Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Paris, France












There she is in her shining glory! ZE MONA LISA















The Louve



Amsterdam, Netherlands






The home of Anne Frank.









Dacia, a co-worker from home came to travel with me.  Thanks for taking the time to be a part of my trip!






It's been 12 years since I've seen Jordy Kool, a friend from Ft. Lewis College. Jordy is a busy guy with a family these days, but it really brought back some great memories of College. I had told myself for years that I was going to get to Amsterdam to catch up with this guy and I finally did it! Good to see you ole' pal and thanks for taking the time to meet up!

Amsterdam
The sex and drug capital of the world! Half the tourist here are high as a kite and sit around glossy eyed munching of french fries. The locals seem a bit disgusted with the drug abusing tourist and don't associate with them to much. When you walk through the red light district, There are girls in the window in their underwear trying to get you to come in for an expensive little visit. Outside of this, the city is a beautiful place with an interesting history.

Berlin, Germay


















Sten, Stefan, Caroline and myself all actually traveled together for a bit down in Thailand. It was great catching up with them all together and these guys, who are both cops in Berlin should win an award as the most thoughtful people on earth. Everything we did or everywhere we went they would both go out of their way to make things as convenient as possible. We stayed here for free for nearly a week, had some great times, and made Berlin one of my favorite stops in Europe although it seems I'm starting to have a lot of favorites! They both work late and they even saw me off at the train station, although I knew they were both exhausted and I left early in the morning! Little things can mean so much some times too!
Here in Berlin I also said goodbye to Caroline who had spent nearly a month with me in Europe. I felt a bit bad for Caroline since I am on quite a tight budget since I have been going for this long, but she never once complained about cheap accommodations, budget eating places, or doing things that hard way to save a buck or two. We both got hooked up big from Edwin and Martina, Glenn, and Sten and Stefan finding us free places to stay and there were other times where the accommodations weren't so luxurious. All and all it was a great experience and I wouldn't trade this time for another 1 of traveling.......Maybe a year but no less ??? JK!
Gonna miss ya!

Prague, Czech Republic






This was the views from my rooftop balcony!






Here we are once again.....On our cycles.





I lived next door to this building!






For the last 1.5 months or so I had been traveling around on the motorcycle and after I left Austria I headed back towards Germany to drop the bike back off. At this time Caroline was in Austria with her car since it was only a 5 hour drive from Switzerland. Our next plan was to head up to Prauge and travel on the weekend since you can get cheaper train tickets then. I spent a couple evenings with Edwin and Martina again, and then we caught a train to Prauge. If I were to just buy a train ticket from where I was to Prauge it was going to cost me around 125 euros. Since I was able to better understand how to take the trains I got to Prauge for less then 30 euros. I once again said goodbye to Martina and Edwin and was still amazed the he lent me his motorcycle for that entire time, and not only helped me save a ton of money on transportation costs, I had a blast crusing around in different areas that not everyone goes taking public transportation. Over the time on the bike I drove around 3500 kilometers and saw so many places that.......although I don't have photos since I was driving a bike, some of the small villages along the way were as neat as the bigger popular cities too. EDWIN AND MARTINA>>>THANK YOU!
Coming to Prague I am going to visit Glenn Spicker, an American guy who has lived here for 17 years and although he is in his 40's, you would think that he was still in his 20's. I met Glenn and his friend Martin in Chile and the entire time we hung out, we cycled anywhere and everywhere. Glenn always said, "Come to Prague dude, I will hook you up!" Well I went to Prague and I didn't realize that he was going to hook me up like this! When I arrived he says...."You are not going to believe the place I have for you to stay, it's in the best part of town and you have the penthouse." Prague is an amazing city and this was just the beginning of all the things that Glenn did while I was there. We go to a hip Bagel place for breakfast and since he owns the chain of them in town.... free. That evening as go out to the bar.......he owns.....free. He gets me a really nice bike to tour the city on with him and at the end of our tour, we pull up to a restaurant and walk in and they have food waiting for us as we walk in the door. I felt like the president everywhere I went with this guy. Along with doing all this stuff for me, Caroline who was with me got the same red carpet treatment. If you knew how I feel as a budget traveler, always watching how much money I spend, a treat like this was exactly what it was.....A treat! We had some great laughs and great times and thank you Glenn for my week away from being a budget traveler.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Salzburg, Austria



















Salzburg, the home of Mozart.



UH OH! I got a speeding tickets....25 Euros and this should stay off the license since he never looked at mine!

Innsbruck, Austria






Nice view from a little hike!....Poor Caroline's shoes were too small and her toe nails turned black but she was tough about it!






So I met back up with Caroline again here in Austria! Either I'm a lot of fun or Caroline is really bored. On a serious note we have had a really good time and a lot of great laughs. She has the next 2.5 weeks off and is going to be my travel buddy! YEAH!

U2 Concert in Zagreb, Croatia



50,000 People....It was a crazy night!



U2 Crew!





Snow Patrol



What a fun night!