We Want to go to AmsterDAM!

So Jordan and I have arrived in Amsterdam from Brussels. We got here on Sunday the 27th in the evening. The reason I titled this post "We Want to go to AmsterDAM!"is that Jordan and I have been repeating this phrase ever since catching our night train to Paris in Stuttgart, Germany about a week ago, and now we are finally here. It was about 2 a.m. and our train was already late but we had to sit and wait while the German train conductor attempted to explain to this Asian lady why half of her group had to be split up and sit in the Paris half of the train for the first part of the journey. The group was simply to big and they were going to add a car for them at the next stop which was Mannheim. Well this lady would not believe him and she kept saying "this say Paris, we want to go to AmsterDAM." She always heavily emphasised the DAM part. We felt bad for both parties because the German guy started getting really angry and yelling and even got a large paper to sketch out the switch, "You switch at Mannheim! It's no problem" he kept saying. And she would just say "We have to go to AmsterDAM!" This ended up going on for some time before it finally got settled and the Asian lady relented. We were already plenty late by that time so it didn't really matter. It was pretty funny and Jordan and I can't get AmsterDAM out of our heads. So that's a really long explanation of the name of this post.

Anyway, we finished up Brussels which I think is a very underrated city. We had a great time there and it was a lot cheaper than Paris. As for Amsterdam, in many ways it has exceeded my expectations. It really is a city that strives for tolerance of everything. Walking down the streets is an adventure of sights and smells. I'm not sure yet how I feel about the city's tolerant culture. In some ways I think I like it, in others I don't. A lot remains to be seen. Since we are here until Friday I still have time to come to some conclusions. So we'll see if I can come up with any definitive conclusions on AmsterDAM.

I hope this little update is decent. Anyway if ya don't know, now ya know...

Pardon my French

Whenever I think of France and the French I'm reminded of the SNL sketch of Celebrity Jeopardy when Turd Ferguson tells Alex Trebek that he speaks French to which Alex replies, "oh yeah" and Turd says, "you're an assbite, pardon my French!" So that's what I think of when I think of France. That and berets and pencil mustaches. Oh and baguettes. I found out the baguette part is true, they do carry those around all the time!

Here's a quick update on my travels in French speaking countries so far: After Nurnberg we took a night train to Paris and saw the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, the Shakespeare and Co. book company, Eiffel Tower and lots of French stuff over two and a half days. Paris was fun but it was so big that we ended up spending a lot of time and money just riding the metro around. The language barrier was pretty difficult. It seems as though you speak French best when you are trying to be as mocking and patronizing as possible. Only then does it sound correct the real secret is to sound pompously arrogant. Paris is an impressive city though and we had fun there and I'll have to come back someday to see everything.

Now I'm in Brussels through the 27th when I'll be leaving to go to Bruges and then Amsterdam. Brussels is a really interesting mix of old and new, French and Flemish and English. It's nice that so many people here speak English and the weather has been pretty good. Today we went to an old brewery that brews Lambic beer in the traditional method with "spontaneous fermentation". The beer was good, quite sour and fruity. It's very different than anything I've had before. Tomorrow is Christmas so we are just going to have a walk around and look at stuff and then hang out at the hostel. It will definitely be the weirdest Christmas I've ever celebrated.

Sorry for no pictures, the computers here at the hostel won't let us upload any (I think they are Commies) so I'll try to get some up next time. Anyway that's pretty much all I've got for now. Merry Christmas everybody (and Happy Hanukkah). So if ya don't know, now ya know...

Beer and Sausages!

Just a real quick update on what's been going on. Jordan and I got into Munich, Germany on Friday morning and then met our friend Chris at the Stachus, Karlsplatz and we went to the Deutsche Musem there which was really cool. It was so big, even though we were there for about half the day we weren't able to see it all. Fortunately Chris was there to explain to Jordan and I what was going on when there was no English. After the museum we went to Hofbräuhaus for some beer! The beer house was really good, it was packed and the beer was excellent.

On Saturday Chris took us to Nurnberg and showed us around. We went to the Christams market and saw a lot of things in the city. That evening we took the train back to Chris' house and then after dinner we went to a party with some of Chris' friends. It was a really good party and I met more Germans in one evening than I have met in my whole life.

This whole weekend at Chris' house has been great, Chris' mom has made us really good German food and Chris has showed us around a lot. It has been really nice to sleep well and have some home cooked food! I think I would probably gain a lot of weight if I were to stay here much longer because the food is so good!

Tonight, we take a night train to Stuttgart and then to Paris, arriving about 9:30 in the morning. Germany has been so much fun, the only problem is that it has been very cold. It's been less than 10 degrees most of the time we have been here! But fortunately we had good German beer and spiced wine to keep us warm! So it's off to Paris now and if ya don't know, now ya know...

Firenze

Got into Florence last night. Checked into our sweet 13 € a night hostel which is very cozy and met some new peeps. Our roommate Andre from Brazil is a very interesting guy with lots of travel experience. Today we walked around a lot and went to the Uffizi Gallery which has an incredibly large amount of portraits etc. I have to admit though that it is hard to get psyched up for galleries after you see so many. And after just coming from the Vatican museum I probably was not as excited for this as I should have been. It was still good though, and it was a really nice sunny day which was good for pictures so Jordan and I took a bunch. However, I was not expecting it to be this cold, it was barely above freezing this morning when we left and I have to say that I expected Italy to be much warmer! It is all good though, we have really enjoyed Florence, it is such a beautiful city that you could pretty much take a picture of anything and it would look good.

Tomorrow, we look around more, and do some galleries then it will be time for our 9:30 p.m. night train to Munich. I will try to get another blog post up as soon as I can but it is tough with limited internet. So if ya dont know, now ya know...

Rome pics

Pope's Still Alive

Well, hello all. This is going to be short and sweet because I only have half hour of internet usage here! Jordan and I arrived safely in Rome and made it to our hostel on Saturday. We are having a great time so far. Italy is pretty pretty pretty pretty good!

Yesterday we walked around and saw the Roman ruins around the colisseum which were very impressive and the weather was great. 60 degrees felt absolutely balmy after the wet and windy weather in England. We also indulged in some pizza and gelato which was very good. The Italians do pizza and gelato extremely well. It seems like the Italians do food the best and screw the rest! The food is amazing, but for instance the roads and driving seem to be somewhat chaotic.

Today, Sunday we got up early and went to the Colisseum which was very interesting and the size was what impressed me the most. It could stand up to any modern stadium with ease. After that we finished up the rest of the Roman ruins we hadn't seen and then caught the Metro over to St. Peter's square in Vatican City. Since it was Sunday we made sure to get there before noon to hear Pope Benedict's blessing. The square was jam packed with people from all over the world and it was one of the coolest things I've ever been to. The blessing was fifteen minutes long but very moving. People were laughing, crying, singing, dancing, throwing flags in the air and trying to sell umbrellas! I swear one drop of rain falls in Rome and fifteen people pop out of cracks in the ground and try to sell you an umbrella! But it was amazing to see the Pope up there in his window doing his thing!

After that we went in to St. Peters basilica and looked around, climbed to the top which was similar to what we did at St. Paul's in London and at the York Minster. All in all a very impressive day . We had dinner at a nice traditional Italian restaurant which was excellent and not too bad on the pocketbook as well. Another good day in Rome doing as the Romans do!

Tomorrow we go to the Vatican museum and Sistine chapel so that ought to be interesting as well. Then on Tuesday it's off to Florence! So if ya don't know, now ya know...

Christmas Vacation

So I'm leaving tomorrow to go to my friend Harry's house and then to the airport early Saturday morning in preparation for my month long holiday which I'm spending throughout Europe. I just figured I would let you all know my general plans and where I'll be.

So here's the plan:

Saturday 12th of December: Fly to Rome, Italy.
15th of December train to Florence, Italy.
17th of December night train to Munich, Germany.
17th to the 20th of December stay with Chris in Nurnberg, Germany.
20th of December night train to Paris, France.
23rd of December afternoon train to Brussels, Belgium.
27th of December afternoon train to Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
1st of January afternoon train to Dusseldorf, Germany.
2nd of January flight to Krakow, Poland.
7th of January flight to London, England
10th of January train back to Nottingham.

That's the basic plan for myself and my travel companion Sir Jordan Jacobo. We don't speak Italian, German, French, Dutch or Polish so it ought to be entertaining. Anyway, I'll be doing my best to keep the updates flowing and the pictures flocking like the native salmon of Capistrano. So long and farewell. I'll be back in the states in about six weeks from now. So if ya don't know, now ya know...

The Door Incident

The Damage!

More Damage!!

Even More Damage!!!

The Forces of Darkness

One Hellacious Wheel

So a pretty interesting event happened this last weekend that I thought was pretty funny even though it was also quite inconvenient and disruptive. It is a pretty good tale though if I do say so myself. So here goes.

Basically the end result of this story is that my door has been absolutely mangled. Kind of like Evander Holyfield’s ear after Iron Mike Tyson got through chewing it like pit bull on a ham bone. (See the accompanying pictures) Here’s what happened. First of all let me tell you that this all happened at nearly 1 a.m. on a Saturday night/Sunday morning.

In my block my room is located directly at the bottom of the stair leading up to the second level. That’s not normally an issue. However, the forces of science and Newton’s three laws cannot be denied. The following account is a good example of inertia, mass, force, and gravity working together to destroy a doorframe. So what happened was, one of my blockmates who shall remain anonymous (I couldn’t get a hold of his lawyer for permission) had a few too many drinks that night. And on his way back to the block came across a one of those very large wooden spools that they use to sell rope or wire at hardware stores (or that Paul Bunyan’s mother uses to sew buttons and mend rips in his giant clothes). Anyway he decided that it would be a good idea to have in his room for a table or something. So he proceeded to roll this large, cumbersome, very heavy spool into our block and then inspired by alcohol and crystal meth (okay I made up the meth part) managed to get this huge spool up the stairs to the landing. This was a feat in itself, that thing was about as heavy as Tony “the goose” Siragusa and just as dense. However at the top of the stairs, my blockmate’s mental faculties managed to feebly present themselves for the first time all evening and he decided that a large, muddy, wet spool would not fit the décor of his room and also presented a fire hazard. After this realization the mental faculties called it a night and went to bed. From then on he was going on drunken instinct and pure stupor.

Unfortunately for my door, my blockmate decided that the spool ought to be outside rather than on the landing. It was then that the forces of gravity, mass, physics and alcohol took over. As he attempted to get this huge spool of wood down the stairs (which are quite steep) the slick and muddy wood managed to slip from his alcohol numbed hands and then make its rather quick and forceful descent. As Newton has shown, an object in motion tends to stay in motion until something else interacts with it. In this case that other object was my sturdy oak (I’m pretty sure its oak, if not, it’s something else as strong or stronger) door. We also know from physics that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. In this case, the reaction was my hella heavy door withstanding the Herculean blow like a champ and not even denting! Unfortunately my weak doorframe folded like the Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl and got absolutely trashed to pieces. What transpired in the short time of the spool beginning its descent and the door coming unhinged is this: The latent energy of the large, dense, wooden spool at the top of the stairs was transferred into very real energy crashing into my door like the battering rams that the forces of darkness (Mordor/Sauron) use against the city of Minas Tirith in the Lord of the Rings. Force = mass x acceleration. In this instance force won. Convincingly. Game, set, match, Newton. Hit the showers doorframe, and take your weak sauce hinges with you.
So I think it’s pretty clear that physics does not lie. My doorframe will attest to that. And I have to say, this was pretty annoying at 1 a.m., especially after we all stayed up for over an hour deliberating what to do next. It was eventually decided that honesty was the best policy. (although trickery and deceit came in a close second) I guess no one figured we could actually pull off the exceptionally watertight lie that would have been necessary to explain away such a lot of damage.

Anyway, this will be a good tale to tell on the high stool in the future I guess. So in that respect it was worth the trouble. But in case anyone is getting any funny ideas, like messing with any of my doors in the future, then let it be known; “If anyone so much as looks at any of my doors I will gut him like a pig.” That’s right, you can disrespect me, or my school, or my hobbies, but don’t you dare disrespect my door, or I will make you regret it every day of the week...and twice on Sundays! That’s all folks, I hope you enjoyed it! So if ya don’t know, now ya know...

Twilight New Moon (The previews were the best part)

Well, I just had an interesting night and I think I'd like to let all my readers out there know about. However, if any of my readers are also readers of the Twilight series they would be strongly advised to stop reading here before I tear into it like an NFL offensive lineman at the all you can eat buffet.

Basically, myself, Jordan and Dave went to see this movie with Katie and Dani to humor them. I have to admit, I did not go into this movie with an open mind, I went in thinking it would be absurd, ridiculous and bizarre. Forgive me for sounding cocksure, but I was right. Coming into this film without any knowledge of the series was a bit difficult but Katie and Dani filled me in, and I pretty much got the jist. The jist is that there is this girl Bella, who falls for this absolute schmuck Edward. Edward is basically a mysterious, sickly, lackluster, slouching, sullen, and snobby lose job. Oh and he's as paler than a blizzard. And I haven't even gotten to his biggest character flaw, he's a vampire! A sickly, mind reading, translucent, blood sucking bastard. I honestly have no idea what he has going for him. He must be rich.

The second main dude in this flick was this goober Jacob. He is admittedly a more decent monster than ole Eddie. But he's no Prince Charming either. I'll admit he's pretty jacked, (the guy was built). With that being said, he's a grease monkey, he jogs everywhere, (probably as smart as Forrest Gump) he always has his shirt off, and he's never on a beach. Oh and he's a werewolf. Another monster.

So basically, I have no idea how our "heroine" (she's obviously a weak individual and has definitely set the feminist movement back at least a couple decades) falls in love with both. She has the worst judgment in the world. Of all the single men out there, she picks two with gigantic character flaws. A vampire and a werewolf? What is she thinking, who will she go for next? Bigfoot? A minotaur? A centaur? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Frankenstein? Tiger Woods? Get real woman! It's your own fault you have gotten in the midst of a vampire vs. werewolf vicious turf war. Come on, everybody knows that getting between vampires and werewolves is like Steve Irwin getting between a stingray and its stinger. It does not end well.

Of course this movie conveniently ended well. Hollywood. Stephanie Meyer has no complexity. By the way I pretty much guessed how the series ends after the movie was over. I predicted a "creative solution" between Edward and Bella being procured so that they could live for ever together. And according to Wikipedia I was in the ballpark. In fact if the answer was at home plate, I was in the batter's box. I was pretty close, I just didn't realize how convenient the solution would be. Thank you wikipedia that I never have to read the book or watch any more films.

Although to be honest, I really enjoyed picking this movie apart and making sarcastic comments. I haven't even touched on how ridiculous I thought some of the scenes were and how juvenile the dialogue. But I'll save that for another day, or the high stool! And I have to mention the one thing I really liked in the film, the best acting in fact, was the mustache on Bella's dad. That thing deserves a handshake and a round of applause every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Thanks for reading this, I just felt it was necessary for me to give a reasonable excuse for going to watch Twilight. And I'm not going to rule out seeing the next one. I can always use fodder for the satire and comedy machine. And this movie provided me with a bumper crop. So maybe I'll attend whatever the next one is (I don't really care what it's called as long as its as absurd as this one) when it comes out. Or maybe I won't. All I know is that the world (myself and men everywhere) can't wait until the sun sets on Twilight. So if ya don't know, now ya know...

Oxbury and Cadford

Welcome back. It's time for another installment in my mildly amusing life abroad. I'm sorry I haven't posted recently but I've been busy and my life has been boring. Anyway, I did some relatively interesting stuff since Dublin. Here it is.

Cadbury World. Chocolate. Observing screaming children who have eaten too much chocolate. That pretty much describes the trip to Cadbury which myself and a few others made on a recent Saturday. The Cadbury factory is in Bournville just outside of Birmingham (pronounced Berm-ing-um, hooked on phonics does not apply to British names and places) and it's pretty huge. Unfortunately it does not look like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, which is what I was hoping for, well actually I was hoping for Oompa Loompa's but they are not at Cadbury either. It was a pretty long self-guided tour and they gave us free chocolate so I'd say it was pretty good. If we could have seen more of the chocolate making process I think it would have been more interesting, but, alas the mystery of Cadbury's is as tightly guarded as the recipe for the everlasting Gobstopper. Slugworth would have as much luck cracking Cadbury as he did Wonka.

Also, I went to Oxford yesterday with the Travel Society here at the University of Nottingham. It was a fun but I think we all would have appreciated a bit more time in Oxford before the shopping portion of the day. Oxford would have been better had we been able to tour some of the colleges but since students were leaving for Christmas Break we were unable to and had to settle for quick peeks at courtyards and stuff. Maybe that was a good thing though because the academic vibe was oozing from that place and it was kinda intimidating. We saw some students out and about and they looked pretty smart with their blue blazers and thick rimmed glasses. But they also looked like a stiff breeze could kick their ass! This is the kind of thought I comforted myself with while these kids were converting hydrogen into pure energy and lowering carbon emissions. I liked Oxford though, it was a nice, old, beautiful city. And Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings there so it has to be good!

I'm leaving this one short because I have lots of preparations to make before I leave for Rome on Saturday and I'm going to try and get a couple more posts up before then. So if ya don't know, now ya know...