I'll write when I get a chance but I've only got 8 minutes left. Rome has been great though, now we're heading down to Pompei and the Alfami coast. Have fun, zak
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Garmisch & future plans
Being back in Garmisch for this week has been a nice rest, seeing old friends again and being able to just relax has been huge. It's weird though, when I was in AZ for the first couple months I thought about coming back to Garmisch often and wished I could return (with my family of course), but being here I realized that it's sometimes better just to move on to different things now matter how easy or agreable a past situation might have been. I don't know if I will ever come back here but I don't think it would be the best thing for me if I did. It would just be too easy and planed out, true living in Europe is great but I think I can manage something more interesting.
My time here has been awesome though, I've gone to the erding sauna which is the biggest in europe and had a great day with my haf (friend from Garmisch). My friend Gary and I did a ride that absoultly killed me and to top it off it rained and hailed on us for an hour before we got home. The mountains are still here and as beautiful as ever, even though they were covered for most of the time I was here they still made a point to come out for a couple of hours and say hallo. Playing chess with the old boys in Garmisch was also a great experience, it's nice to be so warmly greeted by old Bavarian guys who share the same love. Of course after the greetings we tried to rip each others heads off, but that's chess. I'm glad to have had the oppertunity to live here, but strong moves must be made.
I've changed the plans a bit, I know I had told everyone I was planing on eastern Europe but... I decided to go to Turkey and Egypt instead after Tyler leaves me in Greece on the 26th. I don't really know why I changed my mind but I liked the randomness of this new direction. Just thinking about going to Egypt filled me with the same nervous wonder I felt before leaving to India. It's also one of those once in a life time opertunity things you read about. I'm going to be in Turkey for 4 days and then in Eygpt for 8 before returning to Garmisch to do a bike trip with my good friend Gary.
I've got an hour before the train and the night ahead of me sleeping on a bench at the airport. My pack has even less in it than before, I feel light, happy and focused ready to meet what comes next. I'll write soon and of course send pics from the sand and heat. Much love. zak
My time here has been awesome though, I've gone to the erding sauna which is the biggest in europe and had a great day with my haf (friend from Garmisch). My friend Gary and I did a ride that absoultly killed me and to top it off it rained and hailed on us for an hour before we got home. The mountains are still here and as beautiful as ever, even though they were covered for most of the time I was here they still made a point to come out for a couple of hours and say hallo. Playing chess with the old boys in Garmisch was also a great experience, it's nice to be so warmly greeted by old Bavarian guys who share the same love. Of course after the greetings we tried to rip each others heads off, but that's chess. I'm glad to have had the oppertunity to live here, but strong moves must be made.
I've changed the plans a bit, I know I had told everyone I was planing on eastern Europe but... I decided to go to Turkey and Egypt instead after Tyler leaves me in Greece on the 26th. I don't really know why I changed my mind but I liked the randomness of this new direction. Just thinking about going to Egypt filled me with the same nervous wonder I felt before leaving to India. It's also one of those once in a life time opertunity things you read about. I'm going to be in Turkey for 4 days and then in Eygpt for 8 before returning to Garmisch to do a bike trip with my good friend Gary.
I've got an hour before the train and the night ahead of me sleeping on a bench at the airport. My pack has even less in it than before, I feel light, happy and focused ready to meet what comes next. I'll write soon and of course send pics from the sand and heat. Much love. zak
paris pics
this thing just fucked up and erased my post so you only get 5 pics of Paris, sorry but need to get caught up to Garmisch before I leave on the train in a couple of hours.
I don't even know if the pics are going to show up.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Amsterdam pics before I forget
The attic Part and the rest is Amsterdam
Just pics from Amsterdam and a couple from the Copenhagen "attic cleaning party" before I get too far along in this marathon bloging experience.
Antwerp and the first doner kebab of the trip
We had went to Antwerp really without any plan, our chess friend who loved architecture in Amsterdam had recommended it and Tyler and I had already been to Brussels so we figured we would give it a try. Antwerp turned out to be a pretty strange place. We arrived on a Sunday and for those who don't know Europe has this great and sometimes rather annoying habit of closing everything except restaurants on Sundays. When we first got there Ty and I had forgot it was Sunday and were under the impression that Antwerp was a ghost town as we walked through the business district looking for a hostel we had read about online. After arriving at the hostel and banging on it's locked door a Brazilian guy poked his head out and at first told us he was full but then asked us to come in, saying he would see what he could do. I'm still not sure if the building was actually open legally as a hostel or if this Brazilian guy had the keys and was squatting there. He didn't even know how many beds he had and we had to wait while he counted them again and again trying to figure out if he had space for 2 more. Eventually I think he tired of the math and just decided to say fuck it and we were told we had a place to stay. Later that night, rather unsurprisingly, our friends math had been wrong. We ended up having one more person than beds in our room and I had to go and sleep in a room we were told not to go into. Other than the relentless attack put up by the mosquitoes the other room worked out fine. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful and in the morning we headed to the train station to figure out our plans to Paris. After figuring our plans out we headed to the biggest park in town to kill a couple hours before the train. Tyler wanted desperately to sit down and I wanted to creep on old men playing chess in the park. We didn't find any old men with chess pieces grasped between sweaty fingers but we did find a skate park where we sat for quite a while and watched a very strange mix of people roll around, some on bikes others on razor scooters, most thankfully on skateboards. After a few hours we rolled out to the train station and on to Paris.
I know that I suck
It has been over a week since I've posted a thing and this of course is totally unacceptable. My excuse in Belgium and France was the key boards and their rearranged letters that I wasn't familiar with. Even though I always look directly at the keyboard the whole time while I'm typing with 3 fingers I couldn't get over this hurdle, I guess my 3 fingers do sort of remember where the keys are. So now that I'm in Garmisch and back to a proper keyboard my plan this morning is to sit here in front of my friend Haf's computer and not get up until I've gotten the blog somewhat back on track. I do how ever have the added bonus of being able to upload images, so now you get to look at something other than my horribly written words. I'm going to start from Antwerp and write a post for every place up till where I am now in Garmsich, I hope you enjoy.
P.S. the picture of The Brain was taken in Copenhagen and I like it.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
A strange night
Well for starters yesterday had a bit of everything,
In the afternoon I played chess with a dutch guy in the park (who later offered me a place to stay whenever I need), in the evening we wandered aimlessly through the red light district watching scenes of animalistic fluid exchange spill out on to the street, the whole time trying to get a grasp of a world that was so vivid and colorful it didn't seem real.
The early afternoon was filled with chess and a unxepected tour through a side of amsterdam we couldn't have expected to see. I had played a few games with Ron (the dutch chess guy) when I had previously visited Amsterdam. We sat down to play again and to my surprise he actualy remembered me and what was even stranger was the fact that both of us remebered some of the games we had played a year before. I played reasonably well for not playing much lately and one a couple of games, though he was a bit stronger. After a few games he asked Tyler and I if we wanted to go for a walk and get something to eat. We of course said yes and headed off to a small store and then sat in a park and talked. Ron ended up being a really cool guy who said that we could stay at his place with him and his girlfriend if we ever visited Amsterdam again. After talking for a bit longer we headed off to see a farmers market he had told us about. The market ended up being cool but just the fact that we were walking around with someone who actually lives here made it more interesting.
Eventually we met back up with my friend Corry and sorted out what we would be doing for the rest of the evening. Around 17:45 is when the night started to get interesting, we had eaten a very small amount of mushrooms around 17:00 (only 1 dose split 3 ways, not wanting to over do it), at first we felt that we hadn't eaten enough and were going to have to go and get more if we even wanted to feel anything. So we decided to rest for a couple minutes on a bench and plan what we were going to do next. After a few minutes on the bench we started to realize that something had changed and were filled with the giddy laughter of children as the world slowly switched over to high definition. We watched cyclists seem to float by, Watched peoples faces and mixed emotions pour out of them. We saw love, fear, frustration and almost every emotion you can imagine in these faces. It's amazing to sit in one place very still and just notice the little stories that play out in front of you as strangers walk by. At this point (needless to say) the mushrooms had begun to work so we decided to head off to the more hetic and colorful scenes of the hookers, bars and wispering drug dealers. The drug dealers in the red light district have perfected the art of wispering, it's so subtle that when they walk by and wisper into your ear your mind is tricked for a second into thinking it just thought "cocaine, extasy" instead of hearing it. In the beautiful and crowded red light district we saw so many different stories unfold, the Spanish guy who stared at a hooker like a heavy weight boxer at the beging of a prize fight, focused and intense while his friend spoke quickly and without pause into his ear as if perparing him to slay an apponent across the ring. We also saw the quick hurried walks of shame as men would leave the stalls and try to escape while the girl they just fucked would put a smile back on and try to lure another one in for a quick € 50. Even in the faces of the hookers I saw a range of emotions, in some total despair, you could tell by the way a cigarette was smoked or the way they stared blankly into the crowd of lud druged beasts, but in others there was what looked like actual excitemet and happiness. All in all it was a bit like going to the zoo. I could go on and on but I think you've got the picture.
We eventually got home and in one piece, so for that we can be thankful. I've got to run, I think we're off to Antwerp today. Hope all is well, Zak
I'm also going to upload more pics as soon as I find a computer I can do it on.
and again only Dutch spell checker sorry
In the afternoon I played chess with a dutch guy in the park (who later offered me a place to stay whenever I need), in the evening we wandered aimlessly through the red light district watching scenes of animalistic fluid exchange spill out on to the street, the whole time trying to get a grasp of a world that was so vivid and colorful it didn't seem real.
The early afternoon was filled with chess and a unxepected tour through a side of amsterdam we couldn't have expected to see. I had played a few games with Ron (the dutch chess guy) when I had previously visited Amsterdam. We sat down to play again and to my surprise he actualy remembered me and what was even stranger was the fact that both of us remebered some of the games we had played a year before. I played reasonably well for not playing much lately and one a couple of games, though he was a bit stronger. After a few games he asked Tyler and I if we wanted to go for a walk and get something to eat. We of course said yes and headed off to a small store and then sat in a park and talked. Ron ended up being a really cool guy who said that we could stay at his place with him and his girlfriend if we ever visited Amsterdam again. After talking for a bit longer we headed off to see a farmers market he had told us about. The market ended up being cool but just the fact that we were walking around with someone who actually lives here made it more interesting.
Eventually we met back up with my friend Corry and sorted out what we would be doing for the rest of the evening. Around 17:45 is when the night started to get interesting, we had eaten a very small amount of mushrooms around 17:00 (only 1 dose split 3 ways, not wanting to over do it), at first we felt that we hadn't eaten enough and were going to have to go and get more if we even wanted to feel anything. So we decided to rest for a couple minutes on a bench and plan what we were going to do next. After a few minutes on the bench we started to realize that something had changed and were filled with the giddy laughter of children as the world slowly switched over to high definition. We watched cyclists seem to float by, Watched peoples faces and mixed emotions pour out of them. We saw love, fear, frustration and almost every emotion you can imagine in these faces. It's amazing to sit in one place very still and just notice the little stories that play out in front of you as strangers walk by. At this point (needless to say) the mushrooms had begun to work so we decided to head off to the more hetic and colorful scenes of the hookers, bars and wispering drug dealers. The drug dealers in the red light district have perfected the art of wispering, it's so subtle that when they walk by and wisper into your ear your mind is tricked for a second into thinking it just thought "cocaine, extasy" instead of hearing it. In the beautiful and crowded red light district we saw so many different stories unfold, the Spanish guy who stared at a hooker like a heavy weight boxer at the beging of a prize fight, focused and intense while his friend spoke quickly and without pause into his ear as if perparing him to slay an apponent across the ring. We also saw the quick hurried walks of shame as men would leave the stalls and try to escape while the girl they just fucked would put a smile back on and try to lure another one in for a quick € 50. Even in the faces of the hookers I saw a range of emotions, in some total despair, you could tell by the way a cigarette was smoked or the way they stared blankly into the crowd of lud druged beasts, but in others there was what looked like actual excitemet and happiness. All in all it was a bit like going to the zoo. I could go on and on but I think you've got the picture.
We eventually got home and in one piece, so for that we can be thankful. I've got to run, I think we're off to Antwerp today. Hope all is well, Zak
I'm also going to upload more pics as soon as I find a computer I can do it on.
and again only Dutch spell checker sorry
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