misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

Penang, Malaysia -- The all night bus was interesting. Imagine driving with a construction working jackhammering in the seat next to you for ten hours, and you have the experience on the bus last night. I am quite sure the bus was constructed by Satan himself to torture the souls of the living. In any event, I was far and away the only tourist on the bus filled with locals ... this was compounded by the fact that they would just stop the bus, not announce the stop, and some people would get off. I thought Butterworth was the end of the line, but I was wrong. At 5 am, I realize I missed my stop, and have to take another bus in the reverse direction for an hour. After leaving at 9pm, I finally got settled in the hostel by 8 am. Interesting, but part of the whole experience. Tomorrow, I have to catch a bus leaving at 8 am for Bangkok ... and get this--the ride is 23 hours long!!! I wouldn't do it, but my plane for Paris leaves Bangkok on Wednesday, and I have no other way of getting there .... Oh well. I wish I had more time in this area, especially for Thailand. I am excited for Europe, but this area requires more time than a month ... there is much more I would like to see. Three months really is no time at all to travel ... I will have to come back for sure. I just got up from a nap, so I cannot tell you much about Panang yet ... I know from reading it is historical like Melaka. Used to be a European military fort. And, like every town I have been in thus far, it has a chinatown. The whole world is a chinatown, I think. Even Hong Kong had a chinatown. How is that possible? Hong Kong belongs to China, so how can a Chinese town have a chinatown? Anyway, I am off to explore Penang after lunch. I think I will get the shrimp (they serve them whole in Asia--head and guts included. None of the protective prettiness that America has to distance eaters from the fact that their meal was once alive. Here, you want chicken? Pick it out, chop off the head, and there is your chicken .....)
sleeping man

Bangkok, Thailand -- Okay. 23 hours of travelling on 4 different buses (I guess in Thailand, 'bus' means 'crowded-ass minivan') pushed my patience, but it was still better than sitting in traffic for two hours on Highway 101. Five hours from Penang, Malaysia to Hat Yai, Thailand. Drop us off at the side of the road. Sit on the side of the road for an hour. Second 'bus' takes us down the road where we site for another hour. Third bus picks us up and drives for another five hours through the bottom half of thailand to a transfer point called Serat Tana. Wait there. Finally, board a bus for the eleven hour ride to Bangkok. This was a real bus, at least, and they were playing 'Wild Wild West'. I don't care how bored I am, that movie sucks. The first leg of the trip was made better by the people I met from Switzerland, Scotland, England, and Japan (cute Japanese girl, Kenta ....). Now, I am in Bangkok. Until 3am tonight, where I board an Air Kuwait flight for Kuwait, on to Paris. Haven't really seen much here, yet. Need to walk around a bit. Thailand isn't like the other countries I have been to, in that English is spoken at a minimum, the signs aren't written in English, and it is hard to find your way around. Still cheap as can be, however. Plus, there are 25 baht to 1 dollar, so you feel rich when you are toting around 1,000 dollar notes .... To Lee's defense, my stomach hasn't felt right since I have been in Asia, though I have only had serious troubles once. Maybe dealing with all this Asian food bacteria will make me stronger when I return to the states. Today, I am off to see the National Thai Museum, some Buddhist Temples (one of the buddhas made of pure gold), and maybe a kick boxing match if I am up to it. Penang wasn't as interesting as Melaka, so it was okay to move on. However, I can definately tell that you could spend months upon months in Thailand without getting bored. It is a great culture. I keep meeting people who make my three months look like nothing. They are travelling for at least six months, and it is common to travel up to a year. After looking around, I can see why. Three months just isn't enough to see what you need to see.

Paris, France -- Lots to catch you up on. It will take me some time, as in France, the computer keyboards are all messed up. Letters are in different places, as are the punctuation marks .... And, at thirty francs an hour, I really don't want to learn.
Firstly, I love Paris. I repeat, I love it. This is my kind of city. Everything is beautiful--the people, the buildings, the restaurants, the streets. Most impressive, however, is the history. I got out of the subway station from the airport hungry and exhausted .... I turn around to start walking and there, in all its mesmorizing glory, is Notre Dame lit up, the lights bouncing off the dark waters of the Seine. It was surreal. Later, as I was trekking through city looking for a place to stay (more on that later) I turn a corner. There, with lights shining upon all angles, is the dome of the Pantheon--the abbey church which is a permanent 'home' to Victor Hugo, Voltaire, and Rousseau. This hits me particularly hard, again, because I was lost and had no idea of what was beyond any cobblestone street I was on. Through the windows of intimate street cafes and restaurants, which are everywhere, I could see scores of people drinking wine, laughing ..... Today, I walked along the banks of the Seine to the Bastille area, weaving in and out of streets lined with bakeries, old churches, schools, bars .... a curious mix of history and day to day life. This is amazing.
However, every rose has its thorne, and Paris has two thorns--availability of places to stay and cost. Last night I came twenty minutes from sleeping on the streets (which sounds more romantic than it is). In Asia, I could always get into the first hostel or hotel I tried, no matter where i was. I knew Paris would be more of a challenge, but I figured I could fine something with persistence. I was very, very wrong. I walked progressively from hostel to hostel, hotel to hotel listed in my Lonely Planet book. Nothing. Full. Everywhere. I used up the names in my book and resorted to looking down every street for anything -- at this point I didn't care about cost -- I just wanted a place to stay. Still, even the upscale places, had nothing. They called around for me--nothing still. I heard stories about an international car show filling the city -- I really didnt care about all that. I had been on planes for over twelve hours, not including a six hour stopover in Kuwait, and I wanted to just lay down. That was all. I had started looking at 8 pm and it was now 1am. The last place I stepped in before conceeding defeat was full as well. However, he said, he just sent someone to Hotel Ibia and he thought they still had a room. So I took a cab there. They didn't have a room, they told me. At this point I was dejected and frustrated, but was going to make the best of it (at least this was Paris, i told myself). They guys at this hotel called around and found nothing. Finally, the guy started punching in his computer for about ten minutes. Then he said, it turns out they did have something. They gave me a room. 70 bucks a night. I really didn't care if it was 1000 bucks a night. I am there now. How did they find the room? Did he have it all along and not give it to me for some reason, until he felt sorry for me? Who knows, but I am not leaving this place until I leave Paris. Out of my budget, sure, but there seem to be no alternatives, and I won't duplicate last night .....
Bangkok didn't inspire me much. Really nothing to impressive that made me feel the need to go back. There where temples, some of which weren't much ... the museums were closed for some reason. The river is filthy. Funny, too, Thai food was hard to find; chinese and Indian food was everywhere. It is funny how sometimes it is easier to find food from a certain country out of that country than in the country itself. Indonesia, as example, had thai food everywhere.
Air Kuwait was interesting too. Those middle eastern airlines sure take security seriously. I was scanned, poked, searched, licked, hit ... you name it. For real, though, beofre getting on the plane, your carry-on is hand searched to each and every pocket. You have to show your passport a thousand times. There are about three x-ray machines I had to walk through. Kind of comforting. If a terrorist did get something on that plane, he deserved to hijak it for effort alone.

All for now .... I have Paris to enjoy.

Paris, France -- In case you didn't read my last entry, let me reassert that I LOVE Paris. I love it even more than last time I wrote. This is the kind of city I would create if I was in the business of creating cities. This city personifies beauty in everything it does and says. And, I need to say, that the women here are the most incredible creations I have ever set eyes upon. There is a certain style, femininity, spunk and look that these women have that inspire me to sell all of my possessions, learn French, and move here. Take the perfect girl, multiply her by ten, and you have an average French girl. I think you have to fill out a beauty application and submit a picture just to move here. And the ratio of women to men here is inspirational .... It isn't the 300 men to every woman you find in the depths of Silicon Valley. It is reverse, so competition is less. And the way they talk .... I melt like M&Ms on the dashboard of a car sitting in a parking lot during a Louisiana summer. Sorry, whatever American girls might be reading this, but this is a different class (I am not saying it is the kind of class I can compete in). Another interesting aspect is how thin everyone is here, both men and women ... I don't know why yet, as I see them eating a McDonalds just like us .... It will be sad to leave.
Thus far, one of the more intriguing things Reyes and I have seen is called the Catacombs. This is a series of tunnels and quarries underneath a number of blocks in Paris that were used to store the skeletal remains of millions of the French dug up from the overflowing graves during the early 1800s. It is a darkly lit series of tunnels lined with millions and millions of bones and skulls--all neatly stacked ontop of each other about five feet high and ten feet deep. Amazing. They don't distance you from the bones either ... you can go right up and touch them. Play catch with a skull if you had the guts. On the way out, they search your bag to ensure you aren't bringing home a free souvenir. It is stunning to see how many bones, and consequently dead people, there are in this one little tunnel in one city in one country in one part of the world. Puts in perspective how much life there has been throughout history--and how I will end up as a pile of bones just like the rest of them one day. Not really a depressing thought. You are joining a good crowd, and lots of people are in the same place.
The Arc de Triumphe and Eiffel Tower was kind of lame as expected (the Pier 39 of Paris) .... The Louvre is big and kind of overwhelming, I saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo just so I could tell you all that I did. Some of the other stuff was more interesting. You can only do so much museum work in one day before every painting starts to look the same. One thought I did have is how almost all this art was work commissioned by Aristocracy, and thus most of the paintings were made by old white men of older white men in court .... lots of religious paintings commissioned by the Church ... not a wide spectrum of diversity represented by these works of art .... who represented the peasants and slaves?
Tomorrow, off to Belgium (Brussels and Antwerp) on the way to Amsterdam ....
Until then,
a man in love with every Parisian woman

Bruges, Belgium -- I lost the entry I wrote yesterday about Brussels, unfortunately, because i didn't have enough coins to stay on the internet long enough on the hostel computer. I came to Belgium looking for waffles, chocolate, and brussel sprouts, but thus far I have only had beer. Go figure. We met a couple of guys from Canada that are, like all Canadiens, very nice. We have been hanging out with them, though they leave for home tomorrow. The hostels I am staying at are head and shoulders above the hostels in Asia. These hostels are like resorts. They have bars, pool tables, internet, courtyards, warm showers, massages, tons of people (okay, so not massages) .... very fun, actually. The hostel we are at now in Bruges is in a hundreds year old building, it makes for a very cool atmosphere. This isn't the cold shower and cobweb life of Malaysia and Thailand.

Brussels was great for a day visit. It is full of food, beer and history. The town center was lined by a centuries-old castle and palace. These building were right out of a fairy tale ... white stone face with spires that reach into the sky. Totally different architecture than the buildings in Paris. Thinner and sleeker. At night for about ten minutes, the 'Grand Place' is immersed in crimson, green, and white lights synchronized to Opera music playing across the town square. Everyone gathered to watch the show, and it was incredibly surreal. I felt like I was in 'Fantasia' .... There wasn't enough in Brussels to keep us more than a day, so this morning Mike and I moved on to Bruges, supposedly the most authentic Medieval town in Europe ... has a church which was part of the Holy Grail search, canals surrounding the city, and, of course, a Foot Locker. You know how those peasants used to love shopping for new Jordans at Foot Locker. We are going to stay one more day before moving on to, who knows .... tomorrow we might take a day tour of the countryside, viewing old sites from WWI which dominate this landscape. Mike and I travel great together cause he loves the history stuff like I do. Tonight, I will have a Belgium Waffle with chocolate and sprouts for dinner. They also say that they invented the french fry, not the french. We will just see about that. I just happen to be a french fry expert.

My meditation for today has to do with the historical buildings that seem to be everywhere in Europe. It is funny to me that today, with polycarbonate steel alloys, tempered glass and concrete, all of the buildings we build don't even come close to the beauty that these old churches, castles and palaces have. Is it just the age of the buildings, and historical significance, that make them beautiful? I don't think so. It is as if structural advances replaced imagination and creativity. The twin towers in Kuala Lumpur are impressively strong and tall ... but still not even close to as impressive as Notre Dame. Maybe it has something to do with the personality that the medieval workers put into their craft, something that might be missing today when building upon building goes up .... Maybe now it is all about strength, practicality and function, rather than appearance. Maybe what makes the old buildings impressive is that they didn't have all the advanced tools and materials of today. Still, I don't think they could rebuild a edifice like Notre Dame today even if they tried. Maybe they don't need to, since it has already been done ....

Still having an amazing time,
Foucault

Bruges, Belgium -- Quick physical update, to test Lee's prediction: I have lost about 8 pounds already in the first month, and won't stop there
.... jeans are getting real loose. That is okay, though, it was all beer fat anyway. I instigated a budget restraint in Paris to compensate for the expensive cost of everything: One meal a day. Water for breakfast, peanuts for lunch ... and then dinner. Keeps cost, and weight low. You get used to it quickly, and combined with the 7 miles of walking I do a day with a backpack, I should be in nice emaciated form for when I return.

Bruges, Belgium -- Today was one of the best on the journey thus far. Reyes and I took an all day tour of World War I battlesites, trenches, cemeteries and museums surrounding the Belgium countryside near the border of France. If you are like me, you know next to nothing about WWI, such as the fact that most of the heavy fighting along the Western Front during the entire course of the war was done in the Belgium countryside next to little villages dotting the farmland. Towns you have probably never heard of, such as Passchendaerne, Ypes, and Mennin, saw a majority of the casualties from WWI. It was insanse to envision how the huge armies of the world did battle for four long years along these no-name towns in southern Belgium to gain ten metres here, twenty metres there. I actually walked in the craters caused by artillery shells, stepped within bunkers built eighty years ago, saw where the first attacks of chemical warfare were made .... It is also incredible how undisturbed many of the former battlefields are. Farmers in the region still unearth over two thousand tons of hidden artillery shells a year while plowing the fields, and there are at least three or four deaths a year from exploded mines and shells. There are unearthed trenches and tunnels all over the southern Belgium countryside, all containing tons and tons of war artifacts. The guide, a local who grew up in the region and had relatives in the war, described running around as a kid with his friends using rifles, gasmasks, grenades, helmets and uniforms they found laying around the countryside ... they would use the trenches and pillboxes to play wargames. He took us to fields and forests where there are still underground tunnels and pillboxes, unearthed since the war. That is how many there are. After the war, everyone just left, and nobody every bothered to clean up the area. He himself is excavating a pillbox he showed us that they just discovered earlier this year ... who knows what will be in there. The cemeteries were equally as amazing. Rows upon rows upon rows of headstones. Most without names (the majority of the deaths in WWI were unidentified soldiers). Surrounding the gravestones were ten foot high walls etched with names of all sorts. I couldn't imagine before the amount of death this war caused, but the graves I saw helped put it in perspective, if even only barely. He told us about battles that caused 65,000 casualties--on the first day alone. It was a sobering experience ... Hearing about the effects of mustard gas on the skin and internal organs is unfathomable. I still don't know why people would lob expolding shells, gas canisters, and bullets at each other for four years just to gain a few feet of land at the cost of millions of people my age, but then maybe nobody really understands that part.
Today, we wait for Mike Thomas to meet up with us. Tomorrow we leave for Amsterdam. It is packed, travellers have told us, but hopefully we will find something. I still haven't had a waffle. Maybe tonight, if lucky, that will happen.

Amsterdam, Netherlands -- I am pretty tired right now, the result of a long night out in Amsterdam. This city really does have energy and vitality you don't see often. The kind of energy where you walk the streets at around 4 am, and there are still people out everywhere. We had the honor of watching a drunk naked man running around the streets puking on the cobblestone street, his black jeans pulled down to his ankles as he layed there moaning. The cops came up, gave him a poke, and just let him be. Public display of intoxication? No big deal as far as these cops were concerned. They don't have the same rules here as they do in the States .... Upon retiring to our hostel so we could sleep, we were treated to a night of listening to a toothless English woman sucking face with a Pakistani tourist all night in our 8 man dorm room. Reyes was actually in the bunk above them, and stayed silent as the bunk beds rocked in every direction--a sign of his kindness. Mike Thomas finally told them to shut up, an effective speech. As usual, they thought they were being more tricky than they were .... We met up with Thomas yesterday, and are going to take the night train to Bordeaux on the way through to Spain.

Amsterdam has a series of canals running everywhere, so the bridges and stone buildings make for a nice setting. The smaller streets and parks give it the feel of a smaller city. Amsterdam isn't nearly as trashy or dirty as I thought a city would be that has legalized prostitution and drugs (something along the lines of Detroit married to Las Vegas came to mind when I was picturing the city). In reality, it is actually quite clean, historical and well run. That is the advantage of legalizing drugs and prostitution--the government can monitor and implement as system that keeps it all cleaner and organized than it would be if these two activities had to go underground, as they do in the States. The open attitude here is a nice contrast to some of the Puritan thinking and laws that exist back home. Ironically, allowing a culture access to 'forbidden fruits' tends to make them more mature and responsible in the way they handle this access. Of course, outsiders like us don't know how to handle it. I saw a few too many Bob Marley types begging for money.

We checked out Anne Frank's House yesterday, and that was a solemn experience. It was one of the best museums I have been to, as they mixed in videos, music, interactive computer displays, artifacts, etc. as you walked through the actual house. You got a feel for what it might have been like for these people hiding out there .... by the time you got to the end of the display, where you learn about the fate of Anne Frank and her family in Auschwitz ... let's just say it is effective. We checked out the red light district, where prostitutes stand in windows facing the street bathed in the muted glow of red lights from inside (we made a few passes, to say the least). Other than that, it was more classy than I thought it might be. This morning we went to the Van Gough Museum, which was cool, and now we are waiting for the night train. Amsterdam is like Vegas in the sense that two days here is plenty.

We are slipping back into the simplicity of a budget .... I have worn the same outfit, literally, since I got to Paris ... the benefit of being a new city everyday is nobody knows what you wore in the last city. The only problem is that they smoke like bonfires out here, so your clothes absorb the smell of bars and clubs ... We are back to no breakfasts, simple lunch, and bread and cheese for dinner .... Stays more satisfying than eating out at Chili's for twenty bucks a pop .... No Awesome Blossoms for me (although that cheese dip is pretty freakin' good ....) My digestive system seems to have recovered from the trauma of weeks of food from Malaysia and Bangkok .... I guess my colon isn't used to dealing with pig head and shrimp ears .....

Until Bordeaux,
simpleton

Barcelona, Spain -- Pigeons suck. They are everywhere, ruin the landscape under which they live, and serve no noticeable benefit to humanity. They run cities over here. Two thousand years of wars and weather cannot damage the historical relics of Europe, but three months of pigeon habitation can. I am the anti-pigeon enforcer. I am here to spread the word about the uselessness of pigeons. As Lee has pointed out, they lack natural predators in the city environment. Until now. I have become their natural predator, and will not rest until I rid all cities of these flying bags of dirt. The pigeons in Barcelona are bold, too. They tempt you. They walk right up to you, let you kick them, all the while providing a diversion so the other pigeons of the gang can outflank you and steal your bread. They look you in the eye, tempting you to attempt an attack of some sort. They are confident, but I shall prevail. Pigeons everywhere, beware, the war is on.

Twenty three hours on a train brought both Mikes and I to Barcelona. We decided to skip southern France for now and focus on Spain. It is funny how tolerant I have become of long train and bus rides. Twenty three hours isn�t a problem anymore. You get used to it. The great thing about trains are that they provide more room than planes, so you can get up and walk around ... play cards .... whatever. This isn�t the sardine life of an airplane. The other cool thing is the way you get on a train in one country and culture, and get off in a completely different country and culture. It is funny how all these countries in Europe are so close, but so totally different. Different food, languages, money .... It would be as if I took a train to Los Angeles from San Francisco and had to exchange my dollars for some other currency, get a phrase book for some other language (which LA makes you do anyway, in retrospect), and eat a different food.

The warm weather of Barcelona is a great change from the rain and cold of all the other countries I have been to so far. We have been to a few museums (I am going to put the museum life on hold for the rest of the week ... there is only so much art one man can take), a hill overlooking the city, that big tower-thing that has taken two hundred years to build, the waterfront, the beach, the Olympic Village ... we are starting to trade some of the more active life for the chill life of parks and beaches. Barcelona is more modern and less historical than I thought it would be. Nice city, though we are looking forward to moving on to some smaller Spanish cities so we can chill a bit (as I mentioned before in my blogg, in some senses, a big city is a big city, and it starts to get less impressive as you go. Every big city has some famous church, a famous museum, a famous person from that city that has a monument and museum, a famous strip down the middle of the city, a famous bar and nightclub area .... you get the point). We are going to move on to Grenada, Valencia and Seville on our way to Portugal. Hopefully get a bit more of the local culture. I spent five years learning Spanish, but everyone here speaks English, so what�s the point. I ask them a question in Spanish, I get an English answer ....

In a it�s a small world after all moment, we met a fellow 1997 SCU graduate staying at the hostel here .... we didn�t really know him well in college (Dan Pederson), but he has turned out to be a real cool guy who is doing the same thing we all are -- trying to find ourselves. He is going to travel with us for awhile .... The hostels in Europe are quite different than Asia. Every hostel here is a party hostel. Bar and pool tables on the bottom floor, people all over drinking .... like a frat house, in a way. But don�t forget the point of my Blogg. Pigeons are the devil�s handiwork and must be destroyed. To Arms!!

Barcelona, Spain -- A few quick points for the traveller that I feel I should pass on as they have occured to me today:

1) If you haven't travelled, do yourself a favor, and travel.
2) Don't do too much when you travel. Some of the best times are the days when you sit in a park and do nothing. At all. No museums, no statues, no walking. Remember, you still need time to enjoy yourself and remember where you are. The pressure to see and do it all in every city you are in, coupled with the limited time you are there, can ruin your trip. I have come so far as to say that to some extent, you should mix at least one day of nothingness for every two days of doing something. At this point, if I don't make it to Rome because I am in the middle of Spain, so be it. If I make it to Rome, and just see the Vatican, and not the Sistine Chapel, so be it. The benefit would be that I could actually enjoy the Vatican, rather than running all over the city looking at stuff for two minutes so I can check it off the list and keep on moving to the next sight. Some stuff I am seeing just to tell you all I have seen it. Some museums, famous or not, are boring. I saw the Mona Lisa ... definately not the most impressive thing I have seen in a museum, not even in that room that it was sitting in at the Louvre. Some times, the inside of a cafe is the most impressive thing you will see.
3) Beware of the pigeon apocolypse. It is upon us. Two members of an advance pigeon scouting squadron were surveying me today as I sat in a park. They will report back to the leader of the Barcelona pigeon faction, no doubt. This is escalating rapidly, and I fear that the peace talks will prove fruitless, and only violence can solve the difference between humanity and the pigeon world.
4) It seems that everyone who travels is on line with me, Reyes and Thomas ... What I mean is just about every one in the hostels seem to be lost souls who have quit their jobs to see the world, like all of us. Or college graduates who don't know where to go next. Nobody has a plan ... nobody knows where they are headed. Makes for great company and conversation.
5) I wanna stress. If you haven't travelled, please do so. You won't regret it.

Grenada, Spain -- A ten hour train ride straight out of "Outbreak" brought us to the land of Alhambra and Tapas. Usually, the night trains aren't so bad, as you save a night's worth of lodging costs and can usually catch an hour of sleep here and there. This train was different. First of all, it was a party train. Spaniards take their train riding differently than the other nations I have been to. The bar car of the train was well-populated, assisted by the two dollar bottles of wine Reyes, Dan and I were taking advantage of. The lights stay on, and the noise is up ... I was expecting disco music at any moment. Thomas spent his time engaging in broken conversation with a local Spanish student girl. Cute, but listening to Thomas' broken Spanish conversations are quite painful. Translated for you by Mark Anderson, here is a minute of the conversation:

Thomas: You ... uhhhhhh .... you ...... uhhhhh, I have ..... you ..... uhhhh .... the beach ...... me ...... ummmmm
Girl: So where are you from in the United States?
Thomas: You ..... uhhhhh .... States ..... me the States ..... States are the beach .... mountains?
Girl: Okay .... the mountains? You live in the mountains? Or the beach?
Thomas: You .... Me the mountain .... Beaches are birds ..... me ..... ummmm, milk?

I will spare you the rest. It hurt. But he got her email, so that the investment proved to be worth it. Providing further entertainment on once everyone actually settled down to try to get some sleep was the fact that we somehow got stuck on the sick car of the train. All night long, people were coughing, hacking phlem, spitting .... it was, as the say, quite gross. Right when I finally got to the world of sleep, the Spanish woman next to me would start coughing on my head. I am quite convinced I now have Ebola ....

Granada is the nice Spanish city we were looking for. Alhambra is amazing-- I will leave it at that. What they call the most magnificent creation on the continent did not disappoint. Now we are going to the bars, where Tapas are provided free of charge with the beers .... Great to relax. Tomorrow, we are off to Cordez, a Spanish village on the Mediterranean.

I'll update you there.

ebola victim

Grendada, Spain -- The Ebola Virus has claimed its first two victims. Reyes and Dan are down for the count with the Spanish Flu, no doubt a result of the infected train that we caught in Barcelona. We are staying here one extra day so they can recoup. Thomas and I are frantically trying to stay healthy, which we did with the help of 80 cent shots at a popular local bar, "Chupateria". I know the name has something to do with the word suck, but I am not sure what exactly. This bar was great. On the wall was the list of over 125 original shots of all kinds of names. To my suprise, one shot was named after me. Number 22 was called Mark, and consisted of Rum, Lime Juice, and Vodka. Next, I continued with the name theme my trying number 87, which was called Kenneth. As those of you know, this is my middle name. Unfortunately, they had no Anderson. I wrapped up with Katie, the only other of our group up there, which was Coconut Rum, Vodka and some sort of juice. I looked furiously for a Kenta, but had no luck. In a it's a small world occurence again, we met a girl who lives on 18th and Castro street in San Francisco, about six blocks from my apartment ... the dude she was with went to UC Santa Cruz and went to the same high school as Reyes (Neither of whom had shots named after them, by the way. I was the special one.) And then, in an 'only in Europe' moment, as Thomas and I walked back at three in the morning, we discover thousands of people in the courtyard in front of a church drinking the night away. Some sort of street party. Everyone held a bottle of some sort of liquor ... No cops around, unless they were joining in the party. That is the kind of stuff they can do here without interference. Maybe they are more responsible, who knows. It was an interesting perspective drinking in front of a classical church with Spaniards everywhere.

I will conclude by reporting that I was the victim of a renegade kamikaze pigeon attack yesterday while at Alhambra. The top of my head was targeted by the poo-bomb of a brave young pigeon warrior who scored a direct hit on top of my head. They opened up the first round of hostilities with this suprise Pear Harbor-esque attack. I was temporarily stunned at their brashness, but quickly recovered to target some pigeons of my own, responding with some direct hits with grape-bombs later in the day. Victory will be mine.

Until tomorrow,
Birdman of Alcatraz

Sevilla, Spain -- For those of you who spoke so highly of Barcelona, I will assume you have never been to Sevilla (Seville for you Americans). This has been the highlight of Spain, and may be the highlight of Europe thus far. The city is an amazing mix of big city and small town .... it is the Spanish town I have wanting to find since I came to Spain, and the kind of town I pictured before I ever arrived in Spain. It is a beautiful city with a palm tree-lined river running through the middle ... it also houses the biggest church in the world, which looks pretty amazing when lit up at night. There are absolutely no skyscrapers or modern buildings to ruin the skyline of ancient churches, palaces, and architecture. The best part of Seville, though, is the culture. It is relaxed, friendly, cultural -- it essentially has all the feel and look of a small Spanish town, yet none of the ignorance, lack of modern amenities, or smallness. Yet despite the general chillness of the town, there is still a certain vibrance and energy that the universities in town bring to Seville. They claim it has one of the best nightlifes in Spain ... we will see .... There are thousands of tiny, flower-filled alleys that take you to all parts of town, good to get lost in after all this big city stuff I have seen. This is a town I definately recommend to everyone.

Yesterday was spent in Cadiz, Spain ... disappointing as a beach town, but it came alive at night. I had my most cultural experience of the trip yet, as Dan and I watched the hugely anticipated Barcelona vs. Madrid soccer match in a small, local Cadiz bar with a number of residents. They chanted ... screamed ... it was an intense experience ... as I was told, they really take their soccer seriously.

Thomas split up with us to head down to Morocco ... we decided to stick in Spain .... we have also decided to cut Portugal out of the plans, as the prospect of a sixteen hour train ride from here to Lisbon just didn't sound attractive enough. We will head out to Madrid and Nice, France in the next few days, before getting a start in Cinque Terre in Italy. Reyes and Dan are finally getting over their colds, so this is good. There are no pigeon stories to report at the time, but stay tuned, this lull in violence hasn't fooled me one bit.

peace,
don jamon

Madrid, Spain -- I am writing to you from Madrid, although I cannot really say I have seen any of it yet. I have seen the subway, the buses, the cars, but no real Madrid. The hostel Reyes and I checked into (we got the number from the Lonely Planet book) was in some park in Spain that is seems to be about five hours from Madrid itself. It took about that long to find it. It is, literally, in the middle of a huge park outside the city. Imagine a hostel in the middle of Golden Gate Park. Then take Golden Gate Park and move it about ten miles from San Francisco. And I think this hostel used to be an old folks home. There is a seat in the shower, and the toilet is out in the open with rails all around it. Interesting. It takes about an hour to get to Madrid using the public transportation. When we finally arrived in the town square, we walked up from the subway station into the middle of a Spanish Revolt. There were cops and protesters everywhere ... the streets were blocked off. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out what the revolution was about, but couldn't get further than deciding that some Spaniards want liberty for something or other. We are going to check it out tonight, and hit the road tomorrow for the south of France. To be honest, we are a bit "Spanished" out ... there is only so much Paella one man can take .... time for some new cultures.

As I reflected on some of my recent bloggs, I realized that I have been overwhelmingly positive in nearly all of my reports. I have done little bitching, which I happen to enjoy quite immensely. Don't worry, those of you that know me ... I am still finding plenty to bitch about. Nothing is perfect, and it is my job to bring the imperfections to you, the audience. As I have shared so many things are great about Europe, I will now balance the scales. I have compiled a small list of things that suck about Europe. It is time to share some of that list with you:

1) Phones. Public phones, to be exact. They are all different, even in the same city. They require different numbers to call the same place ... sometimes you put money in before you call, sometimes after. And that is only if the phones take money in the first place. Most of the phones don't. And that is so they can propogate the worst scam here in Europe: Phonecards. The cheapest card you can buy is for five dollars. In some cities, it is ten dollars. That doesn't do us much good when we are only planning on making one local phone call for 35 cents to a place down the street. That leaves us a whole lot of money on a card that doesn't work the minute you leave that country (and sometimes city). In Brussels, different phones required different phone cards. You get so pissed trying to figure out how to make a call, after about thirty minutes you give up and walk to the place you were trying to call. Lame.

2) Scooters. It isn't the fact that they all ride them overhere, which they do. It is the fact that none of these scooters have been fitted with the modern technical wonder called a "muffler". These scooters sound like Harley-Davidsons in a gym. Loud, in other words. And they are everywhere. Not good while trying to sleep.

3) Lines. As in waiting in line. They don't really do that here. You are waiting in line, and people take that as a sign you are unaggressive and cut in front of you. Most lines are just mobs of people that operate on a "fastest person wins" mentality. I have learned the tricks of the trade, however, and kindness went out the door a few weeks ago.

That is a taste .... There are more, don't you worry. If you are a good audience, I will provide more later. My life of simplicity has worked out nicely. I am down to a great system of about four days per pair of socks, five days for boxers, and don't even ask about the shirts. It is nice carrying your possessions on your back. In Spain, I managed to keep to a twenty dollar a day budget as well. That is better than I did in the states when I was ten years old. Life is looking pretty good ....

liberdad por Espana!!!

don juan

P.S. Lee, I lost your Swiss army knife ... sorry.

Nice, France -- Ahhhhh, night-trains ..... the beauty of a 23 hour train ride across Spain and France capped off by an all night extravaganza into the French Riviera. Where do I begin? Perhaps with the elderly Spanish gentleman I sat next to from Madrid to Barcelona. Just because I could say "i like to go to the beach" in Spanish, he assumed I was fluent, and spent the next six hours telling me things I wouldn't have been able to make out even if he was speaking in English. Apparantly my occassional smiles and nodding of the head was enough to convince him I understood. Even if I knew Spanish better, I wouldn't understand Cataylan, the dialect I think he was speaking. And, as in America, this European trains are loaded with parents who think it is cute when their kids run up and down the aisles screaming like banshees in a castle. Note to all parents: it isn't cute. I compare these kids with the pigeons I am actively at war with. My next image is of trying to get comfortable for the last eight hours (midnight to 8 am) in a plastic foam seat with armrests sticking into your ribs. All the while, some interesting old man a couple seats down is talking loudly to himself in some ancient language. He didn't stop. I woke up to peer over at Reyes, who was actively trying to sleep with the aide of his headphones. This was a funny sight. The headphones had slipped over his head into his eyes while he was sleeping, making him look like that dude from Star Trek or Laser from X-Files. Dinner consisted of three "Lion" chocolate bars purchased from the train station vending machine. Oh, and some cheetos. We met a Canadien girl from Vancouver Island on the train, and she is heading in our general direction, so she will be with us for awhile. Cool girl who, like everyone here, quit her job to do some travelling.

Today, we checked out Monaco ... actually was a very cool town, much more laid back then I thought a gambling town could be. We went to Monte Carlo to have a look, until we found out you had to pay 50 Francs just to get into the Casino itself. What kind of logic is that? Pay money so you can go in and lose money?? I might like to gamble on occasion, but that was beyond comprehension, so we moved on. Tomorrow, we take off for Cinque Terre in Italy ...

We have been making the highly successfuly 'Cliff Notes' tours of the last few cities. Museums and churches are a dime a dozen out here, so trying to go to each city just for that is monotonous. We just take a walk by, have a look around, and keep on moving. You would be amazed how much you can see in a few hours. We did Madrid in about two hours. All the stuff looks better on the outside anyway. You go into the churches and museums, and it kinda reminds you of the one you were at yesterday. The only thing that changes is the exterior, so we are sticking to that .... I am going to publish as series when I return called 'Cliff Notes Travellers Series'. This will tell you how to see a city in all its glory in six hours or less. I am accepting applications now ...

wine time

Rome, Italy -- I had written a long description of Cinque Terre, where Reyes and I were the past two days, and I erased right when I had finished it. Maybe it is for the best. It is sufficient to say that Cinque Terre was the best part of the trip thus far, an amazing time warp into five old Italian towns that do not seem to have changed in the past one hundred years. Reyes and I felt like the only tourists in the entire town of RioMaggore ... Read Mike's Blogg to get exact details ... Cheap, beautiful, and authentic ... the perfect entrance into Italy.

On a strange side note of the way the world works in coincidences, on the hiking path that connects the five towns of Cinque Terre, we ran into about five people in three hours. One of those five people was a graduate of my high school, Rancho Bernardo. Freaky. I did not know him, as he was younger than me, but still .... that makes a SCU graduate and RB high school graduate that I have met thus far ... Now if I meet a Meadowbrook Middle School graduate, I will officially be spooked.

We are starting to realize the benefits of travelling in October. The towns and tourists are thinning out. Prices are lower, hostels are always available, and the tourist sites are devoid of too many people. With one exception, that is. I have finally found something that is ruining Europe even more than piegons, if that is possible. They are tour groups. And they are everywhere, destroying the natural beauty of Europe. Let me explain: They pull up to the famous sites of every city we visit in buses of five thousand, instantly ruining any peace and quiet that existed before. They walk around in swarms, making it impossible to get close to whatever it was you came to see. They block the entrances into places, and the exits. Because the average age of those in these groups is 146 years old, if you get caught behind them, you are screwed. They come from all reaches of the globe. But it is all the same effect. They should be illegal. They keep Mike and I away from places. The horror!!

Rome looks great so far, and we are looking forward to it. We will keep you posted.

ATG (Anti Tour Group) Founder and Member

Rome, Italy -- If I were being kind, I would say that I am not particularly enamored with Rome. If I were being honest, I would say that Rome is the biggest stinkin' mess of people, cars and overrated monuments that I have ever seen in my twenty five years of life. I always thought of Rome as a series of Roman ruins that happened to have a big city around it. Instead, it is a big city that happens to have some Roman ruins within it. Think Dallas with a Pantheon. However, for those of you who are really interested in what Rome is all about, I will give you a quick tour:

Spanish Steps -- Go to Valley Fair mall on Stevens Creek Blvd, look at the five steps that lead up to the Macy's store, and picture five hundred thousand pigeons sitting on these steps, and you have the Spanish Steps.
Trevi Fountain -- Take a regulation size hose, fill a kid-size wading pool with water, and throw a bunch of coins in it. You, too, can have your own Trevi Fountain. Throwing a coin behind your back into this fountain supposedly guarantees your return to Rome. Let me just say, thanks the skies above that I did not have a coin to throw.
Roman Forum -- Take six large bricks, stack them ontop of each other, make about three more stacks, put these columns of bricks into your backyard, and date them back about two thousand years. Oh, yeah, and charge five bucks to have people come and see your stacks.
Sistine Chapel -- Ahhh, the best of all. I don't need to make a comparison here. I can tell you the real deal. We walk to the side of Vatican City. We stand in line for an hour to get in. We pay eight dollars. We just want to see the masterpiece everyone tells me I have to see. So we follow the signs to the Sistine Chapel within the museum. We go up stairs. We go down stairs. We walk left. We walk right. This whole time, mind you, we are surrounded by a swarm of people jammed into an area no larger than my hallway at home. After a forty minute walk, I stand on the precipice of the door which leads me into the Chapel. Only, we cannot get in. It is too full. So we stand there, and finally cram our way into the mosh pit of arms and legs and stink, and there is the Chapel. It would have been incredible, if I wasn't so annoyed by this time that I couldn't hardly breathe. They make it impossible to enjoy. I cannot enjoy art with four hundred thousand people jammed into a room. So we squeeze our way out, and take off. Suffice to say, this is early on a Monday morning during the off-season.

So, welcome to Rome. I have had enough big city for awhile. Forget Florence. We have been told that is more crowded than Rome. Reyes and I are trekking to the small cities of Florence in Italy for the next three days. After that, small cities of Switzerland. I am no longer going to places that I had been told 'I have to see'. The problem is, everyone else in the world was told they 'have to see it'. No more famous museums or paintings or churches. I will stick to the pictures. I will go without it, and see things nobody else has seen. The best of the trip so far has been the small towns we have seen. We will still see the big cities ... Vienna, Prague and Budapest are next in line. However, each big city will be matched with a few small towns. I have learned.

To end on a positive note, the pizza and gelato here sure is good!

ciao, bellas!