Eventually we all settled down, weaved outselves into a contortionists
dream and went to sleep. About 4 in the morning, we were ripped out of
some kind of sleep as a conductor/train man walked in and not quite
shouted, but loudly exclaimed, "It is illegal to sleep!!". Because we were
jolted awake, we could make sense of nothing other than what was being told
to us...that it was illegal to sleep and we were sleeping so we needed to
stop. It took a couple seconds before we realized he was referring to
Bruce up on the luggage rack, and was trying to say it was illegal to sleep
up there. After the moments of confusion shared between us and the train
man, bruce climbed down, and the 5 of us attempted to share the cabin space
for the remaining 4 hours. Sleep did not come easy, but it didn't trail
our exhaustion by far, so we once again found ourselves in the utmost
uncomfortable positions, but slept nonetheless.

When we arrived in Marrakech that morning, we groggily alerted ourselves,
brushed our teeth, put all of our socks and shoes back on, and threw our
belongings back into our bags before jumping off the train into a newness.
We were off. Once again, we had no idea where to go, where we were
staying, what direction we should be heading in, but our normal 2-person
party had transformed into 5, so getting should have been that much easier.
In fact, it was quite easier becuase Bruce is a natural born leader person
who makes it quite easy for any other natural born leaders to take backseat
for a break. He, with the small map he had in his book and a 1.5 hour
stroll, led us to the city center where we found what we thought was the
tourist information center. Instead what he found us were two young
individuals who made it their personal duty to take us to the official
tourist information center. These particular two also decided the rest of
us must have been the scum of the earth, and gladly took only Bruce under
their wing. They barely spoke to us, and bruce being the golden child that
he is, went along between the two, while the remaining 4 of us sulkingly
trudged along like the unwanted stepchildren. Of course we laughed about
it the whole way, as we were glad not to have to make small talk that early
in the morning.

Once arriving there, we got what we needed, and headed off to find a
hostel. Morocco might have hostels, but what's the point in staying in one
when you can find actual hotels that are cheaper if not the same price. We
settled into a guesthouse hostel that had a rooftop view of the city around
us. And for the first time in nearly 3 months, I was once again squatting
over non-western toilets. Oh the flood of memories, the smiles, and the
joy that floods your senses as your positioned over a hole in the ground.
But in all fairness, the toilets in Morocco were quite clean, squatters or
not.

That night we decided to explore the huge market place not far from our
hotel, and were delighted to find the place bustling like mad. This, was
when it felt like we had stepped onto a movie set for Indiana Jones. Snake
charmers were there playing their music to piles of cobras that seemed to
sway to their commands. Of course when they stopped playing, what you had
was exactly that, a pile of snakes. gotta go. Next we walked across
trained monkeys whose owners were persuasive in getting you to take
pictures with them. Bruce and Marshall took part, while kim, richard, and
i were still keeping our eyes on whereabouts of the cobras. We walked
further into the markets to hear all sorts of trading going on, witnessing
the bright colors of all the clothing, food, jewelry, lamps, and hookas.
The merchants of Morocco are quite adminant, if not forceful, about the
goods they have in their shops that you just "simply must see. just look.
no buy. just look" I spent a lot of time explaning i could see just as
well from 20 feet as i could from 1 inch. One thing though, they are an
awfully smart group of people. Their ability to, at minimum, speak 3
languages if quite impressive. Their fluent in their arabic, their french,
and spanish. The majority of the shopkeepers can more than likely speak
business english too.

The markets are some of the most entertaining things I had participated in
on my trip around the world, and Morocco's markets ranked highly up there
in terms of "i could just stand here and look for hours at everything going
on around me" type of appeal. We spent another couple of hours looking at
performing groups, more animal charmers, fighting off beggars, and warding
off pickpockets. All in all, our first full day in Morocco not spent on a
train was quite amazing. We went back to our hotel, feasted on nutella and
flatbread for dessert, played more cards and went to sleep. The next
morning we were up and early walking around the city to kill time before we
would take a train up to fes, where we would eventually meet up with
marshall and bruce, since they had left on a 2 day safari that would take
them camping into the sahara desert. Kim, richard, and I enjoyed about 3
more coffees that day before we boarded that train, and enjoyed the 7 hour
journey to fes. I was excited to take a train that would allow us to see
the country, not to mention that there were only day trains to fes from
marrakech.

We arrived in Fes after dark, and were greeted by chilly winds. What the
hell, we're in africa. Marrakech was a bit chilly at night, but this was
outright cold. So we found some quick dinner at a stall that served us
potato balls on bread with hot sauce and ran back to our hotel to eat, play
cards, and mercilessly tease richard into tears. We decided an early night
would be best, so we could get up and really explore fes. We were happy to
have 2 full days ahead of us to explore, as we knew that Fes had a gigantic
medina (old city), filled with winding narrow passages and tunnels that
comes with a warning label: Do not attempt to wander the medina on your
own, as you will supposedly get lost. We decided to wait to do the medina
until the following day and instead walked around the more local areas,
getting our breakfast materials (nutella, flatbread, and bananas) in the
market, before wandering off to god knows where.

This is when we ran into a little friend named, ah who cares I can't even
remember his name at this point. But, he was a jack of all trades kind of
guy. At 18, he's your best friend, your tour guide, but seemingly wont
take anything for his troubles. We were buying handmade pipes from his
friend, when he asked if we wanted a tour guide. We had said we weren't
interested, but he showed us around some of the relatively local areas that
night. He took us to the bathhouses, but most shockingly, we managed to go
down into the "dungeon" type pit where sat a man in front of a huge
furnace. This mans job, for 20 hours a day, was to shovel sawdust into
this fire that was located about a foot away from, in order to keep the
water in the bathhouse warm. He made about 50 dhiram a day (the equivalent
of €5, or about $6.10) which he used to feet his 5 children.

After seeing all these things we realized we would have missed if our
tourguide hadn't taken us, we decided later on that we wouldn't mind paying
him instead of some old guy who might lead us astray. But strangely
enough, he said he didn't want any money, that he does it for free. None
of us are that stupid that we believe anything is for free, realized
something would be coming later, but as long as we made it clear what we
were and weren't willing to do, we didn't feel we were stuck. So we made
arrangements to meet him the next day at 1 pm, but when we walked out of
our hotel at about 11:30, there he stood. Yes, freaky. It was also our
last day in fes, as we needed to board the night train back to tangiers to
take the ferry in the morning. We did want to make sure that we did as
much as we could our last day here. The day quickly became exhausting for
me because our guide couldn't speak any english, but was fluent in spanish
and other languages. So I became to official go-between richard, kim, and
i, and this guy. He had also invited us to his house to meet his mother
and his brother, and because we couldn't say no, we continued on, although
each of us had some pretty serious reservations and fears about doing this.

Once we arrived, we felt pretty guilty for assuming all the things that
could have been happening, when we were in fact, just having dinner with a
family. We met some of his friends, and after some time, left for the
winding passages the medina warned of. We were taken through stalls, and
then the catch sank in. It was dawning on us as we were being pulled into
shops, that his end of the deal was met if we purchased stuff in these
shops. Because it's not like you had to promise to do this, of course we
looked as if we were interested, but never felt like we had to buy
anything.

Then he took us to the tannery, where I would experience one of the worst
smells of all time. This was the place where they tanned all sorts of
different hides and dried them to make leather goods such as purses,
wallets, and all those other infamous moroccan goods. The smell was that
of liquid death and a putrid sweet smell of rot. It hit us like the scummy
walls that made this place. It was a maze of huge vats of color, slimy
walls, and wet floors that housed puddles of god knows what. Every step we
took seemed to drag us through cess pools of unknown bacterias and dirt. I
had to keep from gagging several times. Finally we ascended to the roof of
the building, where the view was nothing less than spectacular. The white
and tan rooftops of moroccan homes, the colored pools of dye, the desert
beyond the rooftops, the mountains off to the right, an overall warm color
cast over the city by the sun's particular angle, and most amazingly, the
early rising moon that combated the sun for our undivided attention. The
means definately justified the end in this case.

After we left the tannery, the three of us were somewhat itching to get
back to our side of town, and had to almost politely ditch our guide. He
was angry at us, and we could see it, but we did keep up our end of the
deal. He showed us around, and richard bought something in the tannery.
Hey, we were only backpackers, what did he actually expect us to buy? "yes,
i'll take 3 of those camel saddles please, and wrap them well!"
so we headed back to our side of the town, as we had gotten word from
marshall and bruce that they had arrived into town, and we wanted to see
them before we had to get to the train station. We caught a bite to eat at
this little stand where the cook looked exactly like a mococcan version of
louis, the french cook from the little mermaid. he was so excited to have
us in his shop, so we sampled a ton of things they had, including their
homemade donuts. In this restaurant, we met two guys (eunis and sumo) who
offered to take us to dinner, but we declined saying we had to catch the
train that night. We went back to our hotel to spend the remainder of our
evening with marshall and bruce.

Eventually they became tired so we headed to the train station to embrace
our 2 hour wait. Once we arrived, we settled into a card game and all of a
sudden, we were interrupted a voice, "do you mind i join in?", and we look
up to see the two guys from the restaurant. They had come to the train
station to see us and hang out before we took off. So our 2 person (mine
and richard's) game of asshole became a 5 person (we twisted kims arm into
playing) intense head to head combat survival of the 52-card fittest.
Before long we met another person who hung around and ended up boarding the train with us.

Once we finally got on this train, it was 1:50 am. We were busted tired
from walking around all day, and sadly realized this was the beginning of a
travelling nightmare. We had 3 hours on the train to sleep, until we had
to switch trains in the middle of the night. It seemed so cruel, because
what chance of sleep do you actually have when you're paranoid you'll sleep
through something like that. This train was far from being comfortable as
I couldn't seem to maintain any source of warmth. I was so cold the whole
time, until we arrived at the station we were meant to switch at. I hadn't
known the meaning of cold until we arrived there. We had about 20 minutes
to wait until we could board the second train, and here i literally froze.
I sat on a chair with kim and richard looking at me like i was grossly
overreacting, but I was just so uncomfortably numb with chills.
Finally we got on the second train, and smiled when we realized it was
heated. These smiles of course lasted only about 2 seconds when we
realized there wasn't a single empty compartment. To make matters worse,
any compartment that did have people, they were spread out sleeping to
leave us no room to sit in. We had already given up hope trying to find
our own space, and after about 10 minutes of racing up and down the
corridors to find somewhere we could sit, stumbling with our bags, overcome
with exhaustion, cold, misplaced and just irritated at the situation, we
just chose one where a lone man was sleeping. Basically he would just have
to move over. We sat down, and passed out until we arrived in Tangiers
about 5 hours later. Once we got to tangiers, we had to haul ourselves
from the train station over to the port, to catch our ferry. We made that
ferry about literally 10 seconds. Once on board, we ate the last of our
bananas and flatbread, which both me and kim would regret about 10 minutes
later.

The ferry over didn't have the opportunity to haunt us with seasickness
becuase we had been so excited in going, but coming back, we were tired,
sleepy, and not in any state to be faring the seas. I knew I should have
gone outside in the air, but I just had no energy to go outside, and
instead found myself running to the bathroom, in hopes of making it in the
toilet first. I did make it to the bathroom, but missed the toilet by a
second, and instead threw up in the sink. Obviously I couldn't just leave
it there, so I had to manually throw my vomit away. hey, if i had to live
it, you have to at least read about it. When i walked out of the bathroom,
kim ran into it, and by the time she came out, both of us just looked at
each other and laughed one of those delirious types of laughs that only
comes about in a shared misery with someone you love so much. When we
finally arrived in Tarifa, spain, we had a 2.5 km walk back to our hostel
to get our bags and kill a few horus, before boarding a bus to sevilla.
Was this bloody travel stint ever going to end? But I had a reward for
myself.

We got our bags, brushed our teeth, washed our faces, and excitedly
discussed how we would take a shower once we had arrived in sevilla and
found somewhere to stay. The first real shower in over 5 days. We had a
quick one each in one of the hotels we stayed in, but with no hot water,
when i say quick, i mean about 15 seconds. But before I could rejoice in
the finality of this neverending day, we had a bus ride, walking around
another city aimlessly with heavy bags on, until we could find somewhere to
sleep. But the worst was over. we had gotten from morrocco, africa, to
spain, europe. So we got back to the bus station in Tarifa, and decided to
kill our time by a trip to the grocery store for food. By this time, both
kim and i were ready to do some serious fooding.

We left richard at the station, and when i say station, i should clarify.
What i mean is a roadway with a few bus huts surrounding it. We invested
in a huge baguette, a jar of tomato sauce, a jar of green olives, a raging
hunk of feta cheese, a 2 L of diet coke, and a bag of some imitation
cheetos that struck our fancy because they had boos and hooty-hoos (ghosts
and owls) on the package. Talk about good eating; we ate those ghetto
pizzas and drank that whole 2 L like it was noone's business. We still had
about an hour to kill, and i decided to indulge in what i had promised
myself hours and hours before hand. My guiding star, my motivational
factor had been the promise that since i had been nonstop cold and tired
for so long, dirty and unshowered, hungry and seasick, that once we arrived
back with our bags at the bus stop, I would lay out in the grass and sun
for whatever time I had left until we had to head onwards. And I did
exactly that. Only after some hidden bathroom tactics behind bushes or
course.

Finally our bus arrived, and we boarded to head to seville. When we
arrived in Seville, it was already dark, and once again we had no idea of
where to go. We sorted ourselves and found the city center. From this
point on, we lost in the battle of finding a hostel. Apparently seville
only has one hostel, and its way on the outskirts of town. We found out
that the smaller hotels were also around the same price as a hosteland
figured we'd much rather have our own hotel room than share in a dormitory,
and checked into the van gogh hotel. richard had a flight to still catch
that night, so he hung out with us until our goodbyes. When we arrived
back at our hotel, both me and kim knew that the most greatest reward would
still be to come. showers.

You have no idea, the serious joy a shower can bring when you haven't had
one in so long. When your clothes smell akin to the homeless man you
befriended, when your hair looks like an oil painting as kim's hidden mass
revealed when she removed her hankerchief, when your haven't been at an
appropriate body temperature for a week, when enough dust and dirt exists
on your skin that you look a healthy shade of tan, and your body is
starving for the sensation of hot water to regulate it's whackness, that's
when you love a shower like you love your mother. I waited to go second
becuase I love the torture of anticipation of a good thing. The look on
kim's face when she came out of the bathroom, only reminded me that I was
in for some good times.

I have never, in my life, had a shower more thrilling than this one. Not
only was the water pressure the most amazing thing, but the endless supply
of hot water, in a shower that was so clean, was too much. I just stood
there for ages, soaking in every ounce of warmth and freshness that I had
been craving. I washed my hair about 3 times, scrubbed my skin until I was
red as hell, and emerged feeling like I had shed 10 pounds of nast.
Standing in the small misted up bathroom, while I brushed my hair, i
recollected over the geographical accomplishments of the past 24 hours.
From Fes, to Tangiers, across the straights of Gibralter, to Tarifa, to
Seville, by 8 overnight hours in a train, 1 hour on a ferry, 2.5 km of
walking, another 3 hour bus ride and another hour of situating ourselves in
a new city, we were showered, clean and ready to sleep. We settled into
bed, laughed and joked at our self-inflicted misery, and welcomed the sleep
in two of the most comfortable beds in the history of the world.

Our next day was the only day we had in seville, as the following day, we
had an early morning flight to catch to barcelona. It didn't take us long
to realize that seville spain wasn't our type of city. Thank god we hadn't
sacrificed time in morocco to spend here. It's a beautiful city, with the
most amazing church I have ever seen in my life, but was too uppity and
higher class than any backpacker is really looking for. It's a vacation
spot for those who like to shop in real stores, see a beautiful churce, and
just stroll around feeling important. We enjoyed our time there, found a
fantastic family run little stall with some amazing spinach mix and dhal,
and ate our hearts out, until we just walked around more before calling it
a night. went to sleep, and the next morning woke up and boarded our
flight to barcelona.

It felt like we had done so much in spain already, and still had barcelona
to contend with. We had been told by everyone we had met, that barcelona
would rock us raw, and that it was such a fantastic city, that we were
quite excited to get there and spend our remaining days together partying
it up hardcore. That's the amazing thing about travelling, you always love
what you are doing, becuase it is so different than what you were just
doing. Everythings feels like a reward to the "chore" you just
completed...and i have to say..its not really a chore, now is it?
i really want to stop typing right now, but something inside tell me to
just keep on pushing through at least Spain, and then i can come back with
the rest of it. so fine, here we go. Barcelona!!!

We arrived into barcelona, and we felt refreshed and ready to go, new city,
new day, new itinerary for madness. Only to get from the airport outside
of barcelona, to the city center was a real pain in the ass. It took us
about an hour to do so, and its something that should and seems to be
pretty straightforward, but it wasn't. Once we finally arrived, we were
trying to get in touch with the guy that was putting us up as we didn't
want to just show up at his address with talking to him, but with no luck.
so we found an subway/internet cafe and decided to at least get ourselves
fed and sorted, and then we'd try his phone again before we'd just head to
his apartment. we arrived at his place, which he shared with a tattoo
parlour, and were told we could leave our stuff if we wanted. So we
ditched our heavy bags, and took off to just explore to waste time. When
we arrived back to his place, he still wasn't there, but we did meet
another girl he happened to be hosting, Amber from Canada. We ended up
hanging out with Amber for the next 3 days, until we decided to leave this
guys apartment for alternative housing.

His roomates weren't took keen on him having guests and instead of talking
to him about it, they instead took it out on us by giving us nasty looks
and talking to us as if we were retarded. Our first few days in barcelona
weren't what we were expecting..where was all the amazing times that were
meant to be had? where was the exciting life? cuase all we had found
ourselves in the middle of, was a non-welcoming apartment, with a host who
seemed more interested in pairing us off with his repulsive egotistical
friends. Once we found our new housing, we were quite happy, and the real
barcelona we were meant to experience seemed to find us. awesome
nightclubs, squat parties, random artists we befriended, fantastic food,
great dancing, amazing people, and just an all around great time, including
time to squeeze in harry potter and king kong, as well as the sightseeing
we did.

We ended up having a fantastic time, and although the first 3 days in
barcelona sucked bigtime, we lived our last three days like it was 6, so
the mission felt accomplished. But i would severely pay for that
accomplishment that morning we had to leave. With only 30 minutes of sleep
from the night before, we were meant to get to the airport, but of course
had such a problem doing that. It took us a little over an hour, with 5
changes in trains, each one taking us only one stop before we had to switch
again, so there was no time to rest. I was so tired, and could barely stay
awake, even though i was standing upright on these trains..we finally
arrived at the airport and checked in.

I had a good 45 minutes to sleep at our gate before we had to board. I
looked around and saw that there were plenty of available seats to sit in,
and i choose a section where i was alone, to just close my eyes, sleep for
whatever time i had, and just enjoy the peace, until some jerk decided to
literally throw himself into the chair directly next to me. He was so
violent in his actions that I was ripped out of sleep, quite to my
annoyance, and at this point had no patience and yelled something rude to
him, pointed to the vast amount of vacant seats all around us, and got up
and moved to the other side, served him with about 5 minutes of dirty
stares, and went back to sleep. We finally boarded and I was asleep before
the stewards even closed the door, and didn't wake up until our plane
touched the irish runways.

We had arrived, safely back in Ireland; the date was now December 20th. I
had one more day with kim before she headed back to the states, and another
week to experience my first christmas from home, and just rest up a bit,
before I was off to scotland for new years.

good times...

Arriving in Spain was like one of those moments where you didn't realize
who or where you are, until you are there. All of a sudden, a lot of
things started to feel like they were falling into place. When I had first
started to plan this trip, I hadn't originally put Spain on the list. I
just felt like I didn't have that big of an interest in going. Basically,
I grew up in South Florida. The amount of Spanish heritage, history, and
culture that we were surrounded with and had forced down our throats in
school, left me feeling like i'd "been there, done that".
I can't even begin to tell you how thankful I am that I didn't let those
ignorant thoughts linger for too long. When Kim mentioned she wanted to go
there, I figured what the hell, we'll go. Stepping off that plane and into
sunlight and warmth for the first time in 3 months did a hell of a lot more
than any soul could realize. I felt like for the first time I had heard
about my friends death, I was on vacation.

It took landing in another country, where the warmth, the sunlight, the
palm trees, the language, and the cultural differences left me feeling like
I was somewhere new, and therefore I could begin something new. I could
and would have to learn to carry on and embrace the newness that death
leaves you embarassingly craving. Spain was a newness, spain was
beautiful. You absolutely can't understand the diversity of Europe, until
you see Spain, the dark-haired child in a see of blonde. The diversity
within its borders allows you to feel like you're experiencing history as
well as history in the making. We arrived in Valencia and before even
heading into the city center, kim and I sat on some cement blocks absorbing
every ounce of warmth we could gather. After about 30 minutes of allowing
frozen brains to thaw out, we were ready to raid this place for everything
it had to offer.

We found a hostel where the staff were majorly awesome, and because we were the only two there at the moment, they gave us our own room. NO SHARING (and no im not selfish, but damn i love having my own room). Our room was painted an amazing deep red color, and the sunlight burned through the orange curtains casting an aura of warmth which just left us both feeling
so calm and collected. Does anyone get the idea of how cold we had been
beforehand? We had a balcony that overlooked a spanish style courtyard,
surrounded by small eateries and cafe's. I swear it looked exactly like
the courtyard from the movie L'auberge Espagnole they pranced through after
their long night out.

After about 3 days of not showering because the guy putting us up in
Amsterdam had too many camera parts lying around his house, we tore into
those showers faster than oprah into a bigmac. Warm, clean, and somewhere
new, I could have just died in that moment. We decided to just take this
day easy, and as the hours passed us by, more and more guests arrived into
the hostel. We quickly made friends with some of the funnest people we
would end up travelling with for the remainder of Spain. There was
Marshall and Bruce, the two canadians who were like the perfect married
couple, karen, the australian living in munich germany, but most
importantly, her younger brother Richard. Me and kim took such a liking to
Richard that for the rest of Spain, we tormented this guy by constantly
chanting his name, punching him, forcing him to let us give him his
diabetic shots, relentlessly teasing him, and to this day I won't ever be
able to explain why. Richard was a piece of clay, and kim and i were rabid
molders (we miss you richard and su gato).

valencia manages to capture the essence of what spain is about, fun,
relaxation, and more fun. They still practice siestas here, which I can
never take advantage of cause I just can't sleep during the day, but I
can't say I didn't appreciate it. Around 2 in the afternoon, business and
restaurants close up, the streets become a bit quieter, as everyone is
inside sleeping off the fun they had the night before. Imagine living in a
place where you could party all the time, have to get up the next day for
work, but are then allowed to sleep for about 3 hours in the middle of the
day to help balance the obvious inequality that fun>work. it's that
simple. The Valencians know how to honor thy math.

Our second day there was fantastically inappropriate. We decided we'd go
see the mediterranean ocean...great idea, beautiful ocean, fantastic stones
on the beach, but even better is the exhibitionist who just waits for you
to look at him before he exposes himself. I happened to be the lucky
winner of the visual prize. I turned around, turned back quickly and
fiercly warned kim not to turn around, to get our shit together, and lets
go. He might have been only an exhibitionist, but I wasn't taken any
chances since we were the only people, other than sir peeks-a-lot, on the
beach. We kept going, walked about a mile in the other direction, and cut
across to another area of the beach. By this point, the sun was bidding us
adieu so we waited around, and caught a night bus back to the city.
Beautiful!

We experienced the infamous paella dishes (minus the fish for us), and
fantastic cafe con leche's, nightclubs, valencian aqua (an alcoholic
beverage famous in valencia), but importantly, most importantly, my first
experience with someone with tourettes. Tourettes is an interesting thing
to witness, but tourettes in another language is just grand. We were
sitting in a bar/cafe indulging in another coffee and cake, and i hear
someone behind me going mental on the computer. Cursing, typing, another
curse, some silence, PUTAH, click click, putah, click type type click.
that's what I'm talking about.

I really love valencia, but realized it was time to go on as there was so
much more to see. Marshall and Bruce had extended an invitation to us to
join them in Morocco, and at first I kept thinking it would be a bit out of
reach for us to catch up with them since they were leaving before us, but
after a while, we decided what the hell, we'd do it. So we were to trail
them by a day through 2 more cities, before we'd go on to morocco together.

We bussed into Grenada, home of the infamous Alhambra museum. Home to tons of side streets filled with ethnic markets, great tea houses, bars which
practiced the ingenious idea of tapas, and and and the most fantastic
eatery on earth called the "Kebab King". I would cut someone's right arm
off for their vegetarian empenada. So much feta cheese, green olives,
tomatoes, and other edible awesomeness, that you'd puke from the mere
excitement. We fully took advantage of that place, especially since for the
total of 3 euros, you'd get one hell of a meal.

By this point, our group of 4 had turned into about 10, and we ran around
these streets of grenada enjoying the one thing people just dont take
advantage of, being young and indifferent. You want us to pay to visit
this church? then forget it, im not visiting it. You want me to wake up
early to do what? yeah, see ya. you want me to just be one hell of a
basic human who eat, sleeps, and breaths fun? Better hurry and catch up
with us! that's how we ran those streets in grenada.

Eventually, after full hearts, minds, and stomachs, we went on to tarifa.
Tarifa is a tiny, and i stress tiny, little town which is the most southern
point in spain. Tarifa is the wind-surfing capital and from it's shores,
you can see Africa. You might not understand the power of that statement.
But seriously, how can you just look over and see Africa? It's not like
oh, there's england, oh there's the other side of the lake, no..here lies
AFRICA, and more specifically, we were seeing the skylights of Morocco. We
were so excited to just get there...but understood that tarifa itself had
quite a bit to offer in its quaintness. So for the 3 days we were there,
we relaxed, dreamt of Morocco, and took a sidetrip to Gibralter. Who the
hell goes to Gibralter? K and J do.

so we boarded more local buses, headed to La Linea, Spain, and walked
across the border to the U.K. territory of Gibralter. All of a sudden
people were driving on the other side of the road, and euros were no longer
accepted. The rock of gibralter is one of those things you know and hear
about, but you dont think you are ever going to see it, let alone be on it.
So we just went about our day on this rock, enjoying what we could with
the hours we had before the last local bus was heading back to Tarifa. We
ended up at the most southern point where there is a huge mosque and a
lighthouse. From the lighthouse point, we could once again see Africa.
This time we got smart. We set the camera up with my MP3 player up to the
camera sound input, and did a crazy dance to toto's "africa", and jumped
around waving and pointing to the African coast. Yeah so what, we're
rediculous, but we love us. A bus driver motioned to us to come on, the
bus was leaving, but we begged him for one more minute of dance time, so he
gave in, watched us laughing as we finished our tribute to toto and to
africa.

We arrived back in Tarifa, met up with bruce and marshall and planned our
course of action for the next day. We were going to catch an early ferry
over to Tangiers, Morocco. From there, me, richard, and kim were meant to
stay in Tangiers and head on to Fes, before heading back to Spain.
Marshall and Bruce were going to head down to Marrakech, and then work
their way upwards back to Spain. So we packed small bags, and I stress
small. I had nothing but a couple changes of underwear, a t-shirt, a scarf
I could use for a multitude of things, and some toiletries, and a charger
for our MP3 players. The next morning we woke up excited as hell, we were
going to africa!!!

We caught the ferry over, our excitement overshadowing the sea sick
feelings that tried to push through. Arriving in Tangiers was quite an
experience. We got off the boat, walked through customs, and were on our
way. We had no idea where we were going, what to expect, where to stay,
and most importantly, where the hell to find some food. we were all
ravished with hunger. After about 2 hours of hanging around the beach
areas and harassed by hash selling mobs, we found a cafe which would serve,
what would become the first of BESTS, and i stress best, coffee I have ever
had in my life. Morocco holds the gold for coffee. Damn do they know how
to brew and serve a cup of that love. After about 2.3 minutes of
persuasion, richard, kim, and I decided to stay with Marshall and Bruce.

We had the freedom to go wherever, but a flight leaving from Sevilla Spain
on the 15th to Barcelona. And if we wanted to at least some of Sevilla, we
would want to get there by the 13th. The current date was the 8th. So we
figured the only we could fit in Marrakech, Fes, Tangiers, and Sevilla, was
a lot of travelling at night, so we wouldn't be wasting any daytime. This
equated to the fact that almost every other night was spent sleeping on a
train. we could do it, we were tough, entertained, and ready for adventure
which means ready to sacrifice comfort.

The 5 of us set off to see the streets of Tangiers, and ended up wandering
through a market in which everything and anything you could want to
purchase was available. We decided to stock up on food for dinner and our
train ride. We ended up with a kilogram of figs, a bag of green olives,
amazing flatbred, bottles and bottles of water, bags full of tangerines,
and a monster jar of nutella. could a group of travellers really need
anything else? After arriving in the train station, Richard realized his
wallet was missing, and we quickly forced him to just kiss it goodbye,
since there was no way on earth we would be able to find in a crowded
market, who would have taken it, it was more like who wouldn't be capable
of taking it from his backpocket. Due to the time change between Tarifa and
Tangiers, which we only came to find out before our train was supposed to
leave, we were in the train station for about 2.5 hours. This of course
was solved by eating until we wanted to puke, and playing endless games of
asshole and other various card games. Our train finally arrived, and we
boarded for what was to be a 12 hour journey to the southern regions of
Morocco, to Marrakech.

We were so filled with excitement that the obvious didn't come into our
realm of realization; with 5 of us, 2 of the males being taller than 6', we
were going to have some space issues in these small second class train
compartments. Our compromise? Bruce slept on the luggage rack, and the
remaining 4 played a 12 hour game of slumber twister. Not so fun. But
ever so worth it.

Of course before we ever even had the need to think about these realistic
problems, we spent more time harassing the hell out of each other before
bedtime. We played a game of "who has the highest blood sugar level" since
Richard had all the diabetic tools a group of 5 bored youngsters could
dream of. Bruce won and freaked out until we had to calm him down by
reminding him he did eat more oranges than anyone else, and he probably
just had more residue on the finger we pricked. I lost the worst, and even
after eating tons of figs and oranges, I was at the bottom of the "normal"
range. So I kind of freaked out, but realized, ah whatevs, im in the
Roccs!!

Allright, I gotta head out right now, but I promise to get the rest of Morocco updated, as well as the rest of Spain and then everything since then, christmas, new years, birthday, and the final countdown!

germany stole a little piece of my soul. I think there will be a piece of me that would always think I could go back and live here. So not only is germany cool, but crossing the german/polish border on halloween is probably the best thing that could happen to someone. basically anywhere for halloween is cool, but me and kim decided berlin won the honors of our halloween and so there we were.

We met up with a friend of mine who lives in Berlin and settled into her place quickly and decided the need to go out and find some type of costume was important. So for about 2-3 euros each, we found fantastical costumes.

we ended up at some scary/awesome bar/club/thing underneath a metro line. We semi-danced to music, semi-listened to a live band, and then semi-passed out because when it comes to berlin, there is one thing to remember. The people here know how to party. They dont start partying till about 2 am, and i dont think they ever really stop. We were long away from a schedule like this, but within 2 nights, we had ourselves up to par with the best of them. Rolling through the nights like bowling balls on speed, we were successfully elevated to temporary berliner status. yay. and seriously..berlin is the new york city of europe. no other city comes close. (i was not paid for this testimonial)

wait i talked about germany already didn't i? man i can't help it..i could just erase this..but NO..germany deserves two posts.

so where did i actually leave off? Leaving for Paris.

Pareeeeeeee. yeah whatever. Paris is a beautiful city that no matter how much of a nontourist you are, you will do tourist things here. It was probably the place where I did the most touristy things this whole trip..but how can you not? The whole city is dotted with beautiful walks, awesome museums, rivers, parks, and just a vibe of wanting to walk around becuase of how much there is to see.

We stayed with a friend of mine who was quite busy, but found the time to still come out with us when she could, and even took us along to her tae kwon do classes two nights out of the week we were there. So yes, i spent my time relearning my tae kwon do skills in french. Actually every time the teacher would talk to Kim or I, we would kind of look down at the carpet and wishing we could say "Je ne parle pas le français" but realizing our blank looks must have said enough. Silence is deafening. We enjoyed crepes, cheese platters, baguettes, people laughing at us, coffees, sparkly eiffel towers, crazy pigeon obsessed homies, blustery windy days, our first winter snow (while in the lourve), water fountains, windmills a la moulin rouge, the smallest cutest mouse I have EVER seen, and random other things a city like paris has to offer in plenty. We even celebrated thanksgiving in Paris and made dinner for my friend in her apartment...of course having a view of the eiffel tower from one of her windows did a lot to help ease the homesickness. Oh yeah..nothing helps to not miss home more than taking photos in front of "Paris Hilton". ew.

We were meant to leave paris a bit early to get to amsterdam, but the prices of transport there were a bit more than we wanted to pay, so we ended up carpooling with this person Franklin. We could only get a hold of franklins mother, and by the way she talked about her sweet baby boy, we figured frankline was probably a freshman in university. She talked about making food for him, how sweet he was, and it sounded as if she was looking to pair franklin off, but hey lady, we're only looking for a ride to amsterdam, calm down.

So the day of meeting up came around, and we waited on a street corner in a region that was technically out of the Parisian district, but yeah it's still paris. At the same corner as we were waiting, we realized another guy standing there was also waiting for frankie-poo. So we waited. and waited and waited. Finally Mike, the other guy, called franklins number and reached franklins mother..who alarmed us by telling us "franklin forgot his fruit!!!" and could we tell him. An hour and a half after out meeting point, we meet franklin. A middle aged man, or middle aged boy rather. A freak behind the wheel, who insisted the front seat passenger sat on plastic. Franklin even had his own coffee maker in the car. So we were off, on our 4-5 hour journey to amsterdam.

856 hours later, in a car that smelled like more farts than a nursing home that had bad broccoli soup for dinner, cramped spacing, annoying chatter, me and kim being educated becuase apprently the two dumb american girls need help from their older french peers, an alternate route that included driving through belgium becuase franklin just HAD to have his belgian chocolates, and mike preaching the word of a black man pushed down and rising up again, we arrived.

I pulled kim aside at this rest stop, and asked her what people would think driving past our car..."what a happy little family plus some black kid", "look at that deranged car next to us filled with vagrants", "dont stop wilbur, drive!!!"....who knows...but tired, cold, hungry, irritated, and trailing with the legacy of the secret farter, we left our happy little family and went to meet up with our amsterdam host.

At this point, because we had opted to ride with franklin instead of taking a bus/train to amsterdam, we had less than 2 days in amsterdam. So this meant one thing, no sleep..or as little as possible. We strolled around this city of canals, went to markets, hung out, went to museums, and just exhausted ourselves in the span of 40 something hours, in order to get the most out of this city.

We managed to find these amazing coats (cian dont kill me, its in the name of being chronologically correct) for 5 € each, but we wont discuss how two of us left that market with coats, but only one would return to the U.S. still coated. All I have to say is, I'm still warm in Europe with my coat, and kim...well naked kim is freezing in the U.S. through her tear stained face. I guess I can't speak too early, since I'm not in the US yet, and there are still 47 days left for me to lose it.

Upon leaving Amsterdam, we flew over france, further southward to Spain. I hadn't even really considered going to spain..hey im from south florida..what do i need to go to spain for...but I am so glad I was persuaded out of my ignorant mindset by kim to head there. Spain just seemed like this place my 8th grade spanish teacher would go on and on and on and on about for too long, that I just didn't really care. Because we had spent the last week and a half in cold paris, and really cold amsterdam, when we stepped off the plane in Valencia, I looked at Kim and just said "ohmigod i love spain". It wasn't that it was particulary roasting hot, but it was the most warmth I had felt in three months.

We arrived somewhere in the city by the airport bus, and once we stumbled off of it, exhausted from the lack of sleep and cold hours in amsterdam, i dropped my bags right there and refused to go any further. It would be the second time in a year that I understood the necessity of warmth and sunlight. I sat on this piece of concrete, looked at her, and asked if we could please just wait 10 minutes to just feel that warmth before we attempted to situate and find a hostel. I didn't have to twist her arm twice.

while sitting there, we also discussed our travel plans in spain..which were meant to be valencia, up through to madrid, then san sebastian, bilbao region, then into barcelona. I took one look at that shining sun and new I would not want to go back north. I danced around the idea of maybe skipping madrid and when i realized she didn't really care to go there either, we both decided we were only doing one thing..skirting the southern coast of spain to stay as close to the warmth as possible..with the exception of Barcelona, because you can't go to spain and skip barcelona, and because our flight out of spain was from barcelona. So it was decided. We would stay close to the meditteranean, dance around the south and manage to make our way back to Barcelona, all in three weeks.

Okay well, it's not that I don't want to go into some inane detailed description of Spain, but it's that I just don't want to sit behind a computer right now. So digest this, and I'll post all about the amazing spain, christmas in ireland, new years in scotland, and how I am now winding down the remainder of my days here in Ireland before I pass through London for one last week of awesomness, and then homeward!

and so now you have it, new pickies, european pickies, and i should have done this 88.42 years ago, but i haven't. so here we are. true superstars. allover. morroco, paris, barcelona, dublin, china, scotland...everywhere. its the randomness of awesome.

Newbies

Yes I promised I would eventually do this, and I will put more up from each country I have already visited, but for now, just get over this shit, and deal.
And now presenting...

Australia

Japan

more to come soon!!!

STUPID FRIENDS. STUPID FAMILY. STUPID FUN. man, i hate fun.

so, jolly old 2006.

you know what that means to me? it means 2005 is over. as michelle tanner would say "politeness week is ovuh"..but what would michelle tanner know..she's too busy playing bulimia with her diamond encrusted versace toilet bowl...well half of michelle tanner anyway...but yeah.

2005 happened in an instantaneous moment for me. It was a solitary moment, in a dream that became a reality. and since my last post, there has been a ton going on. There have been several countries visited, some suprise vists to others, hello and goodbyes, some amazing movies, great celebrations, and now this, a birthday! yes, this girl hits the big 1/4 millenium in 4 days. how strange it is to think of me being 25...me?! oh yes me. but it seems im not the only one going through the changes.

You hear most people tell you how nothing really changes when you go away..that you get back and everyone and everything is the same when you return..but i think my life might have been the exception to the rule. I turn my back for one little year, and people are pregnant, married, engaged, became parents, moved to new residences in new states..jeesh..im going to back to some alternate version of my life, like marty did in back to the future II...when he accidently returned to a parallel tangent of his original 1985. but i suppose im going to come back jordanna version 2.0 beta (or have i been upgraded to 2.1 matt?)..but yes i'm still in testing.

And although my trip is not over (I have 49 days left), it is fast closing down, because I am closing down. And by that, I mean I have almost hung up my rucksack for good. Instead of squeezing in one more country, I have decided to settle in Ireland for the remainder of my trip, spending the time with family. Of course I'll spend my last week in london visiting friends and making it one last bash of fun before i head home, but my days of travelling have begun to wind down.

I have a drawer in my aunts house where I put my clothes. And everytime I fold a shirt and put it in there, or take one out to put on, I can't help but smile at how luxurious it feels to be able to do exactly that. No rummaging around a bag, and executing a sniff test to see if I can get away with a couple more wears out of something before I'm thrown into a dumpster with the rest of the garbage.

Gone are the days of sharing a dorm room with rude jerks who think its okay to turn the light on at 4 am because their parents never beat them into learning their non-existent manners. Gone are the days of eating butter sandwhiches on the sidewalk of some closing convienence store at 2 am, while a 10 degree wind batters my tear stained face. Goodbye to showers at 3 am which are so cold, you begin to hyperventilate just to breath, but you dont complain becuase it might have been the first shower you've had in 3 days. And so long are the days where you pay 2 € for a shitty banana becuase your train is about to pull away from the platform and you haven't eaten anything all day.

Hello are the days of endless supplies of q-tips, hot cups of tea, clean towels, fresh sheets, free internet, showers without flip-flops, the knowledge that there will ALWAYS be toilet paper, books to read OTHER than the apparent greatest story ever (baby j rocks it raw) and all sorts of other amazing luxuries. One of the best being whole wheat pita, which just doesn't tend to exist on the other side of the world.

But I'm coming home soon. February 28th, 2006. I land in miami international airport, and soon after sucking in jet fumes and the stale pungent smell of the worlds most cadbury's purple airport (MIA baby), im off to collect my rucksack for the last time in some time, off of carosel of worldly baggages. (You know i've always wanted to jump on one of those, and go through the forbidden flaps to see where it takes you.)

Then I'll walk out those tinted sliding doors (that's if I make it through customs without being caught for something I didn't know about), and see my dad for the first time in a year. I CAN'T WAIT (and if he knows what's good for him, he'll bring the dogs too). I know my mom is going to have the best dinner waiting for me when I walk into the house. she better. (by the way, this is in no way a warning, it's an actual threat).

So I'm off to describe and articulate what my last months of travel have brought to me, in detail, so you can all realize how great travelling is, save your money and go somewhere you've always wanted to. And who knows, ill probably be itching so bad to get back on the road, ill join you.

you know i'll be up and writing again in another 49 days, as the official close to this adventure. so..see you soon (FOR REAL!)

I know that I have been majorly out of touch recently. It's been almost
a month and a half and there has been no update. I must confess that
there was an incident, which prohibited me from just updating and
mouthing off about this journey as if nothing had happened. A friend of
mine decided to take his own life. It's not like anyone can ever be
prepared for something like that, but it was such an immense shock. It
didn't feel right to just prance through these words with such
lightheartedness. It's hard to see the rest of the world going about
their business as if nothing happened, and then the harsh reality sets
in. To them, nothing did happen. Then in a blink of an eye, the same
idea that felt so cold, suddenly shows you that the sun still rises and
sets no matter what's happening. And as the days and seasons go on,
you must do the same. I miss him but also know he believes in me. I
don't mean to put such a somber mood so early on in this post, but I
also feel that this is honesty. This is the reality of life. This only
emphasizes that I'm living the same life you are all living, just
somewhere different. I am still confronted with the realities of pain.
Yes, I see the sunny beaches, and lay under the palm trees, eat the
random exotic food, take in magnificent views, but the realities are all
there. So, it became necessary to just explain this to you, before I
could go on any further. I'm doing well, great, badly, whatever it is,
I'm doing it.

Europe. The amount of ideas that that single word conjures up in a
travel-hungry individual can seem endless. One might think of castles,
history, wars, languages, museums, cathedrals and endless churches...but
you might not necessarily think of the freaks. "Freaks!", she says?
"Freaks!", I say. And I don't mean us. One main thing I'd like to
point out, is that me and kim basically have this magnetic pull that
attracts the wierdest of the weirds. Don't ask us why, don't ask us
how, but it just happens. The gravitational pull between us and these
loonbots must be so strong, that the second we arrive into their city
they begin convulsing at the idea the "the mother ship has landed".

As of October 1st, I arrived into Dublin, after 32 hours of consecutive
travelling. It started at 7 pm in Hong Kong and just never seemed to
end. It was only then I found out about the layover in Bangkok, which
provided me with a "Harry Potter invisibility cloak" type experience.
We didn't have to get off the plane, but we had to wait for about an
hour while the plane was cleaned. We know the planes get cleaned, we
know someone does it, but we never see it. And it was as if they never
saw us. They went in and around us, cleaning and doing their business,
and it was like we were invisible to them. In fact, it felt like I was
sneaking into something I shouldn't have been. No problems involved.

They finished vacuuming, tidying up, and went on their way. And I
attempted to sleep, even though the man next to me felt it necessay to
take part of my seat. waah. Onwards to Dubai where I slept in the tiled
corner of an airport with my alarm set in my hand (I didn't want another
south pacific close call). Then to London.

I arrived in London and nearly began crying when I realized I was out of
China. How could I be out of there already? 9 weeks felt like enough,
but I just wanted more. 5 hours later, I was Ireland bound.
Those first few days, I just couldn't leave the house. I wasn't ready
to re-enter the world of western lifestyle. I just didn't want to do
anything but lay there, which is exactly what I did. It's the type of
thing you can only really experience in comfortable familiar settings,
which my aunts house graciously provided. I slept, I read, I slept, I
watched movies, and I slept. Finally 4 days later, I was ready to
venture outside the front door.

One of our stops included a grocery store. I can not even begin to
describe how strange it felt to be standing in such a huge building,
filled with all the food you missed, and had wanted for so long, but got
used to doing without. I just stood there almost speechless. How could
it be this easy to just grab what you wanted and have it? There were no
hassles involved other than having to pay for the stuff. Cheese! all
types of fruits and vegetables! CORN FLAKES!!

The next day, one of my life partners-in-crime arrived to join me for
the next three months. Kim. I'm sure somewhere in this world, the
letters "k", "i", and "m" join in some order to mean "bad idea- freak
attack - danger - trouble - highly explosive - fun times - half the
blame - destroyer" but I was ready to turn this one-man show into a duo.
We spent those first two days attacking travel books and internet
resouces to figure out where our first stop would be. It became such a
stressful job we decided to have a night out on the town. What this
turned into, was us being invited to a freak-show of a club where we saw
a legless individual grinding on the floor, a couple drunk girls with
whom we realized it wasn't the alcohol that could be blamed for their
behavior, and a lithuanian girl who quite fancied kim. We were out of
there in no time, and attempted to grab a night bus back to my aunts
house. This of course should have gone on smoothly, except for the old
man who found it necessary to explain how his father bombed all the
buildings across the street, while his withered sun-spotted claws
tightened around my arm with a rigamortis like grip I couldn't shake
off. Yikes. We arrived home, and said we'd never discuss this random
situation. How were we to know that this pretty much set the theme of
our trip so far. Freaks.

The next day was back to planning where we would head to and then we
soon realized that there would be only one thing that could dictate the
path two floridians would take in europe. The weather. It seemed
logical to hit the east first. So we booked our ticket into Austria.
We didn't actually spend as much time in Austria as we wanted to, but
becuase we hadn't really planned on coming here to begin with, we took
in what we could. We spent a few days in Vienna and attempted to take a
train or bus to salzburg only to find out the go once a week. We didn't
have a week to wait around so we packed our bags and left for the bus
station to just go onwards to the Czech Republic. This also proved to
be a problem. Apparently, no buses left for the Czech Republic for
another two days and here we were with our packs on our backs and just
ready to go. So we glanced through this bus schedule that was all in
german, managed to decipher how to read it, and headed onto one of our
only options, Slovakia.

How much did I actually know about the place? More than the
jerk-new-zealand-minister-freak wanted to give us credit for, but that's
a whole other story. The 1.5 bus ride from Vienna to Bratislava went
quite quickly, and after arriving at what we thoguht was the bus
station, we jumped off ready to start this new territory. We soon
realized this was a tram stop, and there would be no further buses into
the city center. Luckily after some dicussion, we realized it wasn't
too far of a walk, and we took off to find the hostel of choice. We
found ourselves sharing a room with two really nice guys (one Australian
and one English) who were also travelling together. We spent the next
two days just walking around and absorbing Slovakian culture. Bratislava
was a beautiful place, and quite small, so we were able to take in quite
a lot, in a short amount of time. Our next stop would be a city called
Brno, in the Czech Republic.

This was also a bust, basically because every place we could find that
did offer accomodation was booked. So we jumped back onto the bus, and
headed for Prague. No more fooling around, we were back on track.
Because of the mishap in Brno, we arrived into Prague quite late and
were just aching to find somewhere to throw our crap, and grab some
food. Only because it was a weeknight, there weren't too many places
near us that were open to eat. What essentially happened was as
follows. We finally found a small convienence store after wondering
around in the cold for 1.5 hours. I bought what i thought was a cheese
sandwhich. It turned out to be that thickly packed with butter and
mayonaise. Wow, I'll have a butter and mayonaise sandwhich please.
barf. I had to wipe it off with the packing and slap that junk onto the
ground. There we sat, like two orphaned children, eating crappy
sandwhiches on the street corner at 2 am in the cold. And without
sarcasm, I seriously love travelling. That night our hostel was one of
the worst I would stay in, and came to the quick realization that most
of the hostels in europe, are pretty annoying. They seem to be more
like playgrounds and zoos, rather than accomodation. We have been lucky
with a few here and there, but more lucky for meeting up with friends
and other people who offered us their housing for accomodation. I am so
through with hostels, it's unbelievable.

We met a really nice guy in Prague who offered us free accomodation at
the hostel he was working at. He also showed us around the city quite a
bit, and gave us some cool tips on stuff to do, for little to no money.
This included seeing Swan Lake for about the equivalent of 1 us dollar.
sure we had standing seats, but we're still at the age we can get away
with squatting and sitting on carpet and not looking like vagabonds. So
there we sat on this fancy carpet, eating pizza and pavlova that we hid
in our bags, watching ballerinas twirl around like tops on speed. So
cool. Of course no city is complete without its wierdo attack, so when
Mr. Bucharest Freakfest decided it was necessary to tell me how ugly I
looked when I cried, and about how he loves to date american women, I
didn't know what to think. This guy went into a detailed story about a
particular women he had been internet dating. After 3 years of talking,
he had her come to Romania since he coudln't get an US visa. Upon
seeing how she physically looked, he decided that he coudln't "mate"
with her, and that was it between them. This was the same guy who
talked about building houses for less fortunate people, and about doing
good for others in life, since jesus and god were the ultimates. I'm
not sure which was more screwed up, his flowery female bikini bottom
underwear or his morals, but after insisting we take his remaining
bananas, he rolled over and went to sleep. This was of course after
inquiring whether or not we were married, and had we even been married.
yeaaah.

The guy that was taking care of us mentioned he knew of a car that was
heading to this small town 3 hours south of prague, and would we like to
go with them? So two days later, we found ourselves on our way to Cesky
Krumlov. It is this scenerific town, which just seems like a really
untouched gem. It's not quite at the point where tons of people visit
it, so you can really get this feel of being lost in the middle of
Europe. We met two guys who were filming a movie about how they
intended to go there for a couple days, and ended up staying 4 years. 4
years! I could see how the beauty and smallness of this town was enough
to keep anyone there. It had the most fantastic tea house I have ever
been to in my life. Of course what made it so fantastic was the amazing
tea, and the 32-foot tall employee who began chanting the word "chai" so
loud, we weren't sure if it was part of his "chai-making" ritual, or if
we should have grabbed our stuff and run out of there. Good stuff my
friends. We stuck around in Cesky Krumlov for a couple days and headed
back to prague, since it was our base city. More days of visiting just
existing in another culture, and visiting torture museums and castles,
we knew our time had come to head towards Poland.

Our last day in the czech republic, we woke up and headed to a small
town about 30 minutes away from prague named Kutna Hora. The whole
reasoning in visiting this place was because of this chapel crypt we had
heard of, which was constructed with bones. We had imagined a huge
church built by strictly bones. I must say I was a slight bit
dissapointed to find out the church was only decorated with bones. I
had built this huge church in my head with tons of skulls and femurs
poking out everywhere. But when I say decorated, it wasn't like a bone
was just thrown in the corner. Huge chandeliers, coats of arms, and
garlands were constructed using the skulls and bones from 40,000 people
who died during the plague. How strangely cool is this?? After much
confusion and wrong bus times, we made it back to prague on time for
our night train.

We planned on arriving at the polish border, physically walking across
it, then jumping on a bus towards krakow, i.e. Poland. It sounds simple
enough, and by the way people described it to us, it should have been.
But we now wonder did these people ever attempt to do this on their own,
or did they pass the words around as much as the warnings of train
gassings gets so freely distributed? So there we were at the prague
train station, excited to continue on to poland, but really hesitant
about these trains. We had heard that the routes between Prague and
Krakow are frequently gassed, so that when you wake up, all of your
stuff is stolen. But it turns out we actually know someone this
happened to. So we were kind of nervous and constantly had this idea in
the back of our mind. We boarded the train and did our best to find a
carraige to ourselves, but no such luck. Our choices were the
cheesy-feet-smelling carraige filled with scary bikers whose leathered
faces resembled that of their clothing choice, or the carraige with
colonel mustard and the professor. we figured we could fight the clue
characters easier than the hells angels so we opted for the latter. We
settled into disturbed sleeps, waking up every 20 minutes or so to make
sure the other was still alive and still owned shoes.

Once we finally arrived to the border, we stumbled off the train, still
desperate for sleep. We were so tired, physically and mentally
exhausted, and slightly dissapointed we didn't actually get gassed.
Talk about anti-climatic! We began to ask which was the way to Poland,
since we knew the border was right around us, and yet no one could tell
us. P-O-L-A-N-D please?? yeah that was a no go. One guy pointed us
what turned out to be the wrong direction. After a small rest, we
headed on what we determined to be the direction to freedom. Both kim
and I were just wrecked at this point. We began nearing a street when
she stopped dead in her tracks. She had heard a ticking noise which
seemed to be getting louder and faster. Before I knew what was going
on, she had thrown her bags off, and began backing away with this look
on her face that no words could describe. She looked so terrified that
I began to freak out asking her what happened and where the hell did she
think she was going? she said she was sure there was a bomb in her bag,
and asked if I could hear the ticking. I stopped, listened, heard some
ticking and attempted to piece together what was going on..In a state of
my own confusion, fear, and then at last clarity...I suddenly looked at
her said "please tell me you're not taking about the crosswalk
noise"....

yeah..she was. we were so tired, so hungry, so cold, so worn out, and
still had all these ideas of gassings and being robbed on the train,
that our subconcious overruled and took over. We laughed so hard once
we realized what it was, and began walkin onwards. Kim suddenly turned
around and said to me "we don't talk about this to anyone!". Yeah
right, this might be one of the funniest experiences i've had to date.
READ IT KIM! read it, and relive it! we found the border, walked
across, and began our polish adventure. We jumped onto the bus towards
krakow and raced towards something new.

Krakow is a wonderful city which has a fantastic way of incorporating a
modern lifestyle in old culture. The architecture and feel of the city
is so old world. Cobble stone streets, huge castles, magnificent
churches, and beautiful statues line rivers and shops. We spent a night
or two in a hostel, until we found Slawek, a fantastic person who became
our host for the remaning days we'd have in krakow. He turned out to be
one of the most hospitable people i have ever met in my life. He took
quite a bit of time to show us around this city he had inhabited and
loved for the past 8 years. He even took us to a traditional polish
dining hall where we indulged in russian pierogi (amazing dumplings
filled with potatoes and cheese) and other polish favorites. Slawek
lso bought us to the jewish quarters of krakow called kazimierz. To
this date, I don't know if I will ever find a cafe/bar as amazing as the
one we went to in Karimierz, called Alchemia. Often, we are used to
visiting restaurants or cafe's becuase we like the experience they offer
us, such as their theme, their service, or the quality of what they
serve. We find a booth in them, and stay as long as we possibly can,
because the bubble environment it creates for us, isn't somethign we
want to let go of. I must admit, I'm a sucker for themes. And the most
amazing thing about the places we visited in krakow, was that although
some of the places were built to provide you a historically correct
feel, once you walked out of these establishments, the "theme" just
continued. It continued as you walked home, and you begin to understand
that you are walking the same streets that history wrote itself on.
Not far from Krakow are the infamous concentration camps of Auschweitz
and Birkenau. And well, everyone who knows me knows I'm a real WWII
fanatic. And I've always really wanted to visit these places, to see
and feel the extent of the damage done by war. The day finally came
where we boarded the bus that would take us 60 km away, to the small
town of Oswiecim. On the outskirts of this town, is where Auschweitz
and Birkenau still exist.

Auschweitz wasn't anything like you would expect. I don't really know
how much more to say other than it seemed like a movie set. But there
was no denying the existence of an eeriness, wierdness, and smells that
conjured up what the images show us. The old barracks that housed
prisoners were now made into musuem like rooms with information and
artifacts from WWII. Later that day, we caught a bus to continue on to

Birkenau, which is also known as Auschweitz II. Birkenau was almost
exactly as one would have expected a concentration camp to be. It was
very bleak, big, and although filled with tons of barracks, felt
extremely empty. The train tracks lead straight through the front gate
and end at the back of the camp, right in front of the crematoriums. On
either side of the tracks, were barracks where prisoners slept. Part of
what made the experience so strange, was that it was such a gorgeous
day. It was cold, but it was also the eptiome of a beautiful autumn day
where the colors around you competed for your attention. Brilliant blue
skies backed the burning oranges and reds of the leaves, and yet around
you was a place where ridiculous amounts of people died. I walked from
the whole length of the railroad tracks, from crematorium to front gate.
It took me exactly 13 minutes. I thought about how on a train, that
would take a lot less time...and that's the amount of time people had to
finally accept their fate. It's unbelievable.

Two friends that I had made while in China are both polish girls who are
from Warsaw. So we boarded another dreaded train and headed off to
warsaw to visit this city and them. This train ride was a bit different
in the sense that it wasn't overnight, but yet we still had a fine
collection of freaks who felt it necessary to peep in on our carriage
for whatever random reason. The intensity of the smiles on these
people's faces are enough to scare you out of your skin.
Warsaw was mainly a city where we just experienced it by hanging out
with locals. There wasn't much sightseeing. a few random hours of
walking around to see what we could fit in, but it was basically to just
be there. As well as staying with my friends, we also stayed with one
of their friends, Pawel, who might be on of the most confrontational
people I have ever met, but said with no negat devil's advocate, so
after hours of raised voices and edgy words, you realize you're dealing
with someone who just enjoys conversation and the ability to speak about
things on a level which tends to supercede normal everyday jabber. It
turned out to be quite an entertaining household. Our friends jokinly
tried to get us to change our plans and go explore other areas of poland
in exchange for berlin, but we were dead set on heading to this city we
had heard and learned so much about. So one bright and really early
morning, we boarded yet another train towards germany.

Berlin is the amazing new york of Europe. It's one hell of a thriving
city which will surely see me as a habitat in some months/years to come.
I can't wait. It truly, more than I think new york, is a city that
doesn't sleep. We stayed with a friend of mine, Desiree, I had met in
Australia. She was determined to show us the berlin nightlife and took
us to all sorts of places. One of her roomates is a DJ in berlin who
also tipped us off to great places to visit. We arrived into Berlin on
Halloween and one thing was sure...we weren't going to let this holiday
slip away from us so easily. It's a right of passage, to be able to
dress up as creepy and freaky as you want, and feel everso proud walking
down the street.

We found a second-hand store and raided the place for costume ideas.
One hour later, I was "Mizz Mexico 2005" and kim was "the rag doll from
hell". We had bruised eyes, bloody mouths, stitches, rosy cheeks,
aluminium crowns, sashes, and dresses that made us who we were for the
evening. We ended up at this tiny venue underneath a metro overpass.
Desiree really showed us a great time, and after a few days with her, We
left her place and moved in with two other guys who hosted us for our
remaining days in berlin. They also made us feel quite at home. Those
two, I must say, have the cleanest bathtub I have ever seen. One of
those types of tubs where you can lay it in for hours and feel
completely at east. They even gave us the permission to use their
pinetree bubble bath. Peter and Alex, you guys rule. We visited the
old 1936 olympic stadium, and all sorts of cultural things flowing in
and around the city. There is an informative exhibit titled the
"Topography of Terror" which is built on the remains of official Gestapo
and SS ruins. It shows the bulding structures of a Nazi-occupied Berlin
as it was during WWII. The berlin wall is quite a site, and runs all
around the place. We spent the majority of our wall experience visiting
the largest remaning intact piece found in Berlin (since apparently the
largest intact piece actually exists in Las Vegas?). There are other
bits of it scattered throughout the city which you can see. The german
xperience was amazing not only becuase of the amount of stuff we did in
Berlin, but the people we had met. They were all so nice and kind to
us. We hope to be able to make it to western germany later on in this
trip, because we only had time to squeeze in Hamburg and Berlin before
we had to head back to Ireland.

Ireland is the whole emerald isle, that place of drunken madness,
leprauchans, no lucky charms, and potatoes, and oh yes..the bunch of
crazy awesome family people. we arrived back in dublin on the 7th of
october, just in time to meet a friend from france who travelled to
dublin for a small chinese-tour reunion. We stayed in dublin for a few
days before heading up to the countryside in the northwest where we were
not only greeted by family i haven't seen in ages, but by my mother who
i haven't seen in 8.5 months. It was so good to just be with all this
family. Since we have arrived, they have shown us nothing but a good
time. Between family dinners and outings, we do nothing but lounge
around and take in this quiet time. It won't last long. On Sunday the
20th, we fly out for Paris, and spend our last month travelling between
Paris, Amsterdam, and Spain.

ay papi.

It's over. I can not believe it. I can honestly say that even before I entered political chinese territory, i had some real qualms about this place. I had no idea what to expect from a communist country where the language is tougher than.

The days seemed long, then short, then unbearably long, then instananeous. You meet people who help you categorize your days into a multi-level playground of all sorts, and other times your so alone you wonder what you have gotten yourself into. But here I am, only 2 weeks away from leaving this country...and to tell you the truth, I am a bit saddened...but don't feel sorry for me. There were times when I felt so over with China. You go through days where you think "please get me out of here now". After how many consecutive days of feeling that are you justified in acting upon it? Well for someone like me who is too stubborn to give up, it is never enough. Even only a week ago, i went through that. A real feeling of restlessness and just the desire to leave this place. But today, and especially yestereday, I have had a reall good outlook.

The actual word China translates into "middle country"; and it is quite appropriate. This country offers so many extremities to it. If you ever wanted to see what both sides of the tracks looked like, here's the place. And for that, I love it. The time I spent in small villages I loved. The time in cities, depending on which ones, I liked, or liked less; but never hated. China is a beautiful country filled with an immense amount of culture and natural beauty that would blow your mind, but with the goods comes the bads eh? There are the things you see, that when you lay your weary head down to sleep (whether it's on a lumpy mattress, a sleeping bag on the grass, the backseat on the dirtiest bus on earth, or someone's floor), you wish to god you could erase them out of your memory. After time enters the relationship, you soon realize you are glad you had to witness what you did, as the person it has changed you to become, is one who hopefully understands a bit more about the world outside their own.

I have suprised myself at how much I have done while here. I will always cherish the many days that have been spent laughing away, but will also cherish the days that have been spent in frustration. You grow a new skin of nails everytime your back is up against the wall in a place like this. You can learn the language to get around, but to master something like Mandarin to have conversational interactions with locals is a bit harder. But out of this came a sudden revelation; it's not necessary. As a test, even if I could say what I needed to, I would hold entire convesations with people without uttering a single sound. I would use strictly hand motions of acting out ideas, and it's amazing to see how it works. It really makes you think about language barriers on a whole new level. Then there are times when you are doing the simpliest of actions and the person is looking at you as if even such actions of walking are foreign. Those are the moments you want to hit people and scream and kick and think everyone in the world is an idiot.

Especially that moment of boredom when I decided I would go get a haircut. Try to understand the excitement/nervousness i felt, and the intensity of that boredom that actually got me to allow someone with whom I could not communicate a single word, to cut my hair. He cut half my head, and begin to style that half before he even started the second half...uh..that's not the way things are done..no matter what country you are from. They washed our hair, and put us in the seats closest to the doors and windows as if to display us. "Come get your hair cut here, westerners do, so you should too!" I had to point out several times which scissors to use, and once or twice had to take them myself and work on it. It was quite a fantastic feat, but well worth it, and overall fun. Besides, it killed 2 hours of my time, and provided lots of laughter... especially the pictures we took afterwards with the hairdresser.

You don't know China until you've rented a bike and ridden it during all hours of the day....and you DEFINATELY don't know China until the bike you were riding around all day is stolen. There have been endless nights of gallavanting around cities, dancing until the wee hours of dawn, nights spent under the stars, days of freezing cold rain, endless seas of robed monks, dinner sessions at 5 am in the middle of the streets, white capped mountains, vast deserts, rolling green lush hills, sweaty mosquito filled nights, countless conversations about scaffolding, and so many other random things that dreams and reality are made of. Including the manhood test, in which you are told you have complete a 4 series act, which would put you at the equal ranks of chinese men. 1) split a huge spitter 2) pee in a public area 3) shoot a snot rocket 4) burp

let the bells ring, I am more of a man than most of you are (SIMON).

What else ruled? a two part massage after a 3 day horse trek. The first part involving two major essentials: me laughing my ass off becuase I kept feeling like i was going to be tickled and me being bent in ways I didn't think was humanly possible. Then the second part was a cupping massage, which involves them lighting glass bowls on fire, and placing them on your back. The vaccum created by the temperature difference causes the glass to suck up your skin and take out all toxins. After having countless hot cups sucking my life through my back for ten minutes, they were removed and I was the proud owner of 12 new 3-inch diameter circular hickeys. I looked diseased but felt "clensed"? maybe?

Awesome part II: My last day, I randomly decided to partake in a Tai Chi lesson taught by some tai chi masters. What an amazing experience, to sit there nestled amongst trees, feeling this wierd anxiety about leaving this country, to be able to learn one of their most peaceful attributes, and do so before I was to board a 10 hour sleeper bus to hong kong. (Sleeper buses are these buses that actually have beds in them, but unfortunatley are all made to fit chinese people. aka...they are all built for people about 5' 3'' and under, but I digress)

I will miss China. Will I ever come back? One month ago I would have said never. As of today, I would say it's very possible. There is a lot of country here to see, and I would like to see the rest of what I missed. It's an uphill battle as you are struggling to become accustomed to the cultural shift that China is, but once you get to the top, it's a view you don't want to bat an eyelash for fear of missing something amazing...and after everything i've experienced here in China, can be a vast number of things.

This post doesn't do justice in reguards to the way I feel at the moment. I'm extremely happy for knowing I did this. I feel like I'm leaving here with this tiny little secret tucked away. It's about courage and dissapointment, beauty and destruction, love and sadness, and above all, the knowledge that there's a universal level all people wish to exist on..and reguardless of how and when we get there, it seems no on ever really stops trying. That is what this trip is about after all isn't it?

For those of you who I met along the way while here, I want to say a really heartfelt extreme thank you. You have all made being in a country like this, sane-able. Kate, Brian, Aaron, Red, Todd, Cecile, Steve, Yan, even you Finny McFinnigan, Tom, Al, Jessee the New Zealand body guard man, Simon (not really haha)...and the rest of you tards, especially Monkey Jane crew. Clarke, keep on with that guitar face, and you'll have ALL the girls...Chris, get that damn tattoo..and Abi..stop getting tattoos! Nick, keep that junk alive, becuase one day we'll tear it up all over again.

And a special thanks to that monsterous death trap machine bug that was in my room my last two nights in china. You scared the hell out of me, with your wierd spider type legs, and huge crab like claws...what are you?!

See you in Europe. mission 2/3 complete.

Yes, chinese people eat dogs. but not all kinds, so don't worry. I just thought I'd clarify that...they are selective about the meat in their McPuppy's. No shelties. good thing or id be drawing blood.

I thought I'd be able to leave China without having to see an animal being killed, and I almost succeeded until that last 10 minutes until I was to board the Hong Kong express to the airport. I saw a man reach into a cage, and pull out a white duck, stab it in the neck, and then rip it's head off. I lost my innocence faster than my lunch in that moment.

Why was that any worse than the deep fried whole rats I saw on skewers, or the skinless snakes wraped around a wooden stick...just throw on a little MSG and spice, and you got yourself a meal fit for mr. tasty mctaste himself. Then there is me, standing in the corner, barfing at every stall I saw something along these lines sold. Ribbed and ridiculously long pig tongues, coiled around a stick like some heavenly kebab. Containers filled with maggots which are supposed to resemble something called food? yeah right. barf.

One more bike adventure would occur, this one only 25 km in length. This one was quite awesome, as it was through the limstone karst peaks of Yangshou, China. This ended in three of us riding a raft up the Li river during sunset to watch as the solar ball descended behind these majestic peaks.

So in some random moment of retardedness as well as a light pinch of boredom, I allowed two friends to pierce my nose in our hostel room, like some unlicensed doctor operating out of an icecream truck. Yes, they used clean materials, as one of the boys had been given all these medical supplies by his mothers friend, so I felt my olafactory device was in no danger.

They shoved an earplug up my nose, then jammed the syringe through my left nostril, and punched the piercing in and waalaaah, I had been tagged. I have to admit, how much grosser does that story sound with adjectives like "shoved, jammed, punched, and tagged". Had I used words like slid and grazed, you wouldn't have gagged so much, now would you?? My only reaction, other than a brief wince, was a couple sneezes, as I often do with some pain (i.e. plucking my eyesbrows). Operation "hole em up" complete.

Hong Kong was really cool, even though it was as western as the good ole' USA. Very western, and with western attitude comes western prices. And so began my journey through reverse culture shock. you want me to pay HOW MUCH for that? yeah right. Once I had crossed the border of mainland China into Hong Kong, i soon realized my asian experience was over. It became really hard, and I became really sad to realize I had just left "chinatown".

So as I entered Hong Kong airport, and boarded my plane, I felt a real sadness for leaving behind a country that had required so much out of me, but left me with so much more. I had a solid 32 hours of nonstop travelling ahead of me. From Hong Kong to Bangkok to Dubai to London to Dublin. Nothing to cool to report. It was wierd flying over the Middle East, looking down and thinking "man i just did a climatology report on this area and now I'm actually flying over it". I can't say that thoughts didn't enter my mind as follows: I wonder if i could spit out of this plane, would that completely destroy all results we concluded about precipitation in the region? It's just strange to look out of a plane and see below you, the sandy deserts where cool indiana jones' type stuff probably exists, and dead camels and dead seas and dead other random dead things.

God bless double paned windows on airlines, or all weather/climatological reports would show anomalous precipitation patterns over parts of the world. That's my job.