Okay, so I lied
alright well we got to Berlin earlier and we found an internet cafe right across from the quite nice hotel we are staying in tonight. so i figured that i would tell everyone a final hurrah from Europe. we had a 7 hour train ride from Munich earlier today. it sucked pretty bad but we ended up getting 4 seats for the two of us so that made it better. we got here no problem, and we found the subway and went on a hunt for a hotel, but there was no way it was going to be easy. to ride the subway you have to buy tickets from an automated machine in the subway that is in german, and there are like 20 different types of tickets you can buy. well of course we bought the wrong one so we got taken off the train by a large tattooed german who spoke no english. he quickly explained to us in german, that it was not the right ticket and that if we didnt buy the right one he was going to beat both of our asses, and he definately could have. so after a mile hike to find an ATM, I returned with enough money to buy us tickets. I found Tyree bound and gagged and all our stuff was gone. No im lying, but anway we made it pretty close to the airport and found a pretty cheap 3 STAR hotel. Yea I know, just call us rock stars.
so anyway, all of our money is spent, our railpasses are gone, our clothes are dirty, our feet stink, we both have beer bellies, my beard is dirty, and we have permanent hangovers, and if I had to do it again, I wouldnt do it any differently. This is going to be my last update, because I will see everyone within the next week or so. We had a bla§t, and it is definately something that we will never forget. Alright, we are headed to, perhaps, our last bar in Europe. Peace out.
Graham
The Beginning of the End...
...and what a long strange trip its been! so Munich has been one large haze since we got here, but it has been a lot of fun. we are staying at an incredible hostel. It is one of Europes famous ones so it is very good. I dont know where to start from here but we have been here for two nights so ill start with the first. so there is a large bar in our hostel. we went there and did a sampling of the beers they had here. they are all very good. my favorite is the dunkles. its a dark wheat beer and it is delicous. anyway we hung out at the bar here for a little while and then the hostel guys recommended a locals beerhall way off the tourist map. so we walked to that and had an authentic schweinsbraten. thats a huge piece of pork and a big dumpling. it was quite delicous so we did that and then came back to this bar. it was a good time. yesterday we crawled out of bed and went and ate some pizza. there is an itaalian place here that is better than pizza in italy. we did that and then toured the city and did some shopping for you guys. we went to the famous beerhall, the Hofrabrauhaus and a guy we met there told us about an artificial wave that some guys built in a river. i have a ton of pictures so i will explain it then. we were leaving that and we saw a free museum exhibit so we went in. it was absurdly weird. it was like a risk chance thing. i dont it was confuising. then we did a beer tour last night. we went to beer gardens and to the cellars where they use to store the beer. i am running out of time but this will probably be my last update., i hope you guys have enjoyed this, so for the last time peace out.
Graham
Munich at last!
AHA, well after a good time in Italy, we decided that we could no longer drink the bottled urine that the Italians call their beer. We had to venture north to the land of beer, München. We had an 8 hour train ride here, but we sat with two hot girls most of the way so that made it otay. We got to our hostel and they had actually lost the reservation that I made, so Tyree and I are in seperate rooms tonight. We rocked off for rooms, and he is in a room with 3 girls and I am in a huge dorm with 20 other guys. Yea he won. Anyway, I dont plan on spending much time in my room tonight anyway so it doesnt matter. So we havent done anything else today because we spent all day on a train, but we are in the midst of Happy Hour here at our hostel (It actually lasts three hours :) so we are going to depart. I guarentee anyone that is reading this right now that we will be drinking better beer thän you for the next two days. What do you think about that? Göt it? Gööd.
otay peace out
Graham
When in Rome
Okay so I was pretty tired last night, well today we walked about 5 times as much as yesterday. We got a wake up call this morning at 7. We got out of bed at 8 to make our 830 train. The train station is 20 minute walk. It was close. Anyway so we went to Rome today. My pictures will tell the story here, I cant really describe it. We were going to rent vespas but we forgot our licenses so we had to just walk around. We went to the Collesium, the Forum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and we made it all the way up to the Vatican just in time for them to shut the doors in our face. We did get to see St. Peters though. We walked a solid 7 miles or so today (not that I was paying attention). A funny thing happened on the way to the forum...so this korean girl walks up and asks Tyree to take a picture of her and her friend, so instead Tyree takes a picture of himself and gives it back to her. It was funny. Anyway we are hungry and tired so thats it for today. Hopefully I can update you guys tomorrow from Munich. Sweet. Peace.
My feet hurt
Okay I am exhausted so Im going to try and make this short and sweet. We got to Florence via 4 different trains from Bern, Switzerland. That was quite a day in itself, but then we had to go on an adventure hike to find a place to stay. We stayed in a place the other night called Hotel Berna. It was an absolute shithole, to put it loosely. So after a miserable first night on what felt like a bed full of rocks, in a room that was hotter than the air outside, we went on another adventure walk yesterday to hunt for a nicer place. After a few friendly Italians helped us out, we are now at a nice hotel for 30 bucks a night. Not too shabby eh? Okay enough about that. We have walked all over this town. We went to a club the night we got here because we got free entry passes and it was Hawaiian night. They should have just called it Switzerland night, because the drinks were ridiculously expensive. We hung out there for a while and then moved on. I am getting tired of typing because it is 12 here and I have been walking for the past 8 hours. Anyway we have explored this city and eaten a bunch of good food. We have met some nice people, but there arent many hostels here so it is tough to find young people. This afternoon we decided to take a day trip up to Bologna. (Jimmy and Carol- this was the town where John Grisham's last book that we read was set) We explored the city and walked around the University of Bologna. It is the oldest University in Europe. We also walked down to Via Fondazza, where a lot of the book was set. Anyway, I just got off a two hour train that was late, so I am not feeling good and I have to get up at 7 in the morning because we are going to take a trip to Rome tomorrow. Yes this is the first night that we havent gone out, if you were wondering. I am going to crawl to my bed now and hopefully it wont be 100 degrees in our room. Peace.
Sweet
Okay, so I am moving to Interlaken, and becoming a raft guide. The other day our guide let me guide half the river, so now I am on the hunt for jobs here for next summer. We will see. I could also be a wakeboard instructor too. Okay now anyway. So we met some guys the other night when we were out with our friends and we were talking and I told them they sounded southern. The dude replied with "I'm from Birmingham, Alabama". Pretty small world eh? Turns out there was a big group of them from Mountain Brook. So we partied with them and our friends from N.C. Yesterday we got up and met up with the guys and went on a hike to the top of this mountain to eat at this bad ass restaurant. I had some unbelievable cheese and onion hashbrowns that were no doubt the best food I have had in Europe. Then we hiked back down and they were going hang gliding. I wanted to go bad but apparently I am now dirt poor, so in lieu of that we went and rented this little scooter car type thing and drove it all over the mountains. It was a lot of fun and we got to see some beautiful scenary. Then last night we went over to the Americans hostel again and met more girls from UGA. They are out in force. We had fun but I came home way too late to get up and catch a morning train. Okay so now we are about to head out towards Florence. I dont want to leave, but I will definately be back, as soon as I can come up with a couple more thousand dollars to come here and do all of the extreme paragliding and stuff. Thats it for now, there is so much from here that I cant even describe but hopefully my pictures will help. We come home in a week :( so I will show everyone then. Peace
Switzerland is the shitzerland
Yea so we got to Interlaken yesterday, it was a spur of the moment booking in Geneva and thankfully they got my reservation. This place is insane. We got here and decided we would go down to the lake and go swimming. The whole thing is fed by a glacier so it was ridonkulously cold. They have a place down there to go wakeboarding so I think I am going to do that tomorrow. We ended up meeting up wtih some guys from Cali and dude from 'Rado last night and we went to another hostel bar. It was a lot of fun. This morning we got up around 11 because we signed up to go rafting at noon. It was so incredible. The river was very tough and it is all glacial run off so the whole thing is about 6 degrees celcius. We had 5 girls from North Carolina in our boat so we are going out with them in a little while. Anyway yea the river today was crazy, it was one of the most intense things I have ever done, and the scenary is amazing. We went and ate at Hooters a little while ago. We didnt know they had them here but apparently they do. It was not as good and the waitress standard here is definately lower. Anyway thats it for now, but we have quite a few good stories from here and I will spill those later.Peace
We did nothing
and it was great. No anyway, we have had a great past few days with Shane and the Bougnols. There is no better way to experience a country than to live with the people and do it the way locals do it. We spent yesterday on the beach playing paddle ball with Manu. The water was freezing but we swam anyway. The Bougnols house in Cap D'Agde is wonderful, it is about 10 yards from the beach and there is a nudist colony about 100 yards down on the beach. I rode a bike around the Cape yesterday and did my best to talk to a few people. Shane, Manu, Tyree and I ended up going out for awhile after our dinner last night. We got in around 330 and got up at 730 to go to the starting line of todays stage of leTour de France. We waited for about 4 hours in the hot sun this morning. There was a long parade and then we got to watch the riders for about 10 seconds as they flew past us. It was very cool and we both got some good shots. Sure enough today, in the smallest town we have been in, we run into 4 more people from Auburn. It was absolutely absurd. There was a group of 91 of them studying in Salamanca and they came up to see Lance. They had a big American flag and bringht orange Auburn shirts. So then we left,
.....and we were supposed to go to Florence to meet up with some girls we met from UGA, but all the trains were full and we didnt want to spend the night in Nice, so instead we hopped on a train headed for Geneva, Switzerland. We got here about an hour ago and checked into a fairly nice hotel on the strip next to the train station. We are staying here for just tonight and tomorrow we head to the Adventure sports capital of the world...Interlaken!!!!!!!! Sweet eh? So yea this is long enough and we are going out for beers. I will update from Interlaken hopefully tomorrow or the next day. Keep on truckin, good stuff.
Chao
Graham
We found Shane
Ahhhhh, after a fierce battle with the ridiculous phone system of Europe, we enlisted the help of a local Frenchman who although was not able to speak english, was in fact able to figure out the mass of numbers we had to dial. Shane picked us up at the train station, which was about the best sight we had seen. We went out with Shane, ML, Jaques, and Jackie last night. They took us to a friends restaurant for some delicious pizza and then we went out for a bit with Shane and ML. Today we are going to have another stressful day of laying on the beach, followed immediately by Jaques cooking. Yesterday in the train station we saw some girls from Georgia that we met about 5 days before. One of the girls had gotten robbed the day before and it was freaky. They were on their way to Italy so we are going to meet them in Florence. It will be sweet. Not much else going on. It was hard to leave Barcelona, but we are staying in a beach house about 10 yards from the sea so we couldnt be living better now. Oh yes I almost forgot we are staying here til Saturday and we are watching the Tour de France as it comes through! Yes I know you are all jealous. Anyway we are out.
Graham
I got on the computer twice today!
Sweeeeet! I got to get on twice today so I figured I might as well type more. We are staying in the best hostel in Barcelona- Kabul. Everyone wants to stay here and it is constantly full. We did a pub crawl tonight and it was no fun. It was like 100 guys and 20 girls, quite pathetic for barcelona. We are leaving tomorrow and so is our buddy Jeff from Nebraska. It sucks to leave all the folks we have been hanging out with. We ate special watermelon at the beach today. We actually did very little. It was great. Yesterday Tyree met a guy selling donuts on the beach witha sign entitled Bombalino! He sang quite a song to go with the donuts, and he balanced all 50 of them on a plate on his head. This was the highlight of the day. They are kicking us out so I have to go again. I will update when I can.
Peace
Graham
Hasta La Victoria Siempre!
Buenos dias,
Okay well, its true, I am completely in love with Barcelona. We have stayed two days longer than we planned and it will be difficult to leave it tomorrow. We have been hanging out with one of our room mates who has been here for two weeks. He showed us all the hot spots and it has been completely crazy. We hung out on the beach most of the day today and partied last night. It has been so wonderful getting to settle into a place for a while. There are some super cool people at our hostel so we have been hanging around here alot. I am currently being hastled by an Irish man to come play pool immediately, so with that I will call it a day. We leave tomorrow to go meet Shane in Agde. I hope we can find him because we cant figure out how to work the phones. Anyway the Irish is still bugging me so I must depart.
Adios
Graham
Barcelona part dos
we are still here. Yesterday we went to the beach for most of the day. It is a topless beach, so that is where most of our time will be spènt. We also did a bike tour of the city. That was pretty fun. We met a bunch of people last night and went out with them. Our hostel has a cheap bar so everyone hangs out here. We might go windsurfing today if we ever leave get out of the hostel. Not much else going on, but Barcelona is definately my favorite city so far. Otay everyone peace out.
Graham
We didnt die!
Hoy!
Okay sorry it has been awhile, but they dont have computers at Pamplona (not that we looked...). Anyway I dont remember what the last thing I updated was but Ill start with Paris.
As soon as we got there some old Frenchman cussed me out for wearing my backpack on the subway. We I had just been in the bar car of a train for about 5 hours, so needless to say I was not going to take any crap from this guy. I promptly responded by telling him what I thought about him, his mother, and that if he said another word to me I was going to stab him in the eye. Yea well anyway he didnt say anything else.
So we had 8 hours in the Paris train station and we hung out with some girls from Belgium for awhile.*funny story
Then we took about 3 more trains that we couldnt get reservations for so we paid an 8 euro fine everytime for not having reservations and then they make you sit in the bar car the whole time(that sucks huh?). We ended up meeting 4 other Americans on the train to Pamplona, and they were a ton of fun. We got to Pamplona on Thursday night and partied, but we went in early to prepare for Friday. We got up and took pictures of the run on Friday morning and then we found our friends from the train. We partied with them all day, and then went and rode bumper cars with them at about 330 the next morning. We made it to our hotel at about 430 and slept for an hour because we had to get up and go run on Saturday. Needless to say we overslept so we had to sprint to find where the run started. We made it, but we were at the front and the locals heard us speak english and told us we shouldnt be there. We agreed, so we moved back from the front about 100 yards. They let out the bulls and Tyree took off. I would have no part of that, I wanted to see the bulls. So when they were about 25 yards away I decided that was good time to run. I got to slap one as it ran past me. I ran with them all the way into the colliseum, where I found my American buddy from the train (Nick). We celebrated that we didnt die and then they let a bull out for people to chase around in the stadium. Nick fell and got stepped on by the bull. It was funny, and he didnt get hurt. After that we went back to their hotel and partied til it was time to leave for Barcelona yesterday. Of course we couldnt get reservations so we hopped the train again and paid the fine. 6 more hours in bar car. We got to Barcelona and as soon as we stepped off the train, we saw the girls from Belgium. It is ridiculous how many people that we see. I saw Colin in Pamplona too, one of the guys from Auburn. Small world. Anyway we are doing a bike tour of Barcelona today and I think tomorrow we might go sea kayaking.
Oh yea and if you want to see pictures of the Running of the Bulls go to http://www.sanfermin.com
Good times. After this we are going to try and meet up with Shane and then we head to Italy. I will update again tomorrow because we have free internet here!
Cheers
Graham
Hola Muchachos!
Alright hey folks,
Yesterday we left Amsterdam and headed for a little town in Belgium called Brugge. I have a freaky story (no not like that...). So we are leaving our hostel yesterday and a guy comes in wearing an auburn hat. That was weird so I asked him and yes he went to Auburn. So we talk more, sure enough he is a sigma nu and was Shad Williams roommate. Small world. So that was really weird, but it doesnt end there. So then we got to Brugge and I am talking to another guy, AND HE GOES TO AUBURN TOO! It is ridiculous, we came to get away from you people! No im kidding but it did freak me out. The french fries and the beer here are good, but we ate them with mayo so that was sort of weird.
Anyway, we are off today for Spain and the fiesta de San Fermin!
Hope to talk to everyone soon, keep emailing me, I like the attention!
Hasta luego
Graham
Happy 4th of July!
Hey everybody,
We spent our second day in Amsterdam today. Last night Tyree and I went to some of the bars around here and hung out. It is a very chill city. There is a bar in our hostel so that is pretty fun.
We went to a bar called Bourbon Street last night too, in honor of July 4th.
Then today the Hard Rock Cafe has a special for Americans to come in and drink free Budweiser so we have been all over that (we went in and ate a cheese burger for lunch and made them play some southern rock). Then this afternoon we rented bikes and rode around then city, then rode out to the countryside for a few hours. We toured a cheese factory and a place where they make the little wooden shoes (clogs). It was fairly interesting.
We decided to pack up and head out tomorrow morning, we are going to Brugge, Belgium for a night. We heard some good things about it so we decided to hit that up. I dont know if they will have a computer there or not, so if I am absent for a day or two dont freak out.
Sorry I havent called anyone, it wont let us call collect and we havent found any phone cards yet (actually i bought one but it was for the public phone, it wont call internationally. Tyree has one that works in spain, so if nothing else we will call on Thursday when we get there. Its been a blast so far, we miss all of you guys and I will talk to every one soon.
Oh yea send me an email today if you are reading this, I have access to a free computer here so I can check it often!
Graham
Live and in person from Amsterdam!
Hey everyone, sorry it has taken me so long to update this but we have been traveling from Berlin to here. The internet where we stayed in Berlin was screwy so I haven't been able to update. Anyway here goes:
We made it to Berlin on Thursday, and found our hostel. We then headed to the local pub and proceed to make friends with the local old men. My german was much better than their english so it was an adventure. We then met up with some Irish people at our hostel and went out with them. Irish people are fun.
Friday- we did a bike tour of Berlin. We saw all of the old stuff and all of the former Nazi places. The Berlin wall was pretty cool.
We took an early train out Saturday and went to a small town in Holland called Harleem. It was very low key and we had a good time out last night. All of the women are so beautiful!
This morning we took a train into Amsterdam and found our hostel by tram. I then came down here and did this! Who says I'm not responsible? (Laugh- Jimmy) Anyway, thats all for now, we have only been here for 4 days, chill out everyone! We are okay, except that Tyree's bank card'wont let him withdraw, but other than that its been great.
Love yall,
Graham
