresh food for you. We are hoping to make it over there for lunch one day when prices are more reasonable. Tomorrow we are going on Fat Tire Bike Tours and hopefully will have more to report. Retard Probable*.

*Retard Probable-Means delay is probable and flashes on the ticker in train stations. Almost as good as Cockfosters.

Paris: (Gypsy)- Do you speak English, read this…

We awoke Thursday morning in time to get to the train station about 45minutes early for our 5:30am trip to Paris (we were told to make sure we got there 30mins in advance). While going through security, everything went smoothly until Alex got “randomly” searched for half an hour. Apparently his camera lenses are closely related to bombs. The train ride under the English Channel was surprisingly quick and got us to Paris in about 2 and half hours. We arrived to a station, sure enough, that was no longer in English and we putted about until we found the metro station ticket booth. Everything seemed smooth until no credit card would work in the ticket machine. As this fact was weighing heavily upon us, we were approached by a woman.
“Do you speak English?”
“Yes”
“Read this”, slurred a small women.
“Hello I am from Bosnia and my mother has leukemia. I’m pregnant and I have three more kids at home. My right eye doesn’t work and my peg leg is rotting off. My cat’s ears don’t work, and my grandfather’s opium addiction has left his foot toeless. Please Help”
*As accurate as we remember, but maybe an embellishment*
My (Alex) immediate reaction was to give her some change, David read the entire note looked at her and said ehh and shrugged his shoulders. No gypsy would best him. We arrived at the hostel and found it to look like a 19th century house, 5 stories, overlooking a nice square with a McDonalds across the street. The elevator has a limit of 3 people and our room which was said to be on the 3rd floor takes 5 sets of stairs to get to. We also registered for a 4 bedroom mixed room online, but we ended up getting a private 3 bedroom room with our own bathroom. A nice 14inch TV also exists in the room as well. The novelty of a TV has lead to a new past time of watching the 5 French channels we get on the TV and trying to figure out what is the point is. So far we have watched a show that looks like a mix of Scrabble and some crazy mathematics game, as well as a French version of Wheel of Fortune, except all of the letters are spit out and you try to form words. After our infatuation with the hostel room subsided, we went out to explore the area closest to us in Paris. We ventured out to find a recommended “best falafel” restaurant of Paris. It turned out to be an “order at the window” place and the falafel turned out to be amazing. Afterwards, we quit for the day and went back to the hostel to go to sleep.

Day 2: Day 2 was an extravaganza, a marathon if you will. We did another free walking tour, with an English speaking tour guide. Some notable sites were Notre dame de Paris, Eiffel tower, the Louvre, grand palais, arc de triumphe, the obelisk (which is a 3300 year old obelisk with hieroglyphics napoleon stole from the Egyptians), and many other gardens, palaces, and the second most expensive shopping street on the world that had a chocolate fountain in a shop. We walked the stairs of the Eiffel tower after the tour and enjoyed pastries at the first level. The stairs were super-sucky, for lack of a better word. We ended up eating at McDonald’s for dinner. It wasn’t because we were hungry for McDonald’s, or that we were even homesick and wanted some traditional fatty fast food. No, we ate there because it is about 100yards away and we were too lazy to try to scout out a good French restaurant. Also, we knew it would be delicious. Something very noteworthy about the McDonalds of Europe is that they are all very nice, clean, and chic. Also, you can get a beer with your value meal, instead of a soft drink, which I (David) did. The real mayhem started later that night.
First Alex and David go to the corner store to find some beers, which Alex found out to be the “Milwaukee’s Best” of Europe. A wager was put on and David chugged the rancid beer nonstop. This was only the beginning. After we went to the Arab store and searched for some 2.95 euro bottles of wine. Mission accomplished and we enjoyed them (mostly David) in the basement of the hostel, which looks like a dungeon. We met friends there earlier at breakfast and they joined in and before we knew it, 6 bottles of wine and a bottle of Malibu were on the table and the nightshift employee was screaming at us to be quiet. But the night was not done. We wandered aimlessly for about 2 hours around the square republique, (David without a jacket) until we found a place called au bon café. We arrived to two homosexual men dancing on the bar and a table respectfully, to an array of songs from beyonce to Brittney spears. “Hilarious” only sums up half of the sight we were witnessing. David approaches the bar and orders 5 shots for everyone for no apparent reason, and then 5 more. (The next day we realized he paid for the latter in pounds and Euros and upset the people behind the bar) David was also upset about having to watch this “stupid leather jacket all night” while the other people were having fun and dancing. There was no reason David should have been watching the jacket, as it did not belong to anyone we knew, if they existed at all. Needless to say David was out of commission and after Brittany was finished dancing with her new friends it was time to make a dash for home where it would be safe. Halfway there, David was furious about why we were still walking and “didn’t stop at that corner” as he points his finger. Not knowing what was going on in his mind I (Alex) navigated us home safely at around 4:45am. There was also a French thug who got in David’s face yelling something or other with a bottle of booze in his hands. After asking if David understood to which David replied, no, he said oh sorry and walked off. What a night.

Day Three: Short and Sweet
Day three started off at around 12pm due to the shenanigans from the night before. Well shall I say the day started for 2 people? It was decided that we would go to the Louvre and as David fell asleep while putting his socks on, it was decided that he should stay at the hostel while Alex and I went on to see the Mona Lisa. The Louvre is too big to actually go through so we hit the highlights of the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, the Sphinx, and a bunch of other paintings, sculptures, and so on. When we arrived back at the hostel, David greeted us from the same position that he had fallen asleep in and didn’t actually believe that we had been gone for that long. He had managed to sleep for 13 hours “and sleep so hard that he didn’t dream”. Feeling rejuvenated, David joined us on a quest to find food, and disappointingly find food other than the fondue place that you drink wine out of baby bottles. The line was ridiculous, and the place was even smaller. We finally found a quaint pizza parlor, which serves only personal sized pizzas and walked along the red light district to the spinning blades of the Moulin rouge. A note about the hostel. The elevator is limited to three people, if they could fit, and is like the tower of terror. It lifts up and falls down as people step on and off. Most people love it, Brittany will not step foot in it.


Also, new pictures on flickr, www.flickr.com/photos/euroexplosion.