Heading Home

Today is my last day in Lancaster.  I am about halfway through packing but thought I would let you all know my travel plans.  Tonight I am leaving with my friends to Manchester for the evening.  Saturday I have a 10:40 am flight from Manchester to Chicago which should be landing about 1:15 or so Central time.  From there I have a 2 and a half hour layover in Chicago and the short flight to Green Bay.  If the weather cooperates, I should be in Green Bay at about 4:45.

I'll see everyone soon!

We had Thanksgiving Too

A Picture of Me Being Athletic

So I got to play Ultimate at Nationals which was a lot of fun.  I even got to display the little athletic ability I still have.  Good times were had by all.

Nationals

So these are some of my friends at Lancaster.  From what we could tell, there were 7 Americans playing in our Regionals in Manchester.  Six of those Americans were from our team.  We represented our country well.  This weekend we will be heading back to Manchester to compete in Nationals.  Should be a fun time.

London

Platform at King's Cross (Harry Potter reference)
Princess Diana Memorial Fountain
Kengsinton Palace
The London Underground
Millenium Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background

The Beatles zebra crossing at Abbey Road

Down the street by Piccadilly Square, thought it was awesome
House of Parliament
Wimbledon
London Bridge
Tower Bridge (a better bridge than London Bridge)
Bond exhibit
Waterloo Station (Bourne reference)
MI6, British Secret Service (Bond reference)
Road where Penny's flat is (Lost Reference)
Flight simulator at Royal Air Force Museum (Did better than 98%)
Rescue Chopper
In front of the Imperial War Museum
Big Ben
Guard
Big Lion in Trafalgar Square
Westminster Abbey

Paris

At the Louvre, it's a Da Vinci Code reference
Mona Lisa, I'd thought it would be bigger.  The smallest piece of art in the room.
Madonna on the Rocks
Moulin Rouge
Eiffel Tower @ Night
Halfway up the Tower
Arc de Triumph
Notre Dame

Ultimate!

So this past weekend, I went down to Manchester to play in an Ultimate Tournament for the Lancaster Fish.  Probably some of the most fun I have had playing competitive sports in quite some time.  The games were 15 minutes long and the first day was set up pool play style to seed the 24 teams for Sunday.  After each game, the two teams meet up outside or off the gym to talk about the game and sportsmanship and then to play silly games that are fun then to thank each other for playing Ultimate the right way.  Quite the departure of how things are done in the States.  Anyway, the Lancaster team went 0-9 last year at this tournament so obviously the only place to go was up.  We ended up winning our first game which gave us a little confidence which we rode to an undefeated pool round record of 5-0 and to the top seed out of our pool.  The next day we also won our first 2 matches to advance to the semi finals.  Here we met the team favored to win the tournament and ended up losing in sudden death after the game was tied 6-6 at the end of regulation.  Following that, we won the 3rd/4th place game to finish the tournament with an 8-1 record and a 3rd place finish.  Not too shabby.  We only had one sub so I ended up really never taking a breather as some of the other players cardio levels were a little suspect.  I was Man of the Match for a few of the games and ended up taking home Team MVP which was pretty cool.  Overall, I had a blast and can't wait for Regionals coming up in a few weeks.   Should be an adventure.

Sorry it took so long to get something up here but life isn't as interesting with classes and stuff instead of jetting around Europe.  I hope to get out and take pictures of campus and let you know about classes and school here in the next few days.

Cheers

Prague

I got to spend a whole week in Prague which was fantastic.  I didn't speak the language but found myself wishing I could spend more time there when it was time to go.  The first thing you notice about Prague when you get there is that the prices look real high because the exchange rate is 17 Czech Korunas (Crowns) to 1 US Dollar even with the dollar being so crappy.  You go to the ATM and withdraw 1000 Crowns and they give you one bill.  The store clerks then stare daggers through your heart when you buy a 30 crown soda and give them a 1000 crown bill.  It's just a little overkill but you feel so good to know that you have a couple thousand crowns sitting in your wallet, even if it is like 60 bucks.

My food of choice in Prague was fried cheese which is like a big mozzarella stick in the shape of a patty served on a bun.  They were amazing and I had one every chance I could.  Also, the cheapest form of liquid you could get in Prague was beer so in an effort to conserve funds I had to have a few beers only because they were cheaper than soda and water.

A few notes on beer.  The monastary by the castle in Prague has a bar called St. Norbert and it serves St. Norbert Special Beer.  It was a very special moment for me to find that and I stopped in for a few of St. Norbert's Special Brews.  They were awesome.

We also, took a day trip to Plzen and took a tour of the Pilsner Urquell brewery.  This is the birthplace of Pilsner beer and we got to taste some of the fair straight from their barrels.  Pilsner Urquell is also the European arm of SAB Miller, which owns Miller Brewery back home.  They also had a beer vending machine in their lobby.

Also in Prague is Lennon's Wall.  Back when the Czech Republic was communist, people started to grafiti John Lennon quotes on this wall and other quotes and pictures of peace as a form of protest.  Obviously, the wall got painted white back over but the next day the quotes were back.  The original paint is not covered by layers and layers of pain but some good art is still on the wall and you can add some of your own if you want too.  It was pretty cool to see.

We finished out time in Prague going to a Czech HC Sparta Praha hockey game.  We could not have picked a better game to go to.  We bought tickets at the door and ended up sitting on the blue line in the closest seats to the ice.  Regulation ended in a 4-4 tie and OT is played 4 on 4.  There were a ton of shots on goal in OT and Sparta put one in the net on a spectacular play with the opposing goalie all the way out to the blue line to stop the puck with time expiring.  Turned out that the goal didn't count as it didn't cross into the goal until after time which meant sudden death shootout.  After 2 rounds of all stops.  HC Sparta Praha stuffed the opponents 3rd shooter and put our penalty shot in the back of the net for the victory.  The place went nuts, it was incredible to be there for.

So that was my time in Prague, it was a ton of fun and I loved my time in Prague staying at Sant Jordi, the nicest hostel ever.  Now it is back to school for classes for a few weeks.  It's about time I start class but not before Fresher's Week this week and some early mornings so I can watch the Brewer playoff games.

Pisa

This is Part 4, Part 1 is Rome.

Pisa was a real short trip because there really is only one thing to do in Pisa which is check out the leaning tower.  It is exactly what you expect but it still is bizarre to see a tower that is sort of leaning.  Everyone does the tourist pictures and you can really help yourself.  It was raining when we got to Pisa so it would have been nice to walk around a little bit but weather didn't allow to do much more than get to the Leaning Tower, snap some pics and get on our plane to Prague.

Florence

This is part 3 of the multipart vacation post.  It all starts with Rome.

So after Rome, we headed on a train for Florence for more fun and excitement.  If Rome was my favorite place to go to as a tourist in Italy, then Florence would be where I would choose to live.  It is much less touristy than Rome but still a bunch of stuff to do.  In the center of town is Il Duomo, which is a huge church.  It is quite the sight.  On the outside edge of the city is Pizzale Michaelango which has a fake David and the best view of the city.

The big draw in Florence to see the David.  It costs a few euros to get into the museum but it certainly is an impressive statue.  Its enourmous and the detailing is pretty incredible for a solid piece of marble and such a huge statue.  Also certainly worth the price of admission.

We ended Florence with what one of my more expensive learning experiences.  Some of the members of my group wanted to rent scooters and drive outside the city into Tuscany.  My spider senses were tingling the entire time and every bone in my body thought this was a bad idea.  For one of the first times in my life I caved to peer pressure and rented a scooter with them.  Needless to say, my gut was right as we basically tipped right over with 6 people on 3 scooters.  I left most of the skin of my left knee in Florence and scored a pretty fun jammed shoulder that is just now starting to feel better.  We made it all of about 10 yards before my vespa and the vespa in front of my started to fall towards the same part of curb.  The Italian lady to rented us the Vespas was upset and starting speaking Italian so fast, my head started to spin.  After paying the damages, our scooter adventure ended about 10 minutes after it began with prices at about 8 euro a yard traveled.  Lessons learned.  Certainly did make Florence memorable though.

Another great thing about Florence is the food.  The pizza and paninis were my main courses and the gelato is absolutely delightful.  All sorts of flavors and it is really quite tasty.  One of my other favorite parts of Florence is haggling the street vendors.  You can talk the price down on pretty much everyone and the illegal street vendors (who run from the cops at night during what we called Cops and Vendors, although the Cops don't try too hard to catch them) will pretty much sell you what they have at 85% less than the price they want to see you their stuff for.  I enjoyed seeing how low I can get them to go even if I never had an intention of buying.

That pretty much wrapped up Italy less the short trip to Pisa to end our first week.

Vatican City

This is part two of the multi part post on my two week European adventures.

On the last day in Rome, we took a trip to the northwest part of Rome and went into Vatican City to see St. Peter's Basillica and the Vatican Museum.  We hopped on a free tour of St Peter's and learned a bunch of cool stuff.  On the top of St. Peter's all of the men on top of the Basillica are holding the weapons of their death, Jesus has a cross but one had a saw because he was sawed in half hot dog style, not a fun way to go I would imagine.  It was pretty amazing to see inside the Basillica and walk around.  The Popes buried inside St. Peter's were laid in there right after they died so the hands that you see decaying are their actual hands.  The dimensions are hard to get a bearing on because everything is scaled larger the higher it is.  We were told that no baseball could hit a ball from one end to the other end on the fly and I am pretty sure I could not hit a golf ball from one end to the end on the fly either.  It's huge.

After going through St. Peter's, we took a tour of the Vatican Museum.  That place is also huge and you need a guide or you will wonder around and have no idea at what you are looking at.  We went on the tour with the guide that did the St. Peter's tour.  If you want to go on tours in Rome or the Vatican, go with Roman Odyssey tours, by far the best tours we went on and they are Americans so you can understand what they are saying too.  Anyway, the big draw at the Vatican is the Sistine Chapel and it doesn't disappoint.   The Chapel is smaller than I had imagined but the ceiling was incredible and it is so much more than the ET moment that Adam is having.  It really isn't Adam getting life either, he looks very much alive at the time, that scene is more like Adam receiving knowledge and it just one scene of a bunch on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  It was worth the price of admission.  We also got to go down in the Vatican grotto and where Pope John Paul II is.  We didn't get to see where Peter is, they obviously do not let tourists down underneath that far.

After the Vatican tours, I did my own little version of Angels and Demons and moved around the Vatican and found a bunch of the places in the book.  Rome didn't let Ron Howard shoot in any of the churches for the film which just got down shooting this summer I believe so I am interesting in seeing how they handle that in the movie.

So that was Rome and the Vatican.  The next stop was on to Florence.

Rome

This is part one of the multi part post of my two week holiday.

So first point on my vacation was Rome, Italy.  Getting there required a train ride to Liverpool airport on Friday night for our 6am Saturday Morning flight.  I am not good at sleeping on floors or in airports so I opted to stay up all night and learn to how to do my Rubik's Cube.

Anyway, got to Rome Saturday and it was absolutely gorgeous.  With Rome, you can be walking around the city and stumble upon a fountain or building that has been up for a few thousand years and have great historical significance.  There are monuments all around the city to look at.  The first day, my friend Geoff and I walked a

round the city and got our bearings and did light sightseeing.  The next three days were the heavy duty tourist days.

There is so much to see in Rome that you need 3 days to see it all if you are moving quickly.  We did the Colosseum without a tour guide and it was one of my favorite places to go on the trip.  I didn't realize how much was going on under the stadium floor.  There were a bunch of intricate walkways.  Also, I lea

rned that the floor of the Colosseum could be flooded for sea battles and that it was free to attend the events at the Colosseum but everyone that a unique seat location.

As a side note, in Rome, there are a bunch of Egyptian obelisks.  There are more in Rome than there are in Egypt but the Romans liked them so much that they took them back to Rome with them from Egypt. 

A few of my other favorite places in Rome was Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon.  Trevi Fountain is this huge fountain on the western part of Rome.  The legend goes that you are supposed to throw two coins into the fountain over your shoulder.  The first coin is a wish that you have and the second coin ensures that you will return to Rome before you die.  It was pretty cool to go to and see everyone tossing coins in the fountain.  It was even better looking at night with it all lit up.  The Pantheon was also pretty cool.  Inside the Pantheon, Raphael Santi is buried and above his body is an inscription that reads something like Here lies Raphael, by whom the mother of all things feared to be overcome while he was living, and while he was dying, herself to die.  Also, there is a huge hole in the ceiling on the Pantheon called an oculus which is why the building is so strong and the sun shines on a different part of the wall during the day so it can be used as a time piece.

Overall, Rome was my favorite place in Italy to be a tourist in, there was a ton of stuff to see, way more than I could possibly explain here.  It was a great way to kick off the two weeks though.