Brad and Neal's Excellent Adventure

The beginning of the end

2007-08-30T16:19:20Z

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.

The beginning of the end remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Well fed in Hungary

2007-08-19T22:31:11Z

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.

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Neal gets a job; Brad goes to Florence

2007-08-10T12:10:36Z

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.

Neal gets a job; Brad goes to Florence remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The Switzerland you thought only existed in postcards

2007-08-05T13:17:29Z

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.

The Switzerland you thought only existed in postcards remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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...The exciting conclusion

2007-07-29T14:28:16Z

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.

...The exciting conclusion remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Heck on wheels

2007-07-26T19:42:23Z

Since the last post all of our time has been spent in Greece, three nights in Athens and then five nights in Chiana, Crete. Athens was fine and all. The acropolis was cool and really old but Neal and I will remember mostly for having cheap food and being ridiculously hot. I have never spent three hotter nights in my life. I was drinking about four liters of water a day. The other major accomplishment of mine, in Athens was reading Harry Potter. I was able to secure a copy and I read it in two days. It was time well spent. I don't care where you are in the world a new Harry Potter book should be your number one priority. I have more to say about Athens but it will have to wait because the best stories are from Crete.

I do not even know how to being with Crete. We went there rather randomly because it was the first ferry we could get out of Athens and we said, why not. It has been some of the best days of the trip and I cannot even being to relate all of them here. So I just tell one for now. Today was our last day in Crete and we decided to rent scooters. What could be more fun, or dangerous than Neal and I on scooters. The first snag, however was that you need a motorcycle endorsement to get anything larger then 50cc. This is a problem because you aren't allowed to take the 50cc scooters more than 25 km away from the rental place. We of course wanted to take them all over the island. After exploring all possibilities we decided to rent the 50cc scooters and ignore the 25km rule. After all we were leaving the country the next day.

We went out in the morning and just drove down the road a ways and picked a little village back away from the coast to try and get to first, in order to get our feet wet on the bikes. Now Crete was formed by the European and African plates colliding and pushing the earth’s crust upwards. This means that it is very mountainous and as soon as you get away from the coast it is hilly. We spent about two hours just cursing around the hills, up and down, around curves. It was a lot of fun. Then we went down into Chaina, the main city for lunch. City driving on a scooter in Europe is an experience I will not soon forget. There are no lanes, stop sings mean slow down a little, and if you aren't weaving in and out of cars on your scooter people look at you funny. Once we escaped Chaina and got some food we decided to head out along the coast out to beach we saw on our map. It looked like a nice long ride and was only slightly out of our range. 40 km is kinda close to 25 right? The coast was gorgeous and we followed the rode along and then up a hill and could see out over the whole bay and city. I am sure the beach would have been amazing however about half way there the road went from being paved, to dirt and rather large rocks. If we had paid more attention to our map we would have know this as yellow lines indicate unpaved roads. We then decided if we couldn’t head out to beach we would o up into the mountains. Neal took the opportunity to fill up his tank while I had about 3/4 left and did not. This decision will come into play later. We went about 50 km up into the mountains. It was the best part of the whole day and a highlight of the trip. The scenery was some of the best I have ever seen. It rivals that out in the Rockies. The rode wound back and forth up the mountain and when we got to the top we able to look out over the valley and where we had been about an hour earlier. It was at this point that we found out why the only want you go 25km away, and it involves a lack of gas stations. To be continued.

Heck on wheels remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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On crazy taxis and crappy buses

2007-07-19T18:19:44Z

Again, I must apologize for not updating sooner and the lack of pictures but Italy leaves you no time for those sorts of things. Also, Neal is experiencing some difficulties with is camera so the pictures will have to be delayed again. Instead you will just have to read my beautiful and delightful prose and imagine all that is Italy. After Rome we went up to Frienze (Florence) and stayed there for four days. We took day trips out of Frienze to Cinque Terre and Venice. The Cinque Terre national park was a 12km hike along the most gorgeous stretch of coast I have ever been on. Along the way, there are five little towns that up until the 1940's were accessible only by boat and today can really only be reached by train. This gives them the frozen in time sort of appearance that even with all the tourists is extremely charming and fun. We spent a night in Corniglia which is the smallest of the towns and in the evening is almost devoid of everyone but locals. I could have probably stayed there for a week if there weren't thousands of other things to see. Then it was over to Venice for the day. We didn't do any of the sites but instead just wandered around. We would pick a place out on the map and try to get there. It is a lot more challenging then it sounds but it is the best way to see the city. On our last day in Florence we wanted to get in and see the David. We had a train to Perugia at 1pm. We got up and were in line by 9:00am but to no avail. We waited for about three hours and got crapped on by pigeons. Oh well, you cannot with them all.

We spent two nights in Perugia. Or should I say we spent two nights near Perugia because our guesthouse with a pool and kitchen only a 1km from the city center turned out to not have the kitchen available and be a km from the center of one of Perugia's suburbs. Even the taxi driver got lost trying to find it. We spent a half day in Assisi and then spent the rest of the day and night at the Umbria Jazz festival. This is a huge two week festival in Perugia and features a bunch of free concerts, carnival food, and lots of beer. The concerts were fun, especially Funk Off who put on a great high energy show. We stayed out there until about 1:00am and it was still packed when we left. A word of advice if you are ever in Perugia don't use the bus system. You will get pickpocketed, lost, and sick to your stomach from the smell. The taxi drivers may be crazy but they get you where you need to go.

It was then south to Sorrento, on the Bay of Naples. We went out to the Isle of Capri and did some hiking and then laying out on the beach. We also spent a day in Pompeii. It was all very interesting and gorgeous. The best part was the hostel we were in had a kitchen and a lemon orchard out back. All three nights we ate extremely well and then relaxed and chatted with other guests until the wee hours of the morning. A couple of girls from Canada even helped us cook one evening and took part in our feast. It is probably the best we have eaten all trip. Colin, Liz, and Jerome headed back to Rome after three nights in Sorrento to catch their plane. Neal and I made our way by bus to Bari to get a ferry to Greece. That is where the next update will be from. Ciao.

On crazy taxis and crappy buses remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The Eternal City

2007-07-08T20:30:23Z

Its has been a while since the last update mainly because we have been on the go the whole time. We had just gotten into Madrid when I wrote the last post. Since then Aaron has headed home, Neal and I took a train from Madrid to Rome ( it took about 33 hours), and we have met up with Colin, Liz, and Jerome in Italy.

We did make it to the bullfight in Madrid which was well worth the five euro. There were three matadors and they fought two bulls a piece. There are plenty of pictures but I don't have the camera with me at the moment to upload them so you'll just have to wait. Let's just say that I wouldn't be near any of those bulls and they run straight at it and stab it with a sword. Also of note was the fact that not only was there beer vendors walking the stands but also scotch and cigar vendors. The Palacio Real in Madrid was also worth a visit and it includes the armory. We got audio guides which were very informative, too informative actually. I now know more about the armory of Charles V then any one person should. Our last day in Spain was spent in Toledo and most of that was spent napping in a park. We didn't feel like spending the eight euro to see the cathedral and had only got about four hours of sleep the night before due the heat and drunk people in the street.

It was then off to Italy and Rome. The train ride involved two late night passport checks and a seat (mine) that didn't recline all the way. We made it and it was worth it. In the last three days we have seen the Vatican, Sistine chapel, the Colosseum, the roman forum, catacombs, art by Raphael and Michelangelo, had some great food and ice cream and hung out with an Australian who kicked our ass in pool and caused us to drink way too much wine. I wish that my writing skills were better because I cannot even begin to describe the amazing history that Rome has. It has been the best place we have been too so far. It lives up to all its billing. For having studied this buildings, places, paintings, and events for years now to see them is an unbelievably fulling experience. Also the no one has been pick pocketed, the locals are very friendly and helpful, and the gypsies haven't thrown any babies at us. So we were worried for nothing. Tomorrow its off to Florence for a few days. Hopefully I can get some pictures up then.

The Eternal City remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I have been to Spain and the music is good there

2007-07-01T22:35:43Z

The person who can figure out the reference in the title of this post will get 50 bonus points. Hint: the older folk reading this may have an edge on this one. The first stop in Spain was Barcelona. It wasn´t as hot the last time I was there which was nice. Another day spent on the beach felt amazing again. There really is nothing like sitting on the beach looking out on to the Mediterranean. The beach at Barcelona is nothing to write home about, even though that is what I am doing, and it was packed but the water was warm and took away the aches from climbing the hill to our hostel. The hostel was nice, clean, had free Internet, and interesting people to talk to but it was a hike. It was farther out of town and up on one of the hills. My things are still feeling it. We went into the Sagarda Familia this time instead of just looking at. It is by far the most impressive unfinished building I have seen. If they finish it while I am still alive and that is a big if, I am going to fly to Barcelona just to see it completed.
Then it was train ride to Cordoba and this was our first bad train ride of the trip really because at least the night train was quiet. This train had about three little kids who took turns crying for seven hours. Cordoba was an interesting and frustrating city. The warren of streets in the medieval quarter is fun just to walk through and it was nice not having to take the subway everywhere. The frustrating part is that everything closes at 9:00pm. This is of course after having just opened up again at 5:00pm from the siesta. I am not sure when people actually get any work done. We went to the Mezquita which is the mosque Cordoba is famous for and it was a let down. It would have been more interesting but parts were under renovation and after seeing Chartres and the Sagrada Familia it didn´t have the same impact. However, we saw an excellent flamenco performance and then went to Medina Al-zhara which is the ruins of a palace city built by one of the caliphs outside of the city. I had never heard of it before but it was well worth the stop. I guess if for every famous thing that doesn´t live up to its billing if we find one that we didn´t know of before we are doing ok.
Now we are in Madrid and were luck to find a place to stay. In fact we are staying in three different places in three nights. There is a huge gay pride festival going on and they expect about 2 million people to come in for it. So the city is packed.We made it to the Prado today. It was the first major museum of the trip and well worth it. The collection of Goya´s is not to be missed.
I am running out of time online. It is not free tonight. I will post pictures in the next few days. Keep the comments coming, Neal and I really enjoy them.

I have been to Spain and the music is good there remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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And then there were three

2007-06-25T19:34:31Z

So we were heading into Paris on a Saturday to meet Aaron. We had a train from Nice in the morning and got in around 12:30. The major concern was, not meeting up with Aaron but finding a place to stay because it was a Saturday, in June, in Paris and we were without a room. A few phone calls later and some sketcy directions hammered out using the poor English of the girl on the phone and my even poorer French found Neal and I riding the metro out to Hoche. We later found out that we weren´t even in the city any longer but out in the suburb and it was a questionable area at best. We were able to get a room for the night and make it to airport in time to meet Aaron. We were so happy about finding a room that we didn´t even mind his flight being delayed.

That night we went back to the hostel and ate mircowaved mac and cheese. It wasnt easy mac but the stove was broken so what was going to be a good meal of mac and cheese turned into a mircowaved mess of undercooked noodles and semi melted cheese. We then headed out to the the city because Aaron hadn´t been there before. We took the metro to the Eiffle tower and then walked over to the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysee to the Louvre. On Sunday we got up bright at about 7:00am and early to get over the Eiffle tower so we could go to the top before the lines formed. We didn´t get up early enough. There were lines and I think that no matter how early we got up there would have been lines. We then took the train out to Versailles and went to the gardens. The line was too long and it was 25€ to go tour the inside unfortunately. The gardens were packed though and we couldn´t figure out why until all the fountains came on. They don´t run the fountains normally and it was lucky that we just happened to be there. The gardens were amazing without the fountains and ten times better with them. We headed back into the city stopped by Notre Dame real quick and then got on our night train to Barcelona.

If you ever take a night train and it only costs 15 more euro for a sleeping car you should probably consider it. The recling seats that were suppose to go back 160 degrees and be nice and comfortable... didn´t and weren´t. We did end up meeting the girl in the row across from us and taught her how to play euchre and were able to get a decent amount of sleep although my back wasn´t too happy about it in the morning. We are in Barcelona now. We have two nights here and then it´s off to Cordoba. We´ll hit up the beach and go see La Sagrada Familia and do some relaxing.
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And then there were three remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Nice is Nice

2007-06-25T19:35:45Z

There is nothing like spending three days on the Cote d'Azur. All the trouble zwe had in Rennes just melted away. We were able to find an apartment to saty in with a full kitchen. That was great because there was a supermarket up the street and our enitre food buget for the three days here was less then 25€. There was a group from Finland staying in the other room of the aparment and we taught them how to play 31. It feels good to just sit around and not doing anything. That isn't something we had a chance to do yet this summer and Neal and I both needed it. We are meeting Aaron Tournoux in Paris on Saturday and after that it is off to Spain. We visited Monoco, which was unreal. I mean honestly, do you really need a helicopter on your yacht? We also got amazing tans spending 2 days on the beach.

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Zoot Alors

2007-06-22T15:03:52Z

Well, everything was going tip top until today. We spent two night in Paris. The first day was just getting organized and situated but we went up to Sacre Couer
and then down to the Seine to watch the sun set.
Saturday we spent in Chartes which was amazing. The view from, the north bell tower is amazing.

Sunday we took the train out to Bayeux. This was our second ti,e using the rail pass qnd everything went smoothly. We did learn the hard way thought that everything closes in France on Sunday, including super markets. The hostel in Bayeux was in a wonderful old home and had a garden, a library, an outdoor game of ches. It was fairly epmty being a sunday night. I would love to stay there again with more people around; We were hoping to get a tour of the D-Day beaches on Sunday but had to wait until monday morning but it was well worth it. Point du Hoc and the americain cenetery were both beautiful and moving.

This is when the troubles started. Since we did not leave Bayeux until late we missed the last bus from Pontorson to Mont St Michel. Then we got into Rennes but it was too late to coninue onto Le Mans or Tours as we hoped. Then to top things off we tried to book a train from Paris to Nice for later in the week think two days aheqd would be enough. It was not. So now we are not sure what we are going to do. It has been fun, exciting and tiring so far and we are still getting the hang of this whole travelling around with no plans. I am being to think that we may have to give up some flexabilty to make sure we have a place to stay and a way to get there. All in all its been a crazy and fun four days

Also Neal is having trouble with the size of his photos and taking up all of our storage space so for now look on facebook and hopefull we can work it out soon.

This point du hoc. For those of you unfamiliar, this is where the US Army Rangers scaled the cliffside and took out German posts to prepare for D-Day.

An example of a gun, with something like 150mm cannon and a 12 nile range

and after a hard days work of travelling, we checked our email and had dinner...

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A Paris

2007-06-20T16:39:35Z

It is 2am Icelandic time while I am writing this. It is still light out but its raining and 45 degrees so we decided to stay inside. Our plan to camp out in the bar has been hampered by the fact that the bar is closed. Instead, Neal is reading and I found some free internet access. By the way, Ms. Parker, if you are reading this I dropped a cracker on the floor when we first got here. I´ll let your imagination decide what I did with it.

How has the trip been going you ask? Well, the train station in Elyria consists of a double wide and a bench and we had to sit on that bench for 45 minutes because the train was 20 minutes late. Amtrack wouldn´t be a bad way to travel, you have big seats, room to walk around, a lounge car, plugs to charge electronics, if it wasn´t for the fact that the train has to stop for every freight train that comes along. Amtrack doesn´t own the track and so its trains spend a lot of time waiting on sidings. What was suppose to be a 13 hour ride turned into 15.5. I did learn however, the location of a nice bar just a block from the train station in Albany, NY, for future reference. I was a little sad when we got into Penn Station because I was hoping to get a sub. I figured that Penn Station subs were over priced in Columbus but in New York I wouldn´t mind paying that much. I couldn´t find one though.

Our hostel in New York was in a Brownstone on the Upper East Side and three block from central park. We roomed with a couple from Argentina and had some very good pizza. The next morning we were able to see a little of the city before flying out on Thursday afternoon. We walked around the park, got some bagels, admired the sky-line. I´ll have to go back and spend a longer amount of time in the near future.

That brings me to the flight. We were on Icelandair and that is why we have 8 hour stopover in Iceland. The flight was crowded and the Icelanders decided to have a party. They were constantly up and down the aisle,talking to people, drinking a lot of Viking beer, and generally having a good timea. I guess when your country only has 308,000 people you are bound to run into some you know. The guy Neal was sitting next to was from Sweden but now lives in the US and was taking his kids back to Sweden to visit his parents. He, however, spent 6 summers traveling around Europe for a month or two when he was in college and was full of great information. There was a also a couple and their three kids in the row behind us who are from Powell. They are traveling onto France as well and we are hanging out together in the airport. The seven of us are the only people here besides the occasional sercurity guard. It would be creepy but it is still light outside so it feels like the middle of the day in here.

All in all it has been fun so far. We haven´t gotten lost yet and I have already finished two books. Neal is about a third done with his first one. He falls asleep everytime he starts reading. Now I know what he does at the library all the time. Here I thought he was studying and it turns out he was just napping. Sorry for the typos and errors but its late and don´t feel like taking the time to fix them. Next stop Paris.

A Paris remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Heading Out

2007-06-12T19:09:39Z

Neal and I are getting ready to spend three months in Europe this summer and I thought I would get our blog going. For those of you who don't know we are heading out on the 13th from Elyria and taking the train to New York. This will be my first time in New York so hopefully we'll get to see a few things before we leave. We fly out of JFK on the 14th, have a stop over in Rejikavik, Iceland and get into Paris on the 16th. Right now we are in the final stages of packing and getting everything ready to go. Well, Neal is packed and I haven't started but it shouldn't take too long. How much stuff do I need for three months anyway?

I tought with this first entry I would give some history on Neal's and I's travels. We have taken some sort of trip together every summer since our Junior year in High School. We went to Europe with our high school French class that year and visited London, Paris, and Barcelona. We have also been to West Virginia to the New River to rock climb and raft, we have been to Kentucky and Mammoth Cave, Virginia and Washington D.C., and our biggest trip was a road trip to the Badlands, the Black Hills, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons. That was the first trip that we planned ourselves and did on our own. That was the first Brad and Neal's Excellent Adventure and so that is why this part deux. This blog is our way of trying to keep everyone updated on what we are doing. I hope that you enjoy reading it this summer and leave us comments about how jealous you are. I will be doing most of the writing and the pictures that we have will be courtsey of Neal.

Heading Out remains copyright of the author reed.676, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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