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.

Two Week Holiday

Tomorrow (Friday September 12th) I embark on my two week holiday around Europe.  Thought I would give everyone I heads up on where I will be and when I plan on getting back.  First leg of the trip will be to get to John Lennon Airport in Liverpool to take a plane to Rome.  We will be in Rome for 3 days or so, then take a train to Florence and spend 2 nights there.  The 19th, we are heading to Pisa for the morning to do the Leaning Tower then hop on a plane to Prague for the next week.  I get back to Manchester Airport the following Friday and should be getting into my room for the term either that Sunday or Monday.  It is a pretty ambitious trip, especially the first week but I am excited to get started.  I'll try to check in on each leg and let everyone know how things are.

If I don't get time to get a post up here while I am vacationing through Europe, I'll talk to you all in a few weeks.

Cheers!

Liverpool and Pictures from the first month here

Hello Friends,

Long overdue post.  Last Saturday took a day trip to Liverpool to do some Beatles' sightseeing.  Liverpool is the 2008 European Capital of Culture so the place was pretty busy with people out looking at the sights and all the fun stuff that the capital of culture can offer.  First place I got to was Mathew Street, which is labeled the Birthplace of the Beatles.  It is where the Beatles played their first concert and played a bunch of concerts at a place call the Cavern Club.  I got to go into the club and take a look at the stage and everything.  It was pretty cool.

Besides Beatles stuff, there are a bunch of free museums to go through.  I went to a Beatles museum and a Maritime museum that had some pretty cool stuff.  The other big attraction was this massive mechancial spider that was in Liverpool.  It was created by the French and is operated by 12 people.  It is allegedly the biggest piece of street theatre ever.  The thing was absolutely massive and can walk up the street at 2 miles an hour.  There was people for as far as I could see in all directions for this spider.  There was a video on CNN.com about it if you want to go search for a video.  It reminded me of the giant mechancial spider from Wild Wild West without the explosions and flame throwers.

So overall, it was a good day trip.  Below you will see some of the pictures from Liverpool, as well as Scotland, the Blackburn football game and some other trips so far.

Enjoy!

This is some ruins back to when Britain was occupied by the Romans about 2000 years ago.  Needless to say, it was a pretty expansive sight.  This is near Hadrian's Wall where the Romans build their frontier on the northern end of their empire.

This is the tree that Kevin Costner sits under in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.  We just happened to be driving by it.

One of the shrubs from Leven's Hall.  There were a bunch of shrubs that were cut this cool but this one was one of my favorites.

Logo on the Blackburn stadium from the game we went to.  It was a draw but a good game anyway.

Blackburn celebrating after scoring the first goal of the game.  We had second row seats.  It was an impressive sight.

A James Bond exhibit when we were in Scotland for the weekend.  You can bet where I stopped in to take a look around.

Where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book.  Plus they are now selling draught beers.

William Wallace aka Braveheart at the Castle in Edinburgh.

Overlooking Edinburgh after we climbed up to Arthur's Seat.

At The Cavern, Birthplace of the Beatles

The stage where it all started for John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Hanging out with John Lennon

Giant mechanical spider walking through Liverpool.

Well there it is friends, my first month in a few pictures.  The big trip starts this Friday to Rome, Florence, Pisa the first week and then to Prague for the second week.  I'll get my trip plans up here so everyone knows where I'll be for two weeks.

Cheers!

Scotland!

So last weekend we decided to head up to Edinburgh, Scotland for a few days.  It was awesome.  We left early Friday morning, hopped the bus to the Lancaster train station and boarded the train to Edinburgh.  From Lancaster the trip was about 3 hours, not too bad of a train ride.  I played with my Rubiks cube the way up.  I can solve it with the help of a cheat sheet but I still have a bunch of other train rides to practice up.

Anyway, Scotland is beautiful.  We were fortunate to get fantastic weather too.  After getting off the train, we walked to our hostel which was sort of on the outskirts of town but not too bad of a walk to the main attractions.  Our hostel was on Douglas Gardens too which was kind of cool.  It was an old church and out room had just enough room for 3 sets of bunk beds for 6 people total.  Since it was an old cathedral, there were no ceilings on the rooms so if someone so much as sneezed, everyone in the hostel could hear it.  This was an issue both nights at some other travels came back pretty drunk and made quite the noise at about 3am.  You get what you pay for though.

The main attraction in Edinburgh is the castle on the hill.  Needless to say, it is an impressive building and the UK's crown jewels are in the castle too.  Half of our crew went on a tour of the castle but I came across a brochure for an Ian Fleming James Bond cover art exhibit at the City Centre Museum.  You can take a guess at where I went.  The Bond exhibit was awesome.  I saw letters from Ian Fleming about changes he wanted on the covers of his books as well all the different covers from different countries for a bunch of the books written.  My two favorite pieces was the letter from Hugh Hefner from 1964 that invited Fleming out to the Chicago Playboy mansion and if Fleming wanted to use the mansion in a movie, he was more than welcome.  My other favorite piece was a letter from an Israeli airline that sent a note to Fleming after reading From Russia with Love that the travel agent in the book should have known that this Israeli airline could have flown Bond back to London nonstop rather than the airline that the fictional travel agent put Bond on in the book.  I was amused.

Another highlight from the trip was going through the Scottish Parliament Building.  It is very modern and unlike where our Congress debates.  Certainly worth going through.  I also got to see the grave-site of Adam Smith, who wrote "Wealth of Nations."  We also walked out to the Firth of Forth, the major waterway that Edinburgh is on.

In the middle of Edinburgh lies a bunch of hills that you can climb and get a sweet view of the city.  It was quite the walk up but well worth the trip.  At the top of the biggest hill is Arthur's seat which apparently was named after King Arthur.  Google it I guess.  We did a lot of walking and I was pretty exhausted each night but it was an awesome trip.

Sidenote for Harry Potter fans, in Edinburgh you can go to the cafe type place where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book.  It had a bunch of elephants there.  They were obviously advertising this fact on the outside of the cafe.  That's how I knew.

So yeah, that's what I did this weekend.  It was a lot of fun and well worth the trip. I do promise pictures are coming.  Until we talk again, have a good week!