August 23rd, 2006
We arrived at the airport and took a taxi to our hostel.
The taxi van was cool. Kinda like the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo.
It had black lights and a soap bubble machine and 70´s tunes!

Checked in and stayed at our hostel. It had a cool atmosphere.
The girls went to bed and the boys stayed up a little longer. There was a local drunk that had an interest in Mutz. She was real drunk. She kept calling him "brown eyes". He tried to get out but I had him trapped him on one side. "Mary" was on his left. Joe has a pic. I will update it once I get that.
She ended up getting kicked out. But still, that was a good hour of entertainment.

August 24th, 2006
Drove to Kilarney. On our way, we stopped and checked out Blarney Castle.
Par tof this place is supposed to be haunted.

Caves are fun.

The castle.

The witches stone. Looks like a witch. Kinda looks like ______ (readers choice, you pick whoever.)

Sacrificial Altar with Mutz.

Sacrificial Altar with Jenn.

What the... Those aren´t squirrels.

Jess behind bars.

Mutz kissing the Blarney stone. It´s good luck.

Jess kissing the Blarney stone

We´re back in the car.

Weird. Everyone is driving on the left.

Birds everywhere.

Joe, Jenn, and me at some club late night. Mutz and Jess needed some alone time.

August 25th, 2006
Today, Mutz and I played golf while the rest of the crew checked out the Ring of Kerry. We had some drizzle but it was mostly dry for the most of the day.
There are nice views but it was cloudy, so views were limited.

As expected, I did awful.

Uhm, choke...

Mutz fell. I missed it too. but knowing that he fell made me happy.

Now, it´s beginning to clear.

Took a 20 minute ferry to make our journey quicker.

Yeah, we got stuck with a smaller car this time.

Tight quarters.

We got picked up and drove to Moher Cliffs. Here, we stayed at an hostel.
Last night, so we stocked up on beer.
Ate chinese food for dinner.
Stayed in playing cards and drank.

I´m done. Can´t take it anymore. I need rest.

August 26th, 2006
Drove a few minutes to Cliffs of Moher.
These were awesome.

Here´s the pics:

Like we needed a sign to show that.

That´s a long way down.

And that is officially it.

I then drove the crew to Shannon Airport. We said our goodbyes.
A huge thanks to Mutz, Jess, Joe, & Jenn for coming over to visit and travel with me. It´s been fun.

Now I am on my own again for about a couple of hours. I have another college buddy to visit. He lives in Dublin with his wife and son.

So I drove to Dublin and arrived at Andy Martins house.
There I met his wife, Carolyn, and son, Carl. (sorry, I know I misspeleld it.)

Andy and I went out and met some of his buddies. Did a mini-bar crawl. Just Guiness. Didn´t go to Temple Bar since that street is full of tourists.
Good times had.

August 27th, 2006
Today, I returned the rental car.

Andy and I then went to the center. Kinda tired of sightseeing. So we walked around and found this bar that wasn´t so packed to watch some Gaelic Soccer. Dublin vs Mayo.

It´s all about Guiness

The bar we picked happened to be "Temple Bar". A lot of people came by to take pictures.

Mayo pulled an upset and beat Dublin. Good game to watch.
Went back to Andy´s. He was afraid to play me in Beerdie and Madden. Next time.

Family shot.

At night, I finally made up my mind on ´what next´. Back to Spain it is.
Booked a flight to Madrid for tomorrow.

August 28th, 2006
Got an early afternoon flight to Madrid.

A huge thanks to Carolyn and Andy for letting me stay and more importantly, do laundry! That was much needed.

And this does it for Ireland. I threw out the idea of getting all the boys together for a golf outing here in the future. We shall see.

As for updating Spain. I´ll do it later in the week. Getting hungry.
Europe is coming to an end. I fly out in a couple of weeks to spend the rest of the year in Colombia. Can´t wait to buy new clothes and not live out of a backpack!

August 16th, 2006
Today is pretty much a full travel day.

The train ride from Nice, France to Genova, Italy was nice.

We arrived in Pegli. Right outside Genova. It was a hike up to our hotel.
This was great. They now know how it feels to walk around with a backpack and try to find a hostel/hotel in a different country. Not easy!

A 700 meter hike up to the hotel!

We walked down to the center and had dinner. Hands down. Italy has the best food I´ve tasted.

August 17th, 2006
We went into Genova. The day was cloudy, so no beach today.

Here, Mutz and I are posing as Supermen!

It´s cheaper to drink beer than a coca-cola! So why not!!

Some church. There´s churches everywhere.

Mutz and I, we´re up to no good.

At night, we hit the pool at the hotel. Here I am in mid air.

The hotel also had a small park and there was a cave inside of it. Pretty cool. Neither girl went into the cave. Must be a guy thing.

It´s all about the pool!!!

I´m up to no good here. Pretty sure Joe has a good pic of me getting Jenn & Jess. So, at this point, I was pretty drunk and decided to swim naked. Mutz dared me to go into the hotel restaurant naked and ask for more ice. I did it! I still can´t believe it did it!!! Later, I also played fuseball naked. Fun times!

A cool statue in the park of the hotel.

August 18th, 2006
We´re on our way to Cinque Terre. This is when things really start to become awesome!!! We arrived in Monterosso and hiked to Vernazza. There´s 5 villages you can hike thru but we only 2. Weak.

Here´s some pics of our hike.

Pretty nice.

And we´re on our way.

Lovebirds.

Group pic

We got to Varnazza and Mutz and I jumped off the pier. However, getting back on was difficult. We had to battle fierce waves. Got beat up by the waves. Mutz was crazy enough to do it again. I stayed behind to see how difficult it would be for home to get back up, and yeah, he had a difficult time. As you can see by this pic. The waves knocked him around a bit. He claims he was wrestling a sea monster but we all know better than that. Sea monsters only exist in the Pacific coast.

I got a battle wound too.

From a distance.

We went back to Monterosso and ate dinner.

Jenn and Joe. Yup, there´s always someone who is looking away.

We took an overnight train to Sorrento. Tight quarters. Another night of no sleep. I guess Mutz was able to sleep either.

August 19th, 2006
We arrived and dropped our stuff at the hostal. We then went to check out the Almafi coast.
We took a ferry. We all slept on the way.

Here´s some pics.

Jess and Mutz

Me

Jenn and Joe

We had a great dinner and actually took it easy tonight.

August 20th, 2006
Today we decided to stay an extra day near here. So we got rooms in Pompei.

After checking in, we checked out Pompei. Pretty cool. However, it is very hot!

Here´s the pics:

Jenn looks cold!

Joe and Mutz pretending to be gladiators. My money is on Joe, yet he doesn´t have a weapon.

suks to be this guy... Actually, all of them had a pretty bad death.

Afterwards, time for the pool!

We started doing a lot of dives. We started naming them. We were pretty original. Here´s some of them:
-guy walking into a pool without knowing
-the dog
-rolling log
-a mime doing his act and then getting pushed into the pool
-Superman
-John Glenn (I fell a couple of times trying this one)
-Full moon
-the flasher
-Deion Branch

And yet another fun night. We started playing a game which is bringing our level of immaturity to a new high. The movie "Waiting" gave us the idea. They play a game in that movie. So we started that. I ended up with 3 points, Mutz and Joe both with 2 points. I think this is enough of this topic.

Here, Mutz and I are up to no good once again. We climbed over the balcony to get to Jenn and Joes room. We had a surprise for anyone who was going to open the door!!

August 21st, 2006
Today, we went up Mt Versuvius. This is the volcano that took out Pompei.

Nice view.

The crater.

Here, we standing on the ledge of a 500,000 ft cliff. Really.

Everyone took a piece of the volcano home. Not I. If I did that, my backpack would be extremely heavy. It was an hour hike to the top of the crater. Well worth it.

Afterwards, we checked out and took a train to Rome.

Outside our hotel, we have a view of the Colosseum.

At night, we went out looking for a restaurant. We did pass by a Lamborghini Shop. It had 2 of them inside. Pretty sweet. We did the mistake of eating at a restaurant on this same street. $8 beer and $9 cokes, and $15 for a basket of bread. We learned our lesson. Fool us once, shame on us. Fool us twice, we´re running!

August 22nd, 2006

Happy Faces in our cappacinos!

A big fountain!

Kinda like Resevoir Dogs

The Vatican

The guards.

Inside the church.

This is the tomb of John St Paul.

This was pretty cool. We got here early to beat the crowds. However, next was the Sistine Chapel (which Muts claimed to be in Florence). The line was 3 blocks long. Yes, I´m serious. It´s all about standing in line in shifts.

We finally got in and had to go thru a series of rooms. One was a long corridor of maps.

We were not able to take pics of the Sistine Chapel. But yes, it was truly amazing. Glad we were able to see it.

We then wondered off to see a supposedly world wonder. It´s in a castle.

This is it!

Not sure what kind of pose Mutz is doing.

We got back to the hotel and ate dinner nearby.
We signed up for a pub crawl. Yup, this should be interesting.

We met up and received t-shirts. At each bar, we received a shot as well.

Here´s some pics. Obviously, I am not putting the good ones here. Trying to keep this website suitable for youngsters.

Yup, we´re all wearing white!

Lovebirds.

One place gave a shot of vodka for each beer you order. Rough!

Cool t-shirt.

That´s enough. We all got back to our rooms at separate times. Feel bad for Joe. He took Jenn back cuz she wasn´t feeling well and then couldn´t find the next bar. Which one of the staff said it was near a plaza, but there were many alleyways from that plaza and it was still a good 2 blocks away from the plaza.
I´ve done many pub crawls on this trip (and at home too). They are always fun!

August 23rd, 2006
Last day in Italy. We check out the Colosseum.

AWESOME!! A Gladiator had to win 7 fights to become free. Yeah, I know, piece of cake!

Here, you can see what was underneath the ground when the gladiators fought. This is where they kept animals that would jump out.

Yeah, he doesn´t look ridiculous.

So the wall was originally all around but due to earthquakes, a big portion of it fell.

I like the sky in this picture

You can see how much of the outer wall came down.

We then went back to the hotel. We have to catch a flight to Cork, Ireland.

I came across this guard dog.

So that was it. Italy was great. Good times. Need to go back to see Florence, Milan, Venice, etc, etc.

We got on our flight and now we´re heading back to Ireland!

August 13th, 2006
We arrived in Paris and made our way to the rooms. It rained all day.
Good thing too. We all need to relax.

Went out for dinner and Mutz and I got B52 shots. The waiter came by and asked us if we were ready. ? He gave us straws and then told one at a time to drink the shot while he poured 151 into it and he lit it as well. Pretty cool.
We did a flaming shot!!!

August 14th, 2006
First thing today was to visit the Louvre. Saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and a lot of other great paintings and artifacts.

Here´s random pics taken there.

The main entrance

Here´s Joe and Jenn. If you look closely, you can tell Joe is wearing a fannie pac. Just wanted to point that out.

Venus De Milo

Mutz posing as the statue.

This was one of Napoleons dining rooms. Pretty nice.

After a few hours, we headed over to Notre Dame. Pretty impressive. The line was real long to go up to the tower. Maybe tomorrow, we´ll try again.

Notre Dame

We then went and did some groceries. We also stocked up in beer and wine.

Here we are playing cards.

So Jenn and Jess went out to use the internet. Joe, Mutz, and I stayed and continued drinking. Cheap wine apparantly gets Mutz drunk pretty fast.
He ended up passing out. I took a couple of inappropriate pics here but Mutz later deleted them. WEAK! Just for the record, I got him with an @$$hat.

At night, we went and visited the Eiffel Tower. We got there late so we couldn´t go to the top. We´ll try again tomorrow. Pretty sure has a couple of pics of it lit up. I´ll add that when I get.

I had a little miscommunication with Mutz and he thought I was ditching them. So they left without me. However, I did have a map, so I was fine. Both of us took a long time to get to our rooms.

August 15th, 2006
Today, we started by checking out the catacombs.

Here´s Joe (doing the Incredible Hulk pose) with Jess

Here´s one of those "mini" cars.

Catacombs are here. But they are closed today.

So back to Notre Dame again. This time, we did indeed wait in line and got to the top.

Sweet!

A bell

Jess, Jenn, & Joe (with fannie pac, last time I´ll refer to the fannie pac)

Great views of the city from the top.

We then went to see this Gate.

Afterwards, we went over to the Eiffel Tower.

nice view

Joe, Jenn, Jess, & Mutz

Jess and Mutz

Yours truly

I like this pic. The sun is shining on the Eiffel Tower.

We went back to the room and made dinner. Yup, trying to show them a piece of my world. How I have been traveling for the last year. We finished all the booze we bought too. As expected.

August 16th, 2006
And this concludes Paris. We took a flight to Nice and then a train over to Genova, Italy.

August 11th, 2006
The boat arrived right on schedule. I thought I would have some hours, since my friends had to rent a car in Shannon and then drive over.
But they were there waiting for me.

Now, the fun begins. (Please note, I asked Joe to send me some of his pics, so I will have to include those when I can over the next week or so.)

Before I begin, I would like to apologize for any offensive material that comes out over the next 2 weeks.

Also, here´s a brief intro of the players:

Me: you already know me
Mutz: aka Brian, been buddies for sometime now, we both act extremely immature when together.
Jess: Mutz´ girlfriend, a traveler herself. She is supposedly be able to handle her booze. We shall see.
Jenn: Jess´friend, another traveler herself. 3rd grade teacher, so she is actually going to want to learn stuff on this trip.
Joe: Jenn´s boyfriend, drank a few times with him. Not sure how immature he is. We shall see.

As soon as I got in the car, everyone was complaining about my smelly backpack. They have no idea. We´ll see how theirs smells after this trip.

So we stopped by a nearby beach.

Mutz himself and pretty much the main target of any hazing I´m going to dish out over the next 2 weeks!

Went to a lighthouse. Saw some cool scenery. I also have no pics of the lighthouse. My bad.

Group picture: Joe, Jenn, Jess, Mutz, and myself

I love signs like these!!

Jess, Mutz, and Joe in some cave

After the lighthouse, we went to a castle.

This is where a scene of the movie "The Count of Monto Cristo" was filmed.

Mutz on some ledge.

We started making our way towards Waterford. We saw another castle and stopped in.

Another interesting sign.

We then came across a hedge maze. So we bet whoever finishes first gets 1 euro from each person. I ran as fast as I could thru this hedge maze hoping I´d find Mutz and then planning to completely take him out. I did not find him. I did however finish first. Everyone else went in the wrong way.

Jenn and Jess. They went back and went thru it correctly.

Cheater

Mutz and I then played Pitch & Putt while everyone else tried the maze again.
I ended up winning here.

We arrived at Waterford and stayed at the Best Western. We went out for dinner and then some drinks. They all had an overnight flight from Boston, so we´re all struggling. Good way to start their vacation.

August 12th, 2006
Got up and we started making our way to Dublin.
First stop is the Waterford Crystal factory. This was pretty cool. Apparently, I didn´t take any pictures. It was fun seeing all the very, very expensive crystal in there.

We then made our way.

Also, the roads here on the coast are narrow. And we are driving on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right hand side. So you have to use your left hand for the stick shift. Whoever drives pretty much gets hazed by the whole group. You´re either driving too fast, or you´re driving too slow. Tough crowd!!

We then made our way to another castle.
random pics

So we arrived in Dublin at night. We stayed at a hostel near Temple Bar.
We have a 7am flight so we have to leave around 5am from the hostel. I voted we pull an allnighter.

Group pic at the start of the night. Yes, we all look so innocent! (note, I am not in the pic)

So there were a lot of bachelorette parties going on.

Another group pic.

Joe and Mutz

This is around 3ish.

So we got back to the hostel around 4ish. Jess, Jenn, & Joe all decided to go to sleep. Note: Joe stopped drinking early so he could drive us to the airport. yes, he took one for the team. Now he has to deal with us for the next couple of hours.

Mutz and I stayed up playing pool.

We then grabbed our stuff. Apparantly, Jess fell down with her backpack and then couldn´t get up. I did not see this but Joe does have a pic. This will be inserted later.

In the car, Mutz was riding shotgun and had no idea on how to read a map.
I somehow got the directions and was very tempted in eating them.
Jess kept telling Joe to stop and ask someone (note, at 5am, there´s no one outside). At every intersection, Joe would ask "Which way", Mutz every time responded with "Left".
Jenn was in her own world. She might have fallen asleep.
I kept saying to look for a sign with a small plane.
Somehow, we did come across a sign and Joe got us safely to the airport.
Big props to Joe.

We checked in. I went ahead and sat down near the gate. Close enough that I would see the crew and they would see me. I ended up falling asleep.
when I awoke, I hear on the loudspeaker, "James Rey, please report to Gate G12". It took me 3 seconds to get there. I was in front of G10. One guy started yelling at me, "There´s 120 people waiting for you."
I walk on the plane and yup, they were all there laughing. That would have sukked if I missed the flight. We all pretty much slept on our way to Paris.
This concludes Irelnad for now.

August 7th, 2006
Woke up and took a ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki.

Then took a train to Hanko.

From here, I have to walk a couple of kilometers to the catch the ferry to Germany. A lady driving by gave me a ride. She has a summer house nearby and always gives backpackers a lift when she sees them. That was huge!!

Took a 9pm ferry to Rostock, Germany. I will arrive at 8pm.

Here´s my cabin

Here´s sunset

Spent a lot of time reading while I was on the ferry.

August 8th, 2006
Didn´t sleep much. I thought I would but I was wrong.
During the day, spent most of the day outside staring into the waters and reading a ´Sherlock Holmes´ book.

Here´s some random pics

Not sure if I´ll be able to make it to Ireland in time to meet up with my friends.
It´s gonna be real close!!!

Finally arrived at 8pm in Rostock, Germany. Took a local bus to the train station. I noticed a 9pm train to Berlin. It was 8:58pm.
I ran to the train and just made in time. Otherwise, I would have to spend the night in Rostock.

Arrived in Berlin around 11:30pm.

August 9th, 2006
Booked a 12:30am train to Paris.
It came 1 hour late.

Had to get off at Cologne and switch trains around 7am.

Got to Paris around 11am.

Right outside the station, I took this pic.

All of this equals "no sleep".

Booked the ferry from France to Ireland. Huge. I am going to make it in time.
Also found a hostel in Paris.

Had to go up 5 flights of stairs with my backpack. Miserable.
Went out for a walk and then it started raining.

August 10th, 2006
Took a train to Cherboug. Here, I had to wait 7 hours to take the ferry to Ireland. I did it though. This time, only got a seat. Yup, another night of no sleep. It´s part of the experience!!

Here´s some cool pics from the ferry. I spent most of the time outside.

Next 4 are of the sunset. You can see the sun in the distance.

Yup, my hair is a mess!!!

I like this pic

Didn´t sleep much. I arrive at 11:30am in Rosslare, Ireland. Mutz, Jess, Joe, and Jenn will be my travel companions for the next 2 weeks. They have no idea what they are in store for!!!

Hello everyone,

I am a few weeks behind on updating.

I had a few friends visit me and we traveled together for 2 weeks.
So that took a lot of time and I didn´t have time to update.
A lot happened in those 2 weeks. Talk about FUN!!!

I´ll try to ùpdate within a few days.

Currently in San Sebastian, Spain.

Hope all is well with everyone.
-James

August 3rd, 2006
Arrived at 9am in Tallinn and called Heikki.
We met up at his place at 11:30.

Heikki showed me around. Great to see him.
Talked about the good ol days. We have many stories.
Fun times.

We stopped by a russian bar and Heikki insisted on a shot.
Sambuca with tabasco. YUK!!!

We went out to a Russian restaurant with his wife and one of her friends.

Here we are!

August 4th, 2006
Today, Heikki had reservations in Parnu. A beach resort town.
So we took a bus to Parnu.

Real nice town.

August 5th, 2006
Went to the beach.

Went to the spa at the hotel. It's all about the sauna!!

The city built a new boardwalk which opened this year. Pretty sweet.

Checked out the local nightspots. Lots of fun.

August 6th, 2006
Took the bus back and we had lunch with some of Heikki's friends.
Then, we walked around town.

Russian church. They controlled this region for many years.

This concludes Estonia. Just did laundry and about to make my way to Ireland to meet up with some friends from home.

I really enjoyed Estonia. It helped that I had a college buddy here. Learned a lot about the history and culture here.

So I have visited 4 friends, Chagas in Rio, Joe in Tianjin, Marcel in Munich, and Heikki in Tallinn. There were 2 more, but I couldn't swing it. 1 in Korea and 1 in Turkey.
Maybe next trip.
As expected, I was well received at each place and tons of partying! Funny how we tried to party like we were in college and were in real tough shape the next day.

Thanks Heikki for having me over. Good times indeed!!

This week consists of me just traveling to get to Ireland in time to meet up with Mutz & Co.

August 1st, 2006

Arrived at Vilnuis around 9am. Checked into my hostel and took a much needed 3 hour nap.

July 26th, 2006
Arrived around 9pm. Took me 2 hours to get from the train station to the hostel.
Yup, slight language barrier.

July 23rd, 2006
Arrived late around 11pm.
Decided to stay in and get some rest.