Brad and Neal's Excellent Adventure

We made it to the promised land: Amsterdam. Now I know what you are thinking and you need to get your mind out of the gutter. You know what they say about Vegas and I think that applies here as well. Actually Amsterdam is one of the best cities we have been to. The architecture is beautiful. The canals are better then in Venice. It has great parks and is a great place to just spend some time relaxing or wandering around and getting lost. In fact, the red light district is only a small part of town and while you may see XXX everywhere that is because it is the symbol of the city and has nothing to do with the world's oldest profession.

I am getting ahead of myself however. After the last post we spent a few more days in Praha. Neal and I got our Nedvev jerseys. We also went to a philosophy discussion led by an OSU alum who is now an ex-pat living in Prague. It was interesting to say the least. We spent most of the night discussing a work by Freud and drinking Gambrinus. I would say it ranks up there as being one of the more random events of the trip.

Then our next stop was in Belgium. We were lucky enough to be able to stay with Arno, Jennifer and Lukas. Neal and I can't thank them enough for their hospitality and we hope that Lukas' first day of day care went well. Belgium while not the most scenic place ever turned out to be one of the most fun. We spent a day in Brussels. The high lights of which were the delicious fries (try them with andlouse sauce,) the bar we went to that had over 250 different beers, and a statue of a little boy peeing. I am not sure how Brussels got the reputation for being boring but who ever came up with that must not having been trying very hard. We also went to a free music festival in Mechelen and in Bruge we were lucky enough to be there on the day of the procession of the holy blood. This parade last for a couple hours and only happens once every four years. We had no idea what things were suppose to mean but everyone was dressed in medieval costumes from kings and queens to peasants who cleaned up after the horses.

That brings us back up to date. In only a few days we are returning stateside. We are leaving Amsterdam tomorrow and have a few days in Iceland. That will probably make this the last post from Europe but there will probably be an update on how we are adjusting to being back in the real world.

Well as nice as Switzerland was and even though we met a bunch of great people there and it was really nice we had to leave eventually. I am sure it won't be too long before we are back though. I think Neal is planning his next trip already. We headed on down the tracks to Budapest. Our first chance to get a taste of Eastern Europe. Get a taste we did. The food in Hungary was great. In case you are thinking the country is misnamed, you would be right. The Hungarians refer to themselves as the Maygars. Hun is term applied to them by other Europeans upon their arrival in the region. The likened them to the actual Huns- such as Atilla- of earlier times. The best part of about the food was that there was a lot of it and it was cheap. A better combination I have yet to find. That is about all we did in Budapest. We didn't really see any of the sights. The city is an interesting mix of gorgeous Baroque structures and crumbling communist era ruins. Must of our time was just spent walking around the city and finding good parks to read in. The best on an island in the middle of the Danube. We spent a whole day there. If I ever make it back I will have to see all the things I missed. Part of the reason we didn't see much was we were too tired during the day to do anything. The place we stayed at in Budapest was a university dorm converted in the summer into a hostel. It was a dump. I would say the worst place we have stayed at all summer. What would a trip to Europe be without staying in at least one really crappy hostel though, right? At least we did not go hungary in Hungry. (Please note the intentional misspelling meant to annoy Kim.)

The next stop and where we are currently is Prague. We haven't done much yet besides have a few beers. I think we will at least try to see some of the sights here. The city is really beautiful. It escaped WWII unscathed and has retained much of its pre-war charm. The signs of communism are less noticeable here as well. Only the train station seems to be a reminder of that era. I haven't seen in Nedvev jerseys though. I really wanted to get one so Derringer, Pullins and I could all match. Oh well its probably better I don't associate myself with them anyway.

Well actually its not a job (just in case anyone from customs and immigration is reading this). Neal is just helping out around the hostel we are staying at in Switzerland for a few days. He cleans the kitchen, does some sweeping, and helps to put stuff away. In return he gets free a bed and half priced beer. Not a bad deal at all. He is calling it his vacation from vacation. It is easy to stay too. Gimmelwald is one of the pretties places on earth. I know I raved about it in the last post but I can't emphasize enough how great it is. I can't wait to go back. In fact, I won't have to wait to long as I am returning from there from Florence on the 12th. Even though I was having a great time there and met probably the most interesting people of the trip so far, the idea of watching Neal clean and get cheap beer was that appealing. I instead took the opportunity to come back to Florence and see somethings I missed the first time, namely the David and the Uffizi. It was also raining in Gimmelwald so that kinda put a damper on the hiking.

The hiking is great, when it is not raining. In fact, it has rained so much that the cable car flooded and part of the road washed out, stranding some people on Wednesday night. Before it started raining though, Neal and I climbed up to the top of the Schilthorn with Andrew and Dylan. They were staying at the hostel for about two weeks. Andrew who is a math teacher in Ireland had been to Gimmelwald six times before and this was Dylan's (Andrew's son) second time. It was great hiking with them. Andrew knew the path and quite a bit of other information on the region. The Lauterbrunnen valley was Tolkien's inspiration for Rivendell and the Schilthorn served as the filming location for the James Bond movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. All in all it is a pretty sweet place you might say. I am sure that I will be going back some day and I know that Neal will be. If there is one place you can't miss while travelling in Europe it would be Gimmelwald. You might even run into Rick Steves. He was staying at the Mountain Hostel about a week before we got there.

München turned out to be one of the best places we have visited so far. There is tons to see and do. The Dutches Museum is the best science museum I have been to outside of the Smithsonian, the English Garden is not to be missed, and the beer comes in liters and is extremely tasty. It is also within an easy day's train ride of places such as Dachau (the concentration camp) and Schloss Neuschwanstein (the fairy tale castle). We ended up staying a whole week because there were more and more things we wanted to do and see. Munich also has the best public transportation system of any city we have been to. Combine that with a cheap place to stay and a well equipped kitchen why would we ever want to leave?
That being said there is plenty more of Europe to do and see and its easy to get bogged down in a place and get lazy. That can be just as dangerous in travelling as trying to do to much. There is a delicate balance to strike of staying in a place and seeing all it has to offer while not forgetting about the other places yet to be discovered. With that thinking in mind we decided to head off to Switzerland. Neal wanted to do some hiking and get out of the city for a while and after seeing the pictures of Gimmelwald, I couldn't agree with him more. Gimmelwald is a tiny little town up in the Swiss Alps, in the Jungfrau region. Even though hordes of backpackers come here, in part thanks to Rick Steves telling people that it was one of Europe's best kept secrets, nothing can diminish its charm or beauty. It also has one of the best hostels we have been to. The kitchen is outstanding. There is a stove and a fridge, which is not something you always find, the price is good, and when you wake up in the morning you can look our across the valley to the glacier capped peaks of the alps. The hiking is breathtaking and mesmerizing, and very challenging. It is all up and down and very steep. We hiked about 8 hours yesterday and were so sore this morning that we decided to just enjoy the sun and air and do some reading. Tomorrow I am sure we will be back out the trails. It is easy to see why people come here planning to stay for a few day and end up staying for weeks or months instead. As tempting and delicious as that sounds--- not only is the view amazing but the food is outstanding, I had a piece of pear pie that was probably the best thing I have had to eat in all of Europe--- we will be heading to Hungary and the Czech after this for a whole new perspective on Europe.I hope everyone enjoys the pictures because they capture the beauty much better than I can.

Sorry about the cliffhanger ending to the last blog entry but as I was writing it the cafe closed and I figured I might as well post what I had so far. I know its no "who shot JR" but maybe some people are intrigued as to what happened. After climbing to the top of the mountain I look down at my fuel gauge and see that I am pegged on E. Neal rides into the closest town to see if they have a gas station, they do not. Neither do any of the other towns close by. In fact, the nearest gas station is good 12km away. We decided to start that way and see how far we can get and if necessary have Neal ride into town and hope that he can buy a gas can and get back to me. Luck and geography were on our side however and since usually when you go up a mountain you have to come back down. That is exactly what I did. I was able to turn the bike off and just coast the whole way down into the gas station. It turned out to be one of the nicest parts of the ride. That was about as much excitement as we could take for one day and we had to get the bikes back but it was probably the best 20 euros we have spent.

That was our last day in Greece and then we flew to Munich, Germany. Munich is a great city with tons to see and do. It has great museums, huge beer gardens, the best parks in Europe, and cheap accommodations. So we will probably be here a while. The other topic I wanted to address was when we are returning to the States. We looked into coming back a little earlier than originally planned. We wanted some time to relax from our vacation before school started and to in general get things taken care of at home. We were not able to change our date of our flight though. Even though we were suppose to be able to change with only a $25 fee and on short notice. That turned out to not be true. We could change the date but everything was full. There were no flights from Iceland to JFK available all of August with our booking class. Not only that but we can´t even upgrade the ticket to get on the flights that do have seats. We would have to buy totally new tickets. Its fine there are plenty of things to do still in Europe but I guess let this serve as a cautionary note to anyone that your travel agent is probably going to tell you only the good things. Make sure you do some homework of your own too. I guess when they said the date could be changed and availability wouldn´t be an issue they really meant it can be changed as long as you don´t want to fly in August and availability will be an issue. I never was very good at reading between the lines I guess. Oh well, see everyone in September.