Euro-Trip Wrapup..and Ireland

Well, I'm back in Ireland now, more about that, but first I have to conclude for you my travels in Europe! I did survive Amsterdam, so for those of you who were worried that I would be sucked into the vortex of chain-smoking and permanent "munchies," fear not.

We left Paris the following morning and Will suggested that we stop in Brussels before our arrival in Amsterdam, which I heartily agreed to. How could I pass up a city and a country known for its legendary beer? We made it into Brussels that afternoon and had some time to kill (around 3 hours) before the next train to Amsterdam (ooh, and the train from Paris to Brussels was one of those super-fast trains that travels around 150 mph..it was awesome). We proceded to have belgium waffles (divine) and drink Belgium beer, which has officially surpassed Guinesse as my all-time favorite beer. One funny anecdote about the train. Sitting across from us was a Belgian man who had a list of beers we should try while in Brussels. He also referred to the beer in Ireland as "horse piss." The particular brand I endulged in was "Duvel," though there was another brand on tap in Amsterdam that was equally tasty but the name has slipped by me. I don't know how I'm going to be able to drink the beer back home. If the stuff they have in Ireland is "horse piss," I shudder to think what kind of piss Keystone Light would be considered. Brussels itself was a charming city, with great architecture and a unique statue of a little boy peeing.

We arrived in Amsterdam that evening and everything you've heard about this city is indeed true. It's beautiful, with canals cutting through the city in concentric circles, bridges everywhere, and the smell of hashish blending nicely with the thousands of fast-food/munchy-induced restaurants that crowd the city. Our hostel, "The Meetingpoint" was a charming little place right in the Red-Light district, not named for its traffic patterns, but for the reddish hue the neighborhood gets after hours. Yep, in Amsterdam both Marijuana and prostitution are legal, and it is probably one of the safest cities in the world because of it. There are no gangs illegally smuggling pot across the border into the Netherlands, and there is also not an underground prostitution ring. Instead it's all laid out for you. Walk into a "coffeeshop" and alongside the espresso you'll get a selection of the types of hash or weed available. Head into a bakery and try not to order the "Space cake" unless swimming in canals is your idea of a good time after believing you can fly. Amsterdam was surreal, and since I'm not a connoiseur of hashish or marijuana, it was a little overwhelming at times, but it was fun to walk around, see the stoned people, eat cheap food, drink more great belgian beer, and all of that.

We left Amsterdam for Eindhoven (where we flew out of that day..the 25th) and arrived back into Galway late that night. My flat at Corrib Village was deserted, as was most of Corrib Village itself. Most of the Americans have now returned home, and I found myself feeling oddly at home back in Galway. It's weird to think I'll be leaving soon. I moved out of my flat yesterday and am now living with some friends from work until my flight back to Spokane on June 3rd. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to have time or the funds to make a trip up to County Down to try and visit the long-lost Fitzpatricks and their B&B, but at least we know where they are. The next week will be full of rehearsals for the big gig I have the night before I head out, which I'll be getting some money for and it'll help me pay my first months rent. Ahh, it's a shame when the "real world" comes towards you at break-neck pace, so now I have to prepare for its arrival and get ready for a summer in Tacoma.

Thanks all of you for keeping in touch these past few months. I especially have appreciated mom, dad, Aunt Annie, and Great Uncle Don. Aunt Nancy and Uncles Denny and Kenny, thanks for the comments on the blog. I'll probably be keeping this thing updated once I get back home, but it'll be much more mundane and boring as I'll probably treat it more as an online diary and whine about girls, school, and the history of Wahington State this summer. I wish all of you the best, and for those of you back home, I'll see you soon.

Cheers,

-Nate
"Low, lie..the fields of Athenry. Where once, we watched the small free-birds fly. Our love was on the wing, we had dreams and songs to sing. It's so lonely, round the fields, of Athenry."-Traditional County-Galway Song

Paris!

Ok, so I told you I'd talk about Paris,

We arrived in Paris Friday morning and found our hostel, to the north of the city. While the neighborhood and proximity of the hostel to the metro are nice, the metro itself is pretty shabby, but it's ok, considering the fact that one uses hostels only for sleeping and the occasional update for hygiene. We immediatly embarked for the Arc De Triumph, then the Eifel Tower, and spent eh better part of Friday walking around until we could check into our hostel and take a nap (after an uncomfortable night-train and subsequent lack of sleep, the hostel was calling to us.) Paris is an amazing city. I was not expecting it to be as great as it's been, but the city is simply beautiful. The Parisians tend to be pretty friendly, though I try and keep my obviously American accent down, which is tough for someone with the naturally loud volume that I have. Rather than doing the bus tour we decided to just buy a pack of metro tickets and see Paris that way, which has proven the better way to go..we've already found the best places to eat cheap in Paris (in the Latin quarter, (enter useless triva:) named because it's in the university area where most of the classes used to be conducted in Latin, hence the name.) Getting full off of awesome food for 8.50 euros is amazing. Lovely stuff. We also saw Star Wars, Episode III that evening which was thankfully in English with French subtitles. I was very happy with the film, and felt that finally Lucas has redeemed himself for butchering the last two.

Another thing about Paris (and really, the past three cities in general) has been the PDA. No, not a personal digital assistant, I'm talking about Public Displays of Affection. In America, making out in the street or in any public space is considered bad form..this is due to our "morals" instilled in us by our Puritan ancestors, people so uptight the British kicked them out. Anyway, it makes me really go.."..ahh..if only Jilian were here" when I see two Parisians on the Seine river at night looking into eachother's eyes and applying the PDA.

Yesterday Will and I spent the whole day in the Louvre, a well spent trip. Saw the Mona Lisa and a bunch of other paintings. You really can't put the Louvre into words..it's emmense, and the paintings and artifacts are unbelievable.

Today we went to the Army museum, which had a great exhibit on World War II and the Nazi occupation of France. There was also a great imperial exhibit, but since it was all in French, I had some troubles understanding what was going on. The musuem was housed in "La Hotel Invalides," the military hospital founded in Paris (which also houses Napoleon's tomb). After spending most of the afternoon there, we had some crepes for lunch..(lovely stuff) and now I find myself updating my blog and talking to mom in a nearby net cafe. Tomorrow it's off to Amsterdam, with a quick stopover in Brussels to take a few pictures. I'm excited for Amsterdam, the original "Sin City." If I can remember my time there, I'll be sure to let you know. Hard to believe there are only three days left of my epic adventure.

Au-revoir!

-Nate

The Alps..and trains

After a wonderful night out with Werner (who treated us to dinner and a lovely little bar on the Austrian border) Will and I departed the next morning for a whirlwind train tour of Switzerland. We boarded the "glacier express; a train that runs from a town near Rebstien (where Werner is from), to Zermatt, right in the shadow of the famous Matterhorn. We left at 8:30, hopped on the train, and met some great people in between going "ooh" and "ahh" as I cursed my camera for eating conventional batteries alive (my camera is now not working until I can find a charger, but fear not! Will's camera has been supplamenting the pictures I would otherwise be taking with mine, so the series of "Nate in front of famous European things" is still moving nicely along. I think I'll make a calendar.)

The Alpen portion of Switzerland was absolutely fantastic. It reminded me of Alaska, only with cities where there shouldn't be. Literally there would be towns perched precariously over a meadow, and a road leading in and out while the railroad chugged along across the opposite valley. There were glaciers, sheep, and lots of beautiful sunlight as the train wound its way up to Zermatt. Zermatt itself was a lovely little town, with lots of cool Swiss buildings, now I know why the town of Leavenworth, WA, is trying so hard.

After Zermatt (only an hour in town mind you..long enough to get the "Nate in front of Matterhorn" shot for the calendar), we departed for our epic train ride to Paris. The train was long, and I slept alot and finished book 2 of my journey, "Kingdom of Fear" by Hunter S. Thompson. Now on to "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy."

We arrived in Paris around 6...and this blog will continue as I'm running out of minutes on my over-priced internet machine....

Will update soonish.

-Nate

When in Rome...and Switzerland

We last left Nate and Will as they departed Barcelona for Italy on a Ferry, not knowing what the conditions would be like on the Mediterranean or on the ferry. What adventures found them as they travelled to Rome, did they find some ancient Roman secret? Perhaps they ate lots of good food. Did they see the Pope? Tune in kids...
Will, myself, and some new friends of ours from Barcelona (Americans...they were hostelling...one of which was a dude from Spokane who just finished his four years in Iraq...he had some great stories to tell) boarded the ferry at 7 p.m. in Barcelona after a lovely day which I spent at a musuem and then at the beach and the area around the beach (Barceloneta). This charming little place had sidewalk cafes where musicians would come up at random and play songs, and there was even an impropmtu parade down the side of the street..all quite exciting and wonderful to digest lovely food and ice cream with.

We could tell this boat was big...the "Eurostar" was probably the biggest boat I have ever been on over water, and inside was a casino, arcade, and lots of interesting Italians. We slept in our chairs, of course, but the Italians kept going all night, dancing in the bar and having an all around good time. I finished a copy of the DaVinci Code (in preparation for Paris) and spent alot of time on the top decks as southern Spain left us along with the remaining daylight. The next morning the pool was filled and there was some family reuinion going on, all of the family members wore matching yellow baseball caps, and I couldn´t understand what they were saying because my Italian is nil.

We arrived north of Rome around 2 p.m. on a bright, sunny, and hot day at the port of Citivachelli (not sure if that´s the exact name.) and walked to the train station, though once we got there a friendy Italian man told us there was a free bus...good to know for future reference. We hopped on the train and began the last leg of our epic journey to Rome, where indeed, all roads led.

Rome is a city steeped in history, good food, and little scooters. We arrived that evening and Will and I had found out earlier that we didn´t book the same hostel for the first night, so they headed to their hostel north of Rome and I went to mine (about 10 minutes from the Vatican.) That night I went out with some new hostel friends to an Italian restaurant...and the waiter/owner was probably the best salesman I have met. Granted, it was irritating and a few things were lost in translation (such as...no...we don´t ALL want the appetizer...or...just ONE dessert). It was good fun though, but after that we headed back to the hostel for some quality sleep.

The next day I met back up with Will and company to see the sights. Despite being around 15 minutes late (whoops), I met them at the Coloseum and we began our epic journey through ancient Rome, seeing the Forum, Palatine Hills, and wonderful vistas of the surrounding city. It was truly amazing, and even though pictures don´t do the sites or the feeling you get while your sitting on a stone 2,500 years older than you that was once a part of the Roman Empire. I guess it was the history nerd in me, but wow. We then boarded the bus tour for the next stop: Vactican City. This was another place that I just can´t put into words. St. Peter´s Basillica was literally massive, and it´s not until you walk inside that zou get the true sense of just how enormous this place is. There are domes and frescoes everywhere, statues, shrines, altars, skylights, tourists, pilgrims, cute old nuns, it was absolutely unreal. We also went down to see the tomb of John Paul II, and that was a really powerful thing to see considering he had just passed on.

After that was the Vatican Museum, just close to the church, where the old Popes lived. This included the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of juice, but luckily Will also has a digital camera, so there will be lots of digital photo swapping once I get back stateside. This museum also featured the "Raphael Room," with amazing pictures of biblical and historic events. My favorite painting was the one depicting the famous battle (name forgotten..doh) where the Emperor Constantine painted crosses over the eagle crests on the shields of their troops and ended up winning the battle, thus proving to the previouslz "pagan" emperor of the power of Christinaity and leading to its incorporation into the Roman Empire (which some historians argue also led to its decline and eventual downfall).

That night we walked around Rome some more, ate wonderful Gellato (it was amazing!) and I had lasagne and pizza in Italy, two things that you just have to do while there. The next morning Will and I had to catch the train for Switzerland, and we had a scare when, after leaving the metro, we got separated. Luckily, we both had the same priorities (buy our tickets first, and then meet up in an obvious spot), so it all worked out and we caught our train for Zurich to meet my friend and fellow JIRPer Werner Stemphuber, who lives just an hour east of Zurich. Unfortunately, I forgot to take down his phone number, which resulted in a frantic call to Aunt Annie to try and find it. Lukckily, my instructions and Aunt Annie´s technical prowess solved that mystery, and we boarded yet another train for Rebstein. While we were in the Zurich trainstation, there was a theatre towards the back and the Star Wars theme, along with lightsabers, was playing loudlz, meaning that some Europeans got to see the new movie a full two days before the premier. I was pretty jealous. Oh well, the plan is to catch the premier in Paris, hopefully with French subtitles rather than dubbing...although hearing "Luke, je suis tu pere" would be pretty funny.

Thats all for now. Werner´s enormous hospitality led me to do my laundrz, which ended up taking way too long and resulted in me not having pants for most of the day, and no one goes outside without pants...esepcially in a foreign country. Will and I did explore Rebstein a bit, and had hot chocolate and a pastry at a restaurant, after we found someone who could speak English and could translate "Hot Chocolate." Now we´re going to head out once Werner gets back for some pizza and German Beer! (Rebstein is in the Eastern (german speaking) part of Switzerland and thus retains the language, beer, and schnitzel...mm...schnitzel.

Guttentag!

-Nate

Barcelona!

Yeehaa,

So I´m in an internet cafe only paying 50 cents for a half hour (which is a golden deal compared to back in Ireland)....yes..that´s right...all of my school work is finished and I´m now embarking on the "Euro Extravaganza" I´ve been talking about in probably every one of my entries.

My journey here was pretty interesting though. Mom and dad are cringing right now...I missed my morning bus to the airport due to a snooze button mishap on my alarm clock. Luckily, I have a travelling partner (my friend Will)..who called me to ask where I was once he got on the bus, but at that point it was too late. Despite my best efforts to imitate "the Flash" (and if anyone here has seen me try and run fast, yes, it was pretty funny) I missed the bus and had to catch a taxi to try and catch up to the bus. That didn´t work, so I ended up having a lovely taxi ride to Shannon Airport. It´d be the equivalent of taking a taxi from Harrington to the airport. Ouch. It would´ve been more expensive to change my tickets, however, so it ended up being the most practical thing to do given the circumstances of my stupidity.

Anyway..we made the flight and had a series of amazing flights over England and Central France and the Pyrenees, and arrived in Barcelona on Tuesday Night. I´ve only been here for two days but I am in love with this city. The avenues are broad and tree-lined, it´s relatively clean, the buildings are bright in color and the people are friendly and always enjoy when I try my broken Spanish on them. Oh, and the weather! I love the weather here, at least at this time, because it´s very comfortable (stays around 20 celcius for most of the day) and it has been sunny. This is compared with Ireland, which, on a "warm" day gets to about 15 celcius. Will and I have been sticking to the bus tour, which is a great way to see all of the big "sights" of Barcelona. Every major European city has these things, and you basically buy a "hop on, hop off" ticket and then do just that, camera in one hand and guidebook in the other. One of the coolest things about Barcelona has been the architecture by a man named Gaudi. I´ll post pictures up when I have time, but his buildings are nothing short of amazing, we even visited a park that he designed. The nightlife here is spectacular, and unlike Ireland the bars are open until around 6, and there is always a place to go for a bite to eat, although what they eat here can be pretty interesting (the grease coated octopus was a true gastronomical experience.)

The hostel we´re staying at, "La Pension Pairaso" is well within walking distance to the main "strip," La Ramblas, where most of the fun bars are. I just can´t stop beaming about this city though, and I seriously feel like I could spend a year here just living and taking in the culture. It´s so different than anything I´ve experienced thus far and really excites me to see the rest of "the world" in my marathon 2 week trip. I went to the beach today and took my first dip into the Mediterranean. That was also fun, and I was shocked to discover that not everyone goes to beaches clothed. Moving on...

So tomorrow around 7p.m. Will and I have to catch the ferry for Rome. Before that I´m going to check out a museum or two in dowtown Barcelona..at least that´s the plan. For tonight?...most likely going out with some new friends from the hostel and "hitting the town"..because there are always new places to discover in the evenings.

¡Salud!

-Nathan

"So tell me when will you be mine? Oh...cuando cuando cuando..."

Time Flies..

(new pictures on the "Ireland" album, but they're not new to Jilian, who's seen them already.)

Wow, it's already almost mid week. I have one more final to go on Thursday, two papers to finish (one is just about done, the other one hasn't started yet.) Today was my last day of work, so we took some pictures (they'll be online soon) and had alot of fun for the last day. I'm going to miss the people there, and I've made some really great friends. We're going to have a party before I leave for home with everyone from work, so that will be great fun when it happens.

Aside from that there's nothing really new going on here. I'm just trying to get all of my ducks in a row before I head back home or head out to Europe. I leave on May 11th for Barcelona, and spend three days there, then a ferry trip to Rome..in Rome for 2 days...train to Switzerland, Switz for 2 days, then north to Paris..for around 3 days, then east to Amsertdam, for 3 days..and that's 2 weeks right there. I get back to Ireland and have a little over a week before my flight home on June 3rd. Then it's off to Tacoma for my internship. I finally got an e-mail from the WHSH (washington state historical society) and they sound really flexible, so it sounds like this summer is going to be great :-).

Hope everything is great with all of you.

Cheers,

-Nate