Curiosity

Well as most of you know, as avid followers of my blog, I am home in the United States. No, I haven't slacked on blogging, I wanted to see if there was any interest in me continuing my blog. Yes, I am asking you (the bum sitting on your couch reading my blog) my friends if you still desire insight into my life. I hear my life is pretty fun...

A couple ideas on where to continue it.

1. A great friend, Andrew Deneen and I have started a philanthropy group called TRI for Africa, to raise money for Teachers for Africa in Namibia, a country (no Africa isn't a freaking country) we visited many years ago and have stuck with it. Our goal this summer/ early fall is to complete 5 Triathlons, including 1 olympic Tri, all while raising some funds to support Teachers for Africa. We do have a facebook group you need to join to show your support

2. I am a swim coach and private lesson instructor. There are always good stories on the job. My first day back (my 6th year as a coach. I need a new job) a girl almost barfed on me.

3. Random travels. I hear my brother is getting married soon and we are taking a trip somewhere before hand as some kind of last hurrah before the ball and chain gets attached or something like that. I plan on going to a few different states this summer.

What do yall think? Have you looked at this blog recently?

Fallas 2010

I realized I hadn't posted anything about Fallas. It's a bit difficult to explain and you truly have to experience it to know exactly what I'm talking about but I will attempt to regail you with what type of experience I had. To start of Fallas has a bunch of different parts to it, and each little part make up Fallas. The first part are Falleras. Each neighborhood or 'bario' has these. They are girls that wear very decorative (and from what we're told exremely expensive) dresses and are shown off in parades. There are hundreds of Falleras and they elect two, an older Fallera and a younger Fallera to be crowned basically the ultimate Fallera. We were told it is extremely political and deals a lot with how much money you have (are you surprised?). Second there are parades every day. Everywhere. Each neighborhood has their own band and gets all of their people together and march the streets. It gets really difficult to even walk out of the dorm sometimes because of parades walking by. Third, there are Fallas, enormous paper miche (I'm not sure if I spelled that right but it sounds like Muh-Shay (like my brother). They are supposed to represent things that they do not like and want to try to rid from their lives. They're in each neighborhood plaza and I can't reiterate how large they are. Fourth, there are fireworks. And by fireworks I don't mean the sissy ones we have in the states (you think I'm kidding). The ones you can buy on the streets I can just see every mom in the states drafting letters to Obama telling him to ban them because they're so loud. If you're a tourist and the Spaniards see you, they'll throw them at your feet. You wake up in the morning and it literally sounds like a war-zone. It's awesome. Moreover (great transition word) they have fireworks every night. We were told they are second in the world for fireworks. When I saw them I almost cried because I knew we had to pick up the pace in the states. I'm a huge fan of the 4th of July. We beat those nazi's back in dubya dubya two and gained our independence. We need to celebrate with bigger fireworks. I'm serious though I was blown away (pun intended) when I say they were amazing firework shows. Lastly at the end of the week they burn the Fallas. We saw 4 burn down because they burn them all around the same time but it's like a house burning. We've got pictures from it where we are standing in front of it and it looks like we're smiling that a building behind us is set ablaze. Feel comforted all mothers reading this, they engineer each Fallas to fall straight down and they have firefighters at each fallas spraying water on it to make sure it doesn't get completely out of control. At your next town hall meeting, suggest we have a festival like this and see how hard they laugh. You want people to dress up and walk around in seemingly unorganized parades in unbelievably expensive dresses, build huge structures made out of paper with the ability to catch on fire and place them near where people live, throw fireworks EVERYWHERE, shut down the city for a week, purchase hundreds of thousands of flowers to build a huge structure of the Virgin Mary, jack prices of food and drinks up (that one's always possible though), have 45 minute long firework shows every night for a week, and then burn down the structures that took a year to build? HAHA you've gotta be outa your freaking mind. Safety first America remember?

Pictures: Me in front of the burning Fallas, Burning Fallas, Plaza de Virgin, and two examples of Fallas pre burn. Enjoy.

Padres en Espana!

Newsflash: Besides having a significant blog fan base decline due to overseas departure, I will be heading out to Madrid (I have to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow morning. Cripes man) to meet my parents and Spence! It's pretty sad when three people leave the states, the people actually reading this blog decline about a third. Regardless I will be keeping updates as to our adventures (I'm sure by now you know I'll make sure its an adventure).

Hope all is well with everyone in the states, and to my homies in Orleans, France.

It's a short post...deal with it. (In the nicest way possible though.)

Belgium. I've heard their waffles aren't too shabby.

Tuesday morning we woke up and had a cab waiting for us at the front of the hotel. They knew Sean Frendt was there, we're royalty. Except it was a Mercedes car that fit 4. we had 5. Luckily enough I got the front seat, being the biggest on the trip. Our journey back to the airport (I tried not to look at the meter) was nice and quick and we got on a plane to fly out to Brussels! Why Brussels you ask? We got cheap flights from Ryanair (Check list of good things they do from Ireland day 1, first one is price) and why not get cultured? We flew from Dublin to Brussels and quickly learned we were in the absolute middle of nowhere. Customs in Belgium was also really interesting. I was the first one to go through and the agent spoke little broken English. "How long you been here for?" in a French accent is his first question. My first thought "I'm at the airport dingbat I literally just got here." I respond by correcting his sentence and telling him I am staying 24 hours. Confusion strikes the agent and I tell him once again I am staying for a day to tour the city and leave. "Why you stay here," he asks. "I heard your waffles are good". I've confused the guy and he wants to check my return ticket. I oblige and he then wants to see if I have a credit card or not. I pull a card out and hold on to it firmly unsure if the cops there are dirty or not. I guess he was genuinely concerned that I was financially stable. After I made it awkwardly through customs (look out Americans, big bad Belgium doesn't want us cowboys) we found out we were seriously in the middle of nowhere. We had to take an hour bus ride from the airport to Brussels. This entire time we had no idea what to expect, we had no idea where we were staying, or what there was to do in the city. I was somewhat uneasy on the busride because it looked pretty much like the only thing they did was farm. But alas we got dropped off in Brussels, and took the metro (FYI they don't check tickets there, you don't have to buy them as we learned) to our stop. The confirmation email we received said "meet us the dutch tavern at 1:30 across the street from where you'll be staying". That's always a reassuring email, we didn't know if a wink and a nod would do but after we got to the city and got the keys from the _____ insert title here, we headed up to our apartment. I don't know how to put this in the best words, but I'll try my best. It was incredible. Seriously. We paid like 15 euro a piece and had an apartment that looked over the entire city with a huge deck, 6 beds and a kitchen. Yes, a full kitchen. We knew there was only one thing to do. Home cooked dinner. Before that though we headed out and did the touristy things, saw the one famous thing they had to offer a small statue of a boy thats holding his, with water coming out. It's a fountain. Kinda ghetto, i'm not gonna lie haha. We went and searched around all the truly beautiful buildings and made our second pit stop, a wafflery (a place that makes waffles dummy). It was cheap, and amazing. I loved it. We continued to walk around the entire city, taking in all the sight, and stopped in a local place to have a Stella and Hoegarden, two local beers. It's pretty fun to say you've been to the country the beer was brewed in. We then proceeded to the grocery store to all bring stuff to the table, literally. We purchased pasta, salad, bread (French, naturally), wine and guacamole (made fresh by Ryan). We spent probably 2 hours preparing an amazing dinner, the exact way we wanted it. It was pretty monumental. We ate our dinner and stayed up talking and having a few drinks. I have to say it was a top 5 dinner I've had on this trip. Every French dinner I had with Mere and Justin is a list topper but this Belgian dinner was amazing. It helped we could see the entire city of Brussels from the table...

Pics: The view from my room, the family dinner, the view from the deck, the Gran Plaza and the toddler peeing. I don't really get it either...

Day Three, Cork!

We woke up super early (I wasn't kidding when I said every day was early to rise) and headed out to Heuston to catch a train out to Cork. Luckily for us our Eurorail passes got us on the train for free (otherwise it was like a 40 euro trip) and we took a nice train ride 3 hours southwest of Dublin to the city of Cork. What was our mission? Eloquence. After we took the train ride to Cork, we hopped off, and grabbed a bus out to Blarney Castle. I have to throw in a comment that it was the most miserable bus ride I've ever had. It was a relatively cool (not cold, but cool) day outside and the driver had the heat on as absolutely high as it would go. The fumes from the bus, mixed with the heat caused a nice grouchy Sean. But alas we had made it to Blarney, away from the tourism...or so we thought. As long as I've been living in Europe, I've learned a bit why people don't like Americans. The ones we saw in Blarney came off a bit, well dumb and loud. To put a cherry on top, the ones we saw were nice and over weight and were completely out of breath climbing a few stairs. I love America, but damn haha. After touring around the Blarney Castle we made it to the top where the main tourist attraction was, the Blarney Stone. I read on one of the signs that in the 'States they made an exact replica of the Blarney Castle. The US offered 1,000,000 dollars to let us borrow the Blarney Stone and they declined. They aren't sellouts. Gotta visit the Blarney for the real deal yall. Some of my Blarney predecessors happen to be the great English Winston Churchill. You have to lay down, and basically get flipped upside down while leaning almost out of the castle to kiss the blarney stone. It is supposed to give you the gift of eloquence. I don't know what that means but I'm pretty excited. Afterwards we walked around the Blarney Castle for a while and headed into the city of Cork. I quickly realized that I was starving. Not hungry, starving. We didn't have our breakfast of Irish champions and we had skipped lunch. I wanted one thing, McDonalds. I don't know why but I wanted it bad. As soon as I saw the golden arches I literally ran towards it. I stepped up to the plate and promptly ordered 5 (yes 5) double cheeseburgers. Let me recap for you. Each one was 2 euro. I spent 10 euro total. Lets convert to dollars. I spent approximately 15 American on double cheeseburgers because I was so hungry. It took me maybe 20 minutes to eat 5 cheeseburgers and I was on my merry way to tour Cork once again. We toured the city for a while longer (nothing too crazy there) and got on the train home where we slept, shot the breeze and laughed some. Once we got back to Heuston station we decided we wanted to go hang out with the locals away from the touristy area our last night in Dublin. We went to a local place and was promptly befriended by a very large Irishman bus driver named paddy. As soon as he heard that we were from the states his eyes lit up and he promptly told us how much he loved America. New York, Florida and California is where everyone thinks we're from and Paddy (the Irishman) had two favorite cities: Orlando and New York. He said "I'm still saving up all me pennies so I can get back to Orlando and New York." That place is Brilliant. Brilliant. He couldn't quit saying Brilliant but he was a genuine kind hearted person. We only stopped in for one Guiness before the last train to Park West but Paddy who we could tell wasn't financially endowed wanted to order all of us another beer. We had to leave soon and we had to decline but were genuinely blown away by the Irish. He did poke fun of us a bit for us "You came to Ireland, and you're turning down beer? You must be crazy" but we were all really truly grateful for their hospitality. We headed out of the pub and back to Park West for a bittersweet goodbye. We had to wake up the next morning at 5, so it was pretty much goodbye.

Pics. Naturally.

Ireland Day 2

So after our good night of rest we woke up early (surprised?) and headed out for Dublin again. We hopped on the train from Park West to Heuston station (Dublin) and got our traditional scones, coffee and yogurt. Afterwards we headed out to the St. Andrews cathedral and walked around the park. I noticed one serious thing that Valencia doesn't have, grass. Because it's a big city, there is concrete everywhere, no yards. They have soccer fields but they're made of turf. St. Andrews had a huge place where we camped out and talked for around an hour or so. It felt nice to sit on cool grass during a sunny day in Dublin. We had two missions for the day, Trinity College (gonna get our education on) and Acapulco. After we hung out a St. Andrews cathedral (I don't know much about it besides they have well manicured lawns) we headed out to Trinity College. The campus was beautiful. It was set up so well, a small and intimate. Trinity College besides being scenic, had a tourist attraction; the Book of Kells. It was another self guided tour that we got to learn all about the Book of Kells. About.com says "The book of Kells is a stunningly beautiful manuscript containing the four Gospels. It is Irelands most precious medieval artifact, and is generally considered the finest surviving illuminated manuscript to have been produced in midieval Europe." It was cool to see but at the end of the day, it's just a really nice decorated book. The library on the other hand at the end of the tour was beautiful. Photo's were prohibited (No I didn't take any) so you'll just have to use your imagination. After Trinity College we headed out to Acapulco, the mexican restaurant in town we heard was amazing. As most people think, Spanish food equals Mexican. They don't have burritos, chimichangas, tacos or gorditas (it's a Taco Bell item). Spanish food is unspiced for the most part and honestly somewhat bland. Acapulco for the lunch menu was extremely reasonably priced and I was able to get my spicy food fix for the semester finally. Afterwards we headed out around the town looking at the rest of the touristy sights. We stopped at a chocolate shop to get a bit of dessert (I had a chocolate mousse cheese cake) that was amazing. It was cheap too, so another score for a broke college kid. There were only a few sights left to see, including the Spire. It's in the middle of the street, it's a few hundred feet tall and the nickname is "the erection in the section". Think of a needle, like 300 feet in the sky. They put it in for the millennium and it cost 5 million euro. Honestly I think the Irish might have been drinking that day the idea got passed. "Frank, what was the best idea you could come up with for this millennium?" "Ermmm, well I figured we could just supersize a needle." "Brilliant, Frank, Briliant! And what will we call it?" "The erection in the section" "I couldn't have said it better myself, you deserve to be promoted." After the spire we were pretty worn out and wanted to head back to the hotel for a nap and then head back to go to a local pub and get to know the locals. We all were exhausted and instead of catching the last train home we ordered pizza and had a few pints with the locals around the hotel.

Day two Pics. These were borrowed from Ryan Miller. I forgot my camera. So I boosted some.

Ireland. Day 1.

We woke up real early (there's a theme on this trip of us waking up around 8 every morning) and hopped on the commuter train from Park West (where we were) to Dublin. It was only a 10 minute or so train but we weren't able to walk. We stopped in the train station every morning for scones, coffee and yogurt, the breakfast of champions. Our first stop on the tour was the Guiness factory. I'll have to admit I was not a huge Guiness fan before I came on this trip. The Guiness factory was pretty amazing actually. It's a self guided (I wasn't a huge fan of that) tour, but it was really informative, gave the history of the brewery and all that jazz. It had a few interactive stations, you could try the grains and such before it actually got brewed. There were two stops that actually had people in them, the first being the tasting room. Everyone gets a small glass of fresh brewed Guiness, and there is a guide that instructs you on how to properly drink it and discover all of its flavors. After the tour of learning about hops, yeast, mineral water, barley and all that jazz you end up at whats called the gravity bar. It's a 360* bar 6 or 7 stories up on the building, and you're able to see the entire city of Dublin from it. It was a wonderful view, you could see mountains, the river running through the city, the works. They give you a pint (you've already paid for it, they aren't that generous) and you get to enjoy it while overlooking the city. As I said before I wasn't a huge fan before, but that Guiness was amazing. It was poured correctly, was fresh and ice cold. I loved it. I guess your tastes change. We stayed there for a while taking pictures and enjoying our truly monumental beer and then we all headed out to our next adventure. We headed out to the Jamison factory for our second tourist attraction. The Jamison factory was much smaller and was actually a guided tour. I'll have to admit, I liked it a lot. It was cool to see the entire process of how something goes from a grain to a liquid. The tour guide was pretty funny as well. At the end of the tour they give you some Jamison (much like Guiness) to enjoy. I had a Jamison and gingerale with a lime in the bottom. It was actually really good! Afterwards we headed out to meet up with Grace and Eliza at a place called Temple Bar. It's not a single bar as I soon figured out but more of a district. It's very touristy, there are markets everywhere a few live music venues and of course pubs. Grace and Eliza had some friends in town that they were going to a concert with later in the evening and we went and sat with them, while watching the Ireland, Wales rugby match. Naturally Ireland destroyed them and was a cause for celebration among the city. Seriously, every pub you walked by was crammed and screamed much like Athens on gameday. Reminded me of the good Fall days in Athens. We sat in the bar for a while, and the guys headed out. The trains don't run past 10:30 to Park West, so we had to retire a bit early. We headed back and watched movies (in english!). We watched K19: Widowmaker, She's the man, and Troy. What's She's the Man, Sean? It's an Amanda Bynes flick where she wants to join the mens soccer team but can't because she's a girl so she disguises herself as a man. Sounds like a stupid chick flick Sean. It might be...but when you have 3 comedians watching the movie and making jokes after every line, it easily becomes one of the funniest movie situations I've ever been in. We made so many jokes that stuck with us for the rest of the trip. It was a bit of an early night, but a fun day.

Pics! Gravity Bar Pic, Best Guiness I've ever Had, and Jamison Tour

We woke up real early (there's a theme on this trip of us waking up around 8 every morning) and hopped on the commuter train from Park West (where we were) to Dublin. It was only a 10 minute or so train but we weren't able to walk. We stopped in the train station every morning for scones, coffee and yogurt, the breakfast of champions. Our first stop on the tour was the Guiness factory. I'll have to admit I was not a huge Guiness fan before I came on this trip. The Guiness factory was pretty amazing actually. It's a self guided (I wasn't a huge fan of that) tour, but it was really informative, gave the history of the brewery and all that jazz. It had a few interactive stations, you could try the grains and such before it actually got brewed. There were two stops that actually had people in them, the first being the tasting room. Everyone gets a small glass of fresh brewed Guiness, and there is a guide that instructs you on how to properly drink it and discover all of its flavors. After the tour of learning about hops, yeast, mineral water, barley and all that jazz you end up at whats called the gravity bar. It's a 360* bar 6 or 7 stories up on the building, and you're able to see the entire city of Dublin from it. It was a wonderful view, you could see mountains, the river running through the city, the works. They give you a pint (you've already paid for it, they aren't that generous) and you get to enjoy it while overlooking the city. As I said before I wasn't a huge fan before, but that Guiness was amazing. It was poured correctly, was fresh and ice cold. I loved it. I guess your tastes change. We stayed there for a while taking pictures and enjoying our truly monumental beer and then we all headed out to our next adventure. We headed out to the Jamison factory for our second tourist attraction. The Jamison factory was much smaller and was actually a guided tour. I'll have to admit, I liked it a lot. It was cool to see the entire process of how something goes from a grain to a liquid. The tour guide was pretty funny as well. At the end of the tour they give you some Jamison (much like Guiness) to enjoy. I had a Jamison and gingerale with a lime in the bottom. It was actually really good! Afterwards we headed out to meet up with Grace and Eliza at a place called Temple Bar. It's not a single bar as I soon figured out but more of a district. It's very touristy, there are markets everywhere a few live music venues and of course pubs. Grace and Eliza had some friends in town that they were going to a concert with later in the evening and we went and sat with them, while watching the Ireland, Wales rugby match. Naturally Ireland destroyed them and was a cause for celebration among the city. Seriously, every pub you walked by was crammed and screamed much like Athens on gameday. Reminded me of the good Fall days in Athens. We sat in the bar for a while, and the guys headed out. The trains don't run past 10:30 to Park West, so we had to retire a bit early. We headed back and watched movies (in english!). We watched K19: Widowmaker, She's the man, and Troy. What's She's the Man, Sean? It's an Amanda Bynes flick where she wants to join the mens soccer team but can't because she's a girl so she disguises herself as a man. Sounds like a stupid chick flick Sean. It might be...but when you have 3 comedians watching the movie and making jokes after every line, it easily becomes one of the funniest movie situations I've ever been in. We made so many jokes that stuck with us for the rest of the trip. It was a bit of an early night, but a fun day.

Pics!

Ireland? Yeah. Ireland.

Friday morning we hopped on a train to commute over to Madrid where we would get our first (or should I say worst) class plane on over to Ireland. We had a short layover in Madrid and got a few pastry's and food and headed on down to the airport. It was our first time flying Ryanair. I've got a bit of an opinion about this airline, some good some bad. The good: flights are incredibly cheap, you pick your seats when you get on the plane like a bus, they're almost always on time flights. The bad: the colors of the plane are blue and yellow. Not a soft yellow, the brightest neon yellow you've ever seen. It hurts to look anywhere, seriously. The seats don't recline and my legs hit the seat in front of me. You can't stick your legs in the aisles or the stewardesses destroy your knees (learned from experience) with the drink cart. Besides being visually harsh and compact, it's not a bad experience. When we got to the airport we told the cab driver (in English, which is a huge help) where our hotel was and he says "you're a long ways away". Thats stellar news for college kids on a serious budget hopping into a cab that only accepts the Euro (let me remind you the dollar blows over here), to go "a ways away". It really makes your heart feel tranquil (you've gotta be kidding me, those meters are the death of me). After a 60 euro (between 5 people) cab ride I felt a little abused but we arrived to the Days Hotel. After walking through the doors to the counter, we were kindly told our reservation had not been made, and they were completely booked (they had a huge rugby match the whole city was full from). Luckily we were with some of the nicest people on earth and they helped us out more than I thought was possible. We booked through a website that they actually didn't have an affiliation with (great news for us) but they gave us the same rates the website did and gave us a room temporarily for the night. They told us it would be a night by night basis (I'll kill the drama by saying we didn't have to move). We all went to the room and went to bed after long travels to wake up for the morning.

Don't give me any Bull...

WARNING: THIS POST IS GRAPHIC. IT'S GOT SOME HUMOR AS USUAL, BUT YOU CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH...

So I witnessed my first bullfight. I've been bullheaded before but I've never gotten to see a fight. I'll try to describe my experience as accurately as possible. We arrived to the bullring later in the afternoon (tumble weed passes, eagle screams, a whip cracks somewhere) when the sun was on its way down. We got the good seats (you've gotta be kidding me I'm in college, I aint got no dinero) up pretty far but still where we could see pretty good. We came with a huge group from our program, as it was a cultural activity for us. There are a few different phases of a bullfight starting with a picador. Picador's ride in on horses (the horses are actually blindfolded so they aren't frightened by the massive bulls) with long spears that have sharp tips on the top. (Mom quit reading now, you won't like it). The picadors take the long spear and stab the bull behind the neck two or three times, to get the show on the road. After that there are a few men that wave capotes (or capes) around to get the bulls attention and it's blood moving. After a while, then comes out the banderillas. Banderillas have spears on the end and hang on the side of the bull after they are stabbed into them. It's really artistic and dangerous for the banderillas to be put into the bull because they have to have the bull charge, jump out of the way and stab the bull properly. After that, the main attraction the matador comes out and gives his show. The matador does not immediately kill the bull but waves him on multiple times. Each bullfight was around 30 minutes or so, so the matador takes his time. After a while of ballerina like movements the matador gets his special sword. It's curved on the end so the matador when he lunges at the bull is able to curve it in properly. The matador gives the bull a nod runs after it and jumps, thrusting the sword in between its shoulder blades. If the matador is good, it should only take him one time. Unfortunately for us we were watching amateurs and it took them multiple times to get it right, which is very unprofessional and cruel. Afterwards they get two men with capes on either side of the bull, rotating waving flags, to get the bulls head moving right to left and getting the sword to do the most damage. The bull will fall eventually and a man will come out with a small knife (I liked to call it their prison shank) and stab the bull right behind the skull to kill it quickly. A professional should stab it and immediately it should be killed. Once again they sucked, honestly. It took multiple stabs and the Spaniards in the crowd were getting really hacked. We watched 5 bullfights and each one had its ups and downs. After the bull dies, they bring in decorated horses to drag it out of the stadium, to sell to local meat vendors to sell that night. Barbeque beef anyone?

I'll post a few pics: They could be graphic for some...

Paris! ya dig?

Sunday the three of us (I take that back Mere and JD woke up a bit before me to get breakfast goin) woke up around the same time and had a traditional French breakfast. Pancakes, Eggs and Yogurt. We're Amurican. We eat Amurican. I do like French toast tho (I do think it's funny you're supposed to sprinkle it with white powdered sugar...they must feed it to their army). Regardless of our breakfast endeavors we got all our gear and lunch packed up and hopped in the car (it felt great taking a road trip) to go to Paris! The ride to Paris is what you would expect in northern Ohio or the mid west minus big trucks, flat and lots of farm land. If you stared out the window for a while it was easy to forget where you were. We arrived in Paris around noon or so and got a parking spot and headed to go climbing. Shay and I used to climb ramsey all the time but it's been a while since then. Justin and Mere told me that they had come to the same place before but because they don't have anchors in the floor to strap Mere too (note: see weight difference between the two) she got catapulted when JD slipped. Needless to say they weren't able to climb much longer that day. JD has a bit of weight on me (we're pretty close in height though) but I was able to do just fine. The place we went to was called mur mur and it was under train tracks (no mom it's not a ghetto climbing place with bums). In paris they've got huge arches on their tracks and this company took 4 or 5 of the arches and closed them in and put 3 rooms of massive walls, a sauna, locker rooms, and a huge yoga room. I have to say I was a huge fan of the opportunity to go climbing in Paris. Although the French climbers had the french funk (thats code for saying they smell like trash day) we had a great time. We climbed for 4 hours and each got in as many climbs as we possibly could. By the end of the day our forearms felt like popeye (not the chicken fool, the cartoon that likes spinach). I did improve my skills as a climber though, I figured out what worked and didn't work which was great. We finished up the climbing and changed into our street clothes (it just sounds cooler than regular clothes) and decided to tour the city. We drove into the city and I first got to see their statue of liberty (the guy that delivered ours must have gotten the order wrong because theirs could fit in the pocket of ours). The Eiffel tower was easily noticeable in the distance, it was quite serene going into the city. Our first stop naturally was the Louvre. I had no idea what to expect, I've only seen the Louvre when Tom Hanks ran there in the Da' Vinci Code. It's massive. The outside is architecturally beautiful. The French do know how to treat themselves nicely. I'm sure you can guess what was the painting we went there for. That's right, the crooked smile creeper. The Mona Lisa. It felt weird actually seeing it, but the pictures I've seen in books seemed to get it exactly right. It was the exact same as the books actually, all we accomplished was the ability to say "I've seen that too grandma". Seriously though, it was pretty cool, she stares at you wherever you are. The Louvre looks like a pack rats house that loves paintings. It's crammed with stuff. I think it would take a year to really look at everything. My other favorite things were Egyptian artifacts and statues, those were real interesting to me. After the Louvre we booked it on over to the second thing I wanted to see, the Notre Dame. The sun was setting on the church, and it looked beautiful on the outside. Inside I'm not going to lie there was a service going on and it was creepy. I'm surprised the door to the church didn't open before my hand touched it like a horror film. It was dark and the pipe organs were playing minor key (I took music theory) very dark music. The priest was talking in monotone latin. It felt like nobody was really experiencing any sort of worship in there, just religiousness...On the bright side the stained glass window and the architecture was uncanny (I've been waiting to drop that word in my blog for a while). I was thoroughly impressed. I didn't get to see the hunchback ring the bells though, I was somewhat disappointed. Afterwards we headed out to the last item on my list of sights to see, the Eiffel tower. It was dark by this point, and on our way over it started to sparkle. Not in my eye, literally. Every hour it sparkles for 5 minutes. I think it was welcoming me to come check it out. The tower is massive. I am a huge fan of the architecture, it looks raw and beautiful at the same time. It's not decorated with plaster or glass, the metal itself creates the beauty. We snapped a few pictures stood in awe for a bit and headed out to dinner. Dinner tonight? traditional Sushi! I'll have to admit I've never been really exposed to much sushi, I have only been two or three times but it was a great and bittersweet ending to a unbelievable weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed the sushi (the portions we got were huge!) and the company wasn't too shabby either. Afterwards they dropped me off at the train station. They didn't know this but I may have had a minor heart attack after thinking that they dropped me off at a metro station rather than a train station. I walked down the wrong corridor and ended up in a metro rather than following the signs (lay off, they're french...I can read french toast, french fries and french bread. After that I'm lost.) to the train station. I met up with Eliza who took the journey with me to and from and we got our seats, departing for the short 18 hour journey home. Along the way we stopped in Cerbere where it was blizzarding. Not snowing. Like white out with snow flakes the size of birds. I've decided that hell froze over and they changed the name to Cerbere and forgot to tell tourists. I can say this because of the little scene we saw while hanging in the lobby. A man walks in with a dog (unleashed of course) with camo pants (not fatigues, like redneck camo) a camo vest and a communist tshirt of Che on under it. The dude had his own personal side kick that I believe was trying to help him take over the world. It made perfect sense that we were in Cerbere though. We arrived back on Monday afternoon around 3 and I may have just gone straight to sleep until the next day.

Pictures from Paris! (Me Climbing, JD and Mere gettin ready to climb, the tower, thats right, I gargoyled Paris as well, and our future communist leader of the world, I snuck a picture)

I have TON's of pictures and I'm trying to put them on facebook, but it's being funny with pictures at the moment.

Rapidness

Sunday the three of us (I take that back Mere and JD woke up a bit before me to get breakfast goin) woke up around the same time and had a traditional French breakfast. Pancakes, Eggs and Yogurt. We're Amurican. We eat Amurican. I do like French toast tho (I do think it's funny you're supposed to sprinkle it with white powdered sugar...they must feed it to their army). Regardless of our breakfast endeavors we got all our gear and lunch packed up and hopped in the car (it felt great taking a road trip) to go to Paris! The ride to Paris is what you would expect in northern Ohio or the mid west minus big trucks, flat and lots of farm land. If you stared out the window for a while it was easy to forget where you were. We arrived in Paris around noon or so and got a parking spot and headed to go climbing. Shay and I used to climb ramsey all the time but it's been a while since then. Justin and Mere told me that they had come to the same place before but because they don't have anchors in the floor to strap Mere too (note: see weight difference between the two) she got catapulted when JD slipped. Needless to say they weren't able to climb much longer that day. JD has a bit of weight on me (we're pretty close in height though) but I was able to do just fine. The place we went to was called mur mur and it was under train tracks (no mom it's not a ghetto climbing place with bums). In paris they've got huge arches on their tracks and this company took 4 or 5 of the arches and closed them in and put 3 rooms of massive walls, a sauna, locker rooms, and a huge yoga room. I have to say I was a huge fan of the opportunity to go climbing in Paris. Although the French climbers had the french funk (thats code for saying they smell like trash day) we had a great time. We climbed for 4 hours and each got in as many climbs as we possibly could. By the end of the day our forearms felt like popeye (not the chicken fool, the cartoon that likes spinach). I did improve my skills as a climber though, I figured out what worked and didn't work which was great. We finished up the climbing and changed into our street clothes (it just sounds cooler than regular clothes) and decided to tour the city. We drove into the city and I first got to see their statue of liberty (the guy that delivered ours must have gotten the order wrong because theirs could fit in the pocket of ours). The Eiffel tower was easily noticeable in the distance, it was quite serene going into the city. Our first stop naturally was the Louvre. I had no idea what to expect, I've only seen the Louvre when Tom Hanks ran there in the Da' Vinci Code. It's massive. The outside is architecturally beautiful. The French do know how to treat themselves nicely. I'm sure you can guess what was the painting we went there for. That's right, the crooked smile creeper. The Mona Lisa. It felt weird actually seeing it, but the pictures I've seen in books seemed to get it exactly right. It was the exact same as the books actually, all we accomplished was the ability to say "I've seen that too grandma". Seriously though, it was pretty cool, she stares at you wherever you are. The Louvre looks like a pack rats house that loves paintings. It's crammed with stuff. I think it would take a year to really look at everything. My other favorite things were Egyptian artifacts and statues, those were real interesting to me. After the Louvre we booked it on over to the second thing I wanted to see, the Notre Dame. The sun was setting on the church, and it looked beautiful on the outside. Inside I'm not going to lie there was a service going on and it was creepy. I'm surprised the door to the church didn't open before my hand touched it like a horror film. It was dark and the pipe organs were playing minor key (I took music theory) very dark music. The priest was talking in monotone latin. It felt like nobody was really experiencing any sort of worship in there, just religiousness...On the bright side the stained glass window and the architecture was uncanny (I've been waiting to drop that word in my blog for a while). I was thoroughly impressed. I didn't get to see the hunchback ring the bells though, I was somewhat disappointed. Afterwards we headed out to the last item on my list of sights to see, the Eiffel tower. It was dark by this point, and on our way over it started to sparkle. Not in my eye, literally. Every hour it sparkles for 5 minutes. I think it was welcoming me to come check it out. The tower is massive. I am a huge fan of the architecture, it looks raw and beautiful at the same time. It's not decorated with plaster or glass, the metal itself creates the beauty. We snapped a few pictures stood in awe for a bit and headed out to dinner. Dinner tonight? traditional Sushi! I'll have to admit I've never been really exposed to much sushi, I have only been two or three times but it was a great and bittersweet ending to a unbelievable weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed the sushi (the portions we got were huge!) and the company wasn't too shabby either. Afterwards they dropped me off at the train station. They didn't know this but I may have had a minor heart attack after thinking that they dropped me off at a metro station rather than a train station. I walked down the wrong corridor and ended up in a metro rather than following the signs (lay off, they're french...I can read french toast, french fries and french bread. After that I'm lost.) to the train station. I met up with Eliza who took the journey with me to and from and we got our seats, departing for the short 18 hour journey home. Along the way we stopped in Cerbere where it was blizzarding. Not snowing. Like white out with snow flakes the size of birds. I've decided that hell froze over and they changed the name to Cerbere and forgot to tell tourists. I can say this because of the little scene we saw while hanging in the lobby. A man walks in with a dog (unleashed of course) with camo pants (not fatigues, like redneck camo) a camo vest and a communist tshirt of Che on under it. The dude had his own personal side kick that I believe was trying to help him take over the world. It made perfect sense that we were in Cerbere though. We arrived back on Monday afternoon around 3 and I may have just gone straight to sleep until the next day.

I have TON's of pictures and I'm trying to put them on facebook, but it's being funny with pictures at the moment. So is blogspot for some reason. I've tried at least 10 times...I'll post them up later if i'm able

Saturday Orleans...It's gonna be a good day today Tater.

Saturday morning after a comfortable night at the Doellman hotel we all woke up and enjoyed a breakfast meal together. Afterwards we set out for Mr. Bricolage, a hardware store that the French guy told us would definitely have a bigger selection and more knowhow for our complex design (these people built the Eiffel tower and couldn't manage cutting a hole in a board?). We drove halfway across town to find out that Mr. Bricolage was actually a corporate office. Needless to say Mere and I were thrilled. On the other hand it's been a long time since I've ridden in a car and not seen a fare rising every second. We went around town to a few different shops, such as a KTM motorcross shop and talked to the guy there. By we I mean Mere and the man in charge were talking and I nodded and had Mere translate. He was thoroughly interested in the American motorsports culture which I can also say I am fairly interested in. Can I get a Tim Allen arh arh arh?! We went back to the apartment after being fooled by a freaking board twice. We had a nice lunch of leftover taters and roast and hung out in the apartment for a while. They had ESPN in English which was a nice break from the TV we don't receive here. We all relaxed for a while in anticipation for the basketball game that night. When it came game time we all rode out to Zenith (I'm pretty sure that's correct) and we dropped off JD at the players entrance (that's right. VIP.) Mere and I rode across the street to the local grocery store. Two side notes: Mere, while driving mentions she doesn't know all the traffic rules yet and also likes to think out loud. Needless to say I was happy I brought a change of clothes. (Relax mom, it's for dramatic effect). We went to the grocery store and picked up a few snacks for Sunday and shot back on over to the basketball arena. JD and Mere had been telling me before these games were nothing like college games, so I was skeptical. Upon arrival, I was stared, and by stared if the lady had lasers in her eyes I would have a hole in my chest. It got so bad I said something to Mere who gladly asked her if she needed something, very politely :-). After the game started we got our game faces on, and by game face everyone sits down during the entire game so we stood up and screamed like we were in the states. Why shouldn't I bring a little American pride to France? I think its my duty to bring as much American pride to France as I possibly can. We watched the game, proudly screaming for JD. The game was pretty stellar, with the exception of the ref's who made the game difficult to watch. We went into overtime and lost a heart breaker. Afterwards JD had a autograph signing to take care of and we watched him entertain little French kids. I on the other hand was dared to eat a snack, which I immediately regretted. Thanks Mere. It was disgusting. After the game we headed on back to the Doellman Hotel for Raclette. I may be American but that Raclette was amazing. It's basically a miniature grill with places that you can melt cheese. You mix the vegetables you grill with the cheese and meat and enjoy. We sat around the table enjoying raclette some French wine until 3 in the morning. I couldn't have asked for any more. Seriously.

Pics from the day: JD, JD, and the Zenith. Ballin up and Ballin out.

Friday Train Failure...

So after purchasing tickets for Paris by train, we left Thursday afternoon at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon. I had my picnic all packed up ready to roll and hopped on the train. Our plan of attack was to take a train up to Cerbere right on the French, Spanish border and then on up to Orleans. The trip from Valencia to Cerbere was 6 hours if I'm not mistaken which put us in around 7:30 or 8. Cerbere...let me describe this place. If you've ever seen the movie saw where the two guys are stuck in a horrible bathroom with nobody around, you've hit cerbere. In fact, lower the temperature 60 degrees around 20 degrees and you'll be close enough to the temperature. By this time we were somewhat hungry and decided to venture out into Cerbere to find some food. The only way out of the train station was a under a bridge where a group of bums had set up shop. So we decided that the muffins and chocolate I bought would do. We got on the next train which was actually a sleeper(ette) which means it's almost enough room to not get comfortable in. This train ride was fairly long and was going to put me in Orleans at 6:45. Along the way a group of French soldiers (yeah I googled it too, they do in fact have an army) got on the train in which I gladly told them "you're welcome". So after a full night of train riding, Orleans arrived. And then passed because I'm an idiot. I wrote down on a piece of paper the word Orlean and then showed it to a French lady that was standing at the door with me. She nodded yes and when the train stopped she waited in front of the door like an attendant needed to open it up or something. So I waited as well until the train started moving. So I hopped off, got yelled at by a French police officer and literally ran to jump back on the train. So I rode into Paris, had to hop on another train back to Orlean, adding another hour and a half of travel to put it to more than 18 hours on trains. Mere and Justin were eagerly waiting at the train station for me (round two waiting...) and we drove back over to their apartment. It felt so great to be around family. It was also an added bonus that Justin fixed me a huge plate of eggs with onion and peppers and I had cold milk. God bless America for having huge refrigerators of milk. After the meal, I took a short nap to re-group. We decided to tour Orleans, the downtown section in the afternoon. We stopped by the best bakery in town for some sweets (apparently the French have good bread and stuff...who would have thought). Justin had a practice so Mere and I walked on back to the apartment. I met a few of the other players in the complex and their wives and had a vision. There is a nice long divide between the apartments and while sitting on the porch I proposed a question...Why aren't there cornhole boards here? It's genius. We set our idea into motion and headed to the local hardware store. Europeans need a home depot, the place we went to had chickens in cages you could buy. The guy behind the counter at the "lumber" department was to say gently confused. He told us we have "big imaginations", which I guess he is technically right, who wouldn't want Hawaiian punch to come out of a water fountain in your house. We couldn't manage to get the proper boards cut but had the name of a new place, Mr Bricolage. It would be our mission tomorrow. For dinner we had a roast. By roast if you've ever seen the Flintstones, when Wilma brings Fred the house slab of meat it was basically like that. We had roast, mashed taters, delicious French wine and a salad. It was amazing. I have to comment over and over that Mere and Justin are the most hospitable people I've ever met. Day 1 was over but the fun was just beginning.

Friday Pictures: Mere in the den, French Sunset and Pastry domination.

Sunday, Not too much Sun today.

We woke up early (surprise!) and headed down to the magical breakfast forest to get some quick eats before we had to be all packed up. I headed back up to the room and took a shower. I forgot to mention the bathroom was amazing, the shower was as big as a walk in closet with a waterfall shower head. It had enough room that I could have coffee and shower without the two mixing. We got all packed up, headed down to the bus to embark on our not NASCAR worthy bus back to Valencia. The bus-ride was not very eventful honestly we were just exhausted from all the walking and way too much bus for one weekend.

There was a nice surprise when we got home though. The festival, fallas started. (Fay-yas for you yankees). The castle near by, torres de serano was a huge concert. They lit up the castle (don't worry I have pictures). We decided to get in front of the torres de serano so we could see the concert well. Shortly after we made our way through the dense crowd the concert ended and fallas started. We found out very quickly people were waiting all day for this to start and we basically merged into the front-ish of the crowd. Spanish people aren't tall, and I'm not small. I've never felt so awkward because I was blocking people's views. After the speach that started fallas they had a fireworks show. I've seen quite a few firework shows in my day (July 4th, yeehaw) but this one was pretty amazing. In fact probably the best I've seen (America...step up your game).

Pictures from Sunday:

Spanish Saturday - Barcelona Style

Saturday morning we headed down to breakfast to find Narnia. They had cold milk which gets me excited already, and freaking scrambled eggs. They had coffee as usual and good wholesome pastries. I'm a fan. After the breakfast we hopped on the bus (it's Saturday still you didn't miss a day, UGA en Espana got their real program planning choices not correct) and took a four our bus tour. It's fairly difficult to see if you're sitting on the aisle seat but we made a few quick stops. The first one we made was at the top of a large hill (it probably had a name but don't focus on the details) and were able to see the entire city of Barcelona down below. Although it was rainy and fairly foggy out, I could still respect the magestic city. In the distance you could see the Segrada Familia (an indian family pointed that out to me :-)) and the Med as well. After the view from the city we made our way to the parque Guell which I was more than excited about. Gaudi basically runs that cities architecture and had an entire park of amazing architecture. It had the house he lived in, and open areas to play and explore. We spent about an hour walking around the park looking at the different architecture, it was quite beautiful. After the park we headed to the Segrada Familia which was also on my list of have to see items. It's awesome to see. Seriously. I've seen it in textbooks since 8th grade and it's just as cool in person. We drove around it but weren't able to get out. It was still amazing from the bus. After the Segrada Familia we made our way back to Fresco (the pizza place!) to eat as much as we wanted once again. I was pretty psyched again. After the great food I discovered on the internet that the hotel had a spa. Three of us decided to take advantage and relax for an hour or two in the spa. It had a huge hot tub, a sauna and a steam room. We took advantage of all three (I made sure to drink lots of water mom) and our muscles felt so much better from walking around Europe for 2 months. After the spa we took a nice little siesta, went and got dinner at Subway (makes us feel comfortable) and went to a place called Oveja Negra (black sheep) to have a brew and made our way back to the hotel to call it a night!

Pictures from Saturday: (Parque Guell, Big Hill, Segrada Familia)

- Sean

Bus ride to Barcelona

Well it seems like it's been a bit of time since I've updated but school has been getting in the way of my travel. Friday after our Cine class (Cine pronounced See-neigh for all you southerners who want to pronounce it scene) we headed back to our dorm quickly to grab our stuff and grab a pic-nic and jump on the bus. As a car enthusiast I quickly realize the suspension on the bus isn't NASCAR approved (don't worry mom it was safe, UGA en Espana wouldn't allow us a bootleg bus) meaning it rocked back and forth side to side while driving in a linear fashion. I may be the only one to notice these things but just relax we had 4 hours on this bus. Traveling long distances isn't bad at all any more (recall summer drive from Ohio to Georgia 13 hours, one day) We stopped half way so we could stretch our legs, so I could grab some water to cure cotton mouth at an Auto Grill along the highway. European truck stops are so different than American ones and European truck drivers aren't as...well badass as American ones. They've got big rigs that are flat in front and look like they should be driving around Tokyo next to a Tuk Tuk. Regardless I went into Auto Grill and low and behold it became clear it was destiny for me to step foot in this less badass version of an American truck stop because they had one thing I've been looking for this entire trip: COLD chocolate milk. Regular milk thats cold is a serious rare commodity so imagine them deciding to cool down some hersheys milk, almost ludicris to think about. I picked up the bottle...Ice Cold. Needless to say the overpriced chocolate milk quickly ended up in my belly. I've never been happier.

As we got back on the road we made it to Barcelona in not record time, our bus breaking down in traffic along the way and us having to back out of a toll road (I think our driver may have picked a closed one, the genius he was) but alas we were in sweet Barcelona. We got out of the bus and quickly made our way into the hotel because of the horror stories of pick pocketers we had heard from all our professors. Our leader made his way to the front desk of the hotel and asked for all our room keys. The attendant at the desk made it known that UGA only paid half of the amount they were supposed to have paid for and our leader did not have a credit card. I'm not quite sure if it's just Europe or UGA en Espana that follows us like the plague.

Our rooms...were amazing. I'm not sure if I have told you or not but my room in Valencia smells. Not like a faint smell of garbage lingering in the distance, like bigfoot took a garbage shower hung cloves of garlic on his neck, took a sulphur shot and got sprayed by a skunk. Anywhere I travel I am immediately thankful for the short time my room smells clean. After thirty minutes or so, that smell decides that it also packed it's bags and wants to party too. I've been wondering where it comes from? My roommate Taylor also thought the room was pretty amazing!

Friday night, another great success happened, we went to an all you can eat pizza/pasta/salad bar. It was really fresh food, they had ice in their cups (rarity) and you could eat all you wanted.

Since we got there somewhat late all we could do was sit in our hotel and watch tv the rest of the night :-). We made our way to razzmatazz (one of the biggest discotecas I've ever seen, it was 5 different floors of enormous dance floors) to get our dance on.

Pictures from Friday : (Hotel Room, View from Hotel Room, Sweet Sculpture)

Sorry Yall

For those of yall (that's right, yall I'm American and from the South. It's a word, look it up. We had an argument in Mrs. Love's freshman honors (makes mama proud) class.) who continually read my blog, I sincerely apologize for the lack of updates I have, well updated. I have a midterm tomorrow (yeah mom I'm spending my time studying, not blogging) and will most likely be able to get around to updating tomorrow afternoon or perhaps Thursday. I can just say, you're in for a real treat (and it's not even halloween, how'd I pull that off?).

I have updates and pictures for: Barcelona and this past weekend for Orleans and Paris!

Make sure you check your computers hourly Wednesday and Thursday. You won't want to miss it. If you do miss it, you're still able to check it but it wont have that new fresh off the xerox warmth. It's your choice.

- Sean

Sparknotes: I'm busy. I'll update soon. Cripes.

Ripoff in Requena?

Satuday in Spain aint such a bad thing. Today we woke up and met in the lobby around 9:30 for a surprising adventure. With our program, basically everything is a mystery which is either fun or completely frustrating. Today was a bit of both. We took a city bus a half hour out to the Valencian bus station. We hopped on a bus and headed out to Requena. For those of you who demand geographic relations it's an hour west of Valencia, past the mountains. The bus ride out was beautiful, it was a sunny and clear day. Once we arrived we walked 20 minutes or so in what we found was almost a deserted city. We went to a Bodega called Covinas. We were told we were going to tour it, so I was expecting a vineyard and maybe some working machines but it basically turned out to be a few fancy sets of garage doors and a few barrels of wine and a few hundred wine bottles on a rack. It honestly wasn't too impressive. Their wine tasting area was pretty interesting on the other hand, although it did not have any sort of outside view. They quickly gave us a glass of blush, which wasn't my cup of tea. It was my first official wine tasting, and I'm not whining but they didn't have any freaking cheese. They had a choice of potato chips or pork rinds (not even flavored ones!). Our second glass was a vino tinto (spanish for red wine). It wasn't horrible, but wasn't my favorite. After our quick half hour tour of the Bodega we walked around the city and quickly found out that the caves were actually closed (hence the surprise on our trips seems to always happen). I was really looking forward to the caves because I was told that there were ancient writings and markings on there which sounded really interesting. Rather than visiting the caves we basically walked aimlessly around the city. Ryan and I made well of our time advancing our gargoyling careers. Ryan may have reached the pinnacle of his career with a daring high altitude church gargoyle. I'm in the prime of my gargoyling career now. We walked through an open air market into a left over Carnival festival. There was a group of Spaniards dressed like tourists and came up and gave us a hard time. What can I say, I look American. But if looking like a badass is wrong...I don't want to be right. As Dubya would say...Americuh. The trip back was pretty nice, we took a train through the mountains which was pretty nice. This coming up weekend, on the other hand, is Barcelona! I'm really excited to see this city, the architecture around it I've seen in books and on the internet looks really beautiful. I'll definitely have some good updates and pictures after the weekend. Pictures from Saturday (A barrel signed by the president of Spain, me wine tasting, the view in Requena and the weird carnival festival we ran into) - Sean