The Sprint for Vienna - The Unorthodox Route

Sitting here on a train through the alps which might be tied with the Southern France Mediterranean coast ride for Coolest Train Ride I’ve Ever Taken Award. 2^nd place is the Boston T from Reservoir to Gov’t Center while standing sandwiched between Asian tourists and homeless men that smell like mushrooms and cheap wine. But the real story is the fact that we are even on the train. It was the trip that almost wasn’t.

Here’s how it went down:
7 a.m. - Wake up, 4.5 hours of sleep again. Great.
7:58 - Missed the boat (Literally. Missed the 8:57 boat we wanted to take), which is quite necessary in Venice. Decided to get breakfast in Hostel. Out of food. Good start!
8:07 - Caught a slow boat. Marveled at the audacious cruise ship strolling through the main canal. A-holes.

8:45 – Train station arrival. Needed food badly. Ate cheap train station food, which tasted like…cheap train station food.

9:10 – Decided to take our time getting to the bus station which was “out the door and to the right”…about a mile. This would turn out to be one of the worst decisions in travel history.

9:18 – Arrived at said bus station. This was not the correct bus station, unless they have buses that travel 3 hours to an Austrian train station while everyone stands. But we didn’t sign up for that.

9:20 – Panic setting in. Goose left with a face depicting disgust, panic, and confusion simultaneously. Coincidentally, I wore this same face when the French waiter in Narbonne plopped a pile of raw steak down in front of me. Tartarre le Beuoouf (sp?) – never again.

9:22 – Someone probably crying at this point

9:25 – Walked the mile back to the station in defeat. Thoughts of what we were going to do in Venice for another day were creeping in. (Wouldn’t have been all that bad).

9:35 – Reach an info desk and ask how the hell we can get to Vienna now. Saintly woman whipped out her cell phone, called a nearby conductor, hung up and just pointed at a train and screamed something like “RUN YOU STUPID AMERICANS!”

9:35:15 – Dead sprint leaves us sitting on the stairwell of the closest train heading to the next train station where the goal was to catch the bus we were originally intending to catch. The lapse between train arrival and our original bus’s arrival was two minutes – BRING IT.

9:40 – The gameplan was set. Our roles:
Will – the bunny. Left his bag with Tom in order to take off on a frantic sprint to hold the bus.
Andrew – the director, motivational speaker, unnecessary misplaced joke-maker, and Becca’s personal bellboy.

Becca – just run.

Goose – The depressed explorer. The man who had led us from point A to point Z was downtrodden and defeated, yet proceeded on.

Tom – The pack animal. Carrying both Will and his own backpacks at a wild pace was an incredible feat of human strength.

9:42 – Train running late. Bus supposed to leave at 9:40. Will disappears into the crowds, Becca’s D-1 soccer shape still crushes all of us and paved the way, Goose still downtrodden yet remaining hopeful, Andrew barking “S’go, s’go, s’go, s’go!” and Tom just powering through crowds with Will’s body bag on his shoulder.

9:45 – Andrew, cramping, starts picking the knees up, thank you Ultimate Frisbee leftover conditioning shape. Runs into some sort of Eurail prophet helping a clueless Asian lady by the street where the buses should have been. Ripped him away – “Bus 830, WHERE?!” He proceeded to give the most precise directions ever.

9:45:05 – Andrew decides he’s getting to Vienna whether the rest of the group does or not. SEE YAAAA! Proceeded to run at an absolute blistering backpacker pace (probably just looked like a typical out of shape American)

9:45:50 – Target secured

9:45:54 – “VILLACH?!?! IS THIS VILLACH BUS?!” Andrew yells with excessive hand gestures, thinking the lady outside it would not speak English. She did. “Uh, yea. Right here.” Triumphant fists in air.

9:50 – Bus seats secured. All of us completely drenched in sweat which was really comfortable and lovely for those around us.

1:07 – arrival. Next needed to catch a train which, conveniently, was leaving in 5 minutes.
1:11 – Bag retrieval

1:11:10 – sprint for the train track to complete the bus-to-train transfer and reach Vienna when expected.

1:13 - Reached the track we thought the train was arriving at. Tom’s new strategy to just shove a ticket in a Eurail employee’s face and demand “Where?!” proved extremely effective. Wrong track. “NO! Track 5 – two minute! Run!” the employee instructed. And run we did. Again.

1:15 – Reached the train as the conductor blew his whistle and we piled in the doors. Faint setting in. We did it. On to Vienna.


Soon to come: the triple entente of Florence, Venice, and Vienna's Power Rankings.

Rome Power Rankings. Spoiler Alert: NEW LEADER!!

That was a whirlwind. Some rough estimates of what we just went through:

- 24 gelatos

- 600 pounds of pasta

- 80 plates of bruschetta

- 700 miles walked

- 3000 years of history lessons

- 3 liters of wine tasting like pure urine

-100 liters of acceptable cheap wine

- 76 strait hours of Becca remaining awake

- 1 near-failure in retrieving Becca, whose first decision in Europe was “Get in an unmarked car with some other tourists because a guy told me it would be cheaper”

- one near-fatal RyanAir flight

- countless mimicked Gladiator scenes

- 18 euro lost to Trevi fountain (which we agreed is one of the greatest scams in human history and possibly accounts for about 75% of Italy’s GDP)

 And here we are in Florence. For now, more importantly, the power ranking:

Hostel – 6.

Will Hubbard certainly had something to say about this. We each lost 10 pounds per night during our sleep in the “hostel inferno” from gross amounts of man sweat. Rough location led to 45-minute walks to Trastavere every night, but wandering around Rome really isn’t all that much of a punishment. The mornings were the hostel’s true demise. After staying out until 4 just about every night, getting woken up by a foreign cleaning lady coughing up her right lung due to severe Tuberculosis/lung cancer at 9 a.m. is not ideal. The 10 a.m. lockout meant our main fuel source was solely cappuccino and pastries (or, in my case, tiramisu for breakfast) and pretty much wore us down. It’s the hostel’s fault, not our nightly decision making, or lack thereof.

Food – 10

Pretty much didn’t have a bad meal, and doing Tony’s at the suggestion of Timothy Kelly and Dorothy Brown followed by Dar Poeta at the suggestion of Elizabeth Russo in the same day legitimately changed our lives. I will never eat pizza the same way.

Sites – 10

Pretty sure we would be struck down by some Roman deity or goddess if we gave anything less than a 10. Not only is Trastavere the coolest neighborhood of all time, but casually strolling through spots where Constantine, Augustus and Caesar used to kick it is pretty phenomenal. Spanish steps is essentially just a staircase with lots of Asians taking pictures around it and Italians washing their feet in a fountain, but aside from that everything from the Victor Emmanuelle memorial to Trevi to the forum to the Colly to St. Petey’s place to the Vatty to rooms covered in paintings by some of my favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Raff and Michaelangelo) lived up to the hype.

Not tourists

Becca giving an in depth history lesson

Best Site – 10 – The Coliseum, honorable mention St. Petey’s Place/Sistine Chapel

Future gladiators

 Even though over 700,000 people and countless innocent animals were murdered in it, the smell of blood and death has worn off and The Colly remains aesthetically awesome 2000 years later. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles absolutely dominated art 600 years ago and created amazing art that’s all illegal to take pictures of. Stop me, Rome:

Not a huge art guy, and most art enthusiasts generally tell me, “You just don’t get it,” but we were all pretty taken aback by the art in and around Pope Benny’s place.

Night life  - 10

Being with 5 of the coolest people of all time and a Mexican, it’s hard to have a bad time in Rome. We crushed karaoke, completely defaced some historical statues/fountains by introducing Verga Wine (only the finest!) to them, and hit a slew of completely Americanized bars while celebrating John Cena’s comeback victory on Monday Night Raw. Could probably do that for a month or twelve.

great squad.

 


New Standings:
1) Rome - 46
2) Madrid - 44
3) Barca - 43.5
4) Nice - 41
5) Genoa - 39.5
6) Marseille - 38
7) Narbonne - 36 

Tommy Holt's Rome Recap!!

Usurping Rome will be tough in my mind’s power rankings. We spent more time in Rome than we are planning to in any other, and justifiably so. As a Greek and Roman history minor we should have spent all 19 days here, but I can understand that seeing other places was probably a good idea.

The sites of Rome were incredible. Standing in the colloseum was a very powerful experience when you step back and think about the rampant death that occurred right where I was standing. So many people from so long ago had traveled along the same paths on the very same stones that I was. We had an excellent tour guide that managed to even teach a few things to an ancient history expert like myself. The forum was just as impressive in my opinion, but looks like a pile of rocks to the non-appreciative tourist. St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican museum were a hair below the ancient sites, simply because of my bias towards the older stuff. The church is incredible; nothing like anything I have ever seen. The ceilings are unnecessarily high, and the walls are flush with unbelievable artwork that seemed to lose a little of their appeal because there was so much of it in one place. If there had been one piece of similar artwork in a church in the US then it would be the masterpiece of all masterpieces and glorified beyond belief, but because these pieces are in the Vatican, they get overshadowed a bit. The museum is breathtaking. The Raphael room and the School of Athens also hits home for the classical student I am. But nothing compares to the Sistine Chapel. I am not talented nor creative enough a writer to justifiably describe Michelangelo’s work on the ceiling and I am not sure that one that could do so is alive today. 

A great quality of the city of Rome is their cheap wine and the ability of frugal tourists to purchase and consume it in a place that in no way shape of form is equal in quality to what is being drank. For example, a 3-liter jug of gross crap costs a total of six Euros and is sufficient enough to put even a traveler as experienced as Odysseus into a state of drunken belligerence. It is almost insulting that we would take this mockery of wine to a place as beautiful and renowned as the Trevi Fountain or any one of their Piazzas filled with classical sculptures and age-old churches. If that isn't sufficient enough, the bars are high quality as well. For example, we visited the Drunken Ship. This is a place where Americans from America go to do American things not in America. They had a flip cup table, karaoke, and WWE wrestling on TV. Since it was apparent to us that finding a table within viewing distance of the TV was essentially mandatory, we sat down and enjoyed some specialty drinks with titles outrageously inappropriate for a PG(ish) rated blog. Scholars Pub was next on the list of can’t miss spots given to us by some of our traveling predecessors. This was an Irish pub that gave you a discount if you claimed to go to the University of Rome, so of course we told a few white lies there. But realistically, we should have been given free drinks for the performance of Little Jimmy and the Golden Goose on the karaoke stage. Little Jimmy’s rendition of Chad Kroger singing “Photograph” was not received well by the crowd and he earned himself some character building boos. However, the Golden Goose received a standing ovation as he departed the stage after he swagged all over Brian McKnight’s heartwarming masterpiece, “Back at One.”

One of the most appealing advantages of being in Italy is being able to enjoy Roman cooked Italian food. No better place to enjoy a nice bufala pizza or penne vodka than Dar Poeta or Tony’s. Not kidding, the pizza at Dar Poeta was life changing. I would give up the usage of the internal combustion engine and never use a car again if it meant I could eat this pizza every day for the rest of my life. I would cut off my left arm, and abide by all of the other cliché things to say here combined. It was that good. I want everyone in the world to eat this food at least once. It is a crime not to.

After a few late nights and early mornings in a row, we found ourselves on a grassy patch overlooking the city, laying down and taking a little catnap. When we woke up, we discovered that we had all been picked up and moved a few feet by about ten million ants. We had stumbled into downtown Antville, and at the moment, in a city full of some of the worlds most amazing wonders, could not take our eyes off this anthill. There were so many ants doing so many things.

Anyway, a pilgrimage to Rome is necessary for everyone. We are off to go hang out with David in Florence, hear he is a fun dude, gets white-marble-wasted like everyday. Alora.

Madrid Wrap up - Second wave plot twists

I arrived in Madrid with Master Chief excited beyond the description of words. As we gracefully glided off the plane in this state of perpetual happiness we came to realize that there was going to be more to this trip than we had expected. 

Plot twist #1 : 

I discovered I do not speak any Spanish. Who knew. Getting off the plane and finding our luggage was a rather simple task, but trying to figure out how to get to the center of the city near the apparent location of our hostel was a completely different story. The simplest solution we could think of was to jump in a cab, tell him the name of the place we were staying, and easy as tapas we are home free. Not so simple. The only thing the driver understood from us was the word "sol." This translates to "sun," for the scholars reading at home, and means the very center of the city of Madrid. This was an eerily similar situation to landing in Athens, Greece, with John Kinzer two summers ago when the only word our cabbie knew of English was, "Acropolis," for which the Greek word is, "Acropolis," and we reluctantly accepted him taking us there, where we found another cab to take us to our destination, not exactly efficient.

After a long 10 or so hours of total travel MC and I were very hungry. We stumbled into a restaurant which has some backwards system for ordering these tiny sandwich things, and after about 20 minutes of staring at the menu and expecting it to change language, 2 girls approximately 11 years old laughing at us, and one cashier becoming increasingly frustrated with our mere presence in the restaurant, we still had zero food. We eventually decoded something to be this "haphazardly try a couple things" deal, so we did that, and they were ok.

Plot twist #2 : 

Madrid is actually very clean. Contrary to what I ignorantly expected Madrid to look like, the city was spotless. The Spanish take the cleanliness of their city, or at least the downtown touristy areas, which we only left to see other touristy areas like the Bernebeu, with extreme intensity. Now this may seem like a really odd thing to talk about after seeing a city full of palaces hundreds of years old, beautiful plazas, parks and open areas for all kinds of people to congregate, as well a spotless metro system that could put you within 20 steps of practically any building in the city. However, after a walk across town at 6am, a member of our traveling party found out just how serious they take this issue. After what seemed like a perfectly safe and acceptable dive on top of a trash can we were educated. A few bags fell out of the can and into the street as the can fell over with a thunderous bang seemingly resonating for an hour. Not 3 seconds later, there was what looked like the equivalent of a SWAT team member in full gear thrusting this party member into a wall while yelling and screaming god only knows what at him. After a few firm jabs to the chest, the Spanish Conquistador of the plaza del Sol saw it in the kindness of his heart to let our friend come with us and continue his travels around Europe.

Overall, Madrid was amazing. The sites, the food, the people, everything. Definitely a place that turned out to be better than expected. Rome update coming soon

We are baaack! Roman reunion

We are baaaack! The Roman reunion started off with a bang. After Goose and I had a minor panic attack when the boys arrived an hour late due to the aircraft having one wheel or something (Ryanair - classic), we started up with a classy dinner which involved John stabbing his crawfish with excessive sound effects and Goose destroying a chair via sitting down.

We proceeded to do as we said we would: romp about. Walked around the Coliseum at like 2 a.m. (no lines!) and saw other ruins that just looked like piles of rocks in the dark. Probably better to do at a reasonable hour. John and I proceeded to act out Gladiator death scenes about 6 times in the street - pretty standard stuff. Each attracted a significant crowd of onlookers sharing looks of befuddlement yet general sympathy and concern thanks to countless hours of my childhood spent doing the same, leading to perfectly mimicked tragic deaths. We marched on to a gelateria around 3, and this woman dropped the awkward question, "What country do you think I am from?" on us:

This immediately led to several racially motivated guesses, all involving Africa. Very relieving she was from Nigeria.

Slept and had to leave by 10 due to an awful hostel rule where you are locked out from 10-3, but "Smashmouth Tourism" led us to quite the efficient day, as follows:

Illegal pictures in the Sistine Chapel

Admiring St. Petey's Basilica and making incredibly crude, shortsighted remarks about much of Rome's finest art in the Vatican. I.e. John: "What is this guy stickin his thumb in his ear or something?" Me: "Yea like a personal wet willy? Wait..no the description says it's a martyr stabbing himself in the head. Whoops."

Seeing the original "Tebower"

Walking

Lunching. Nicely done Johnny.

God came down from the heavens to thank us for our religious pilgrimage to the enormous Jesuit church. Good guy.

Landed a Euro in the upper deck at Poseidon's feet. Sheer power.

That's all for now. Off to watch Italy game in Trastavere (sp?) and Tom is about to be really mad at me for being late. But the fans are hungry and I must feed.

- Andrew

Genoa + Cinque de Terror

The first thing I discovered about Italy: everything involves emotion. From Italians’ casual speech that is partly sung and includes as many hand gestures as possible as if perpetually stuck in a Broadway musical, to the fact that we had to plan our transportation around the public transportation employees that felt driven to go on strike yesterday. The ATMs even show emotion. Shortly after eating Goose’s card and adamantly refusing to give it back no matter how many times Goose’s fists of fury lay siege upon it, it put on a ridiculous fit full of noises and rapid, repetitive screen changes. Thought it was going to explode – what a headcase.

Walked the city the first night and a drunk Californian girl whose hobbies included Tumblr Blogs, drinking, and wandering around alone until 3 a.m., found us during the ATM episode. She showed us around a bit and basically explained how many awful people are in Genoa and what there was to do/avoid. She blatantly laughed at us when she heard our bed and breakfast was located next to the port, essentially in Senegal Jr. At this point we concluded not to stay in the city the next day - Cinque de Terre was happening.

Cinque de Terre can be the most peaceful, romantic stroll along Mediterranean cliffs dotted with Italian towns resembling rainbows. It can also be the most treacherous, God-forbidden, sweat-laden, shirt-saturating “hike” (climb) of your entire life, as it was for Goose and I. Due to a convenient landslide wiping out part of the 2^nd of 6 miles, we opted for a “little detour.” Our blatant, stubborn rejection of using any means of transportation was fueled mainly by my statement, “We will not stoop to that. My brother Dave did this and whined about it, we’re going to kick his ass.” The aforementioned “little detour” led us up about 15,000 steps, through terrace farmers’ backyards (not kidding), and up two entire mountains, totaling about 2.5 hours instead of 45 minutes. “Cinque de Terror,” as Dave described it, was spot on. Touché. To truly capture this, a series of pictures I have dubbed “The Chronicle of Sweat” is necessary:

Before. The journey begins, sweatless

Some moisture accumulating during the "little detour"

This is where things spiral out of control

Pores are really opening up at this point. Notice the size of the trail they've generously provided for this.

I was doing much better

~Mile 3, andddddd it's GONE.

Town 4 and the watering hole I floated in for a half hr

I know what you're thinking - no, I do not use anabolic steroids. Feel free to comment how much better looking I am than Goose.

Hostel: 8

A nice, tiny Italian lady hosted us at a bed and breakfast. Had our own room, which we proceeded to litter with wine and pizza boxes. I even got to do some laundry. No dryer, so I laid my clothes all over the room on whatever ledges I could find which was oddly reminiscent of the time I used the same unorthodox technique Freshman year after overfilling the dryer by about 40 pounds and nothing dried. Some things never change. Also had our own bathroom and there was a bidee, which, needless to day, was a gift from the heavens!

Sites: 6

It’s cool, but not a great city to walk around in. Saw a couple cool buildings and arches and ran into two random bands playing, but we knew 0 of the words/songs. The McDonalds close way too early too.

Best Site: 10

“Cinque de Terror” provided more phenomenal views every step than I’ve ever even considered possible. Felt like having this guy’s double rainbow reaction at times:

but instead opted to mutter something eloquent like, “Dude, this is sick” to Goose to appropriately make manifest my feelings.

Mythical. The 2nd and 3rd towns of the hike.

Food: 7.5

The neighboring pizza shop stole our hearts, and we have now signed a binding contract with bruschetta for every meal the rest of our Italy circuit. That’s about all we discovered though.

Nightlife: 8

Didn’t do much the first night, but met up with Goose’s friend from USC at a club on the beach the second, so the 6 and 10 average to an 8. This club was literally on the beach which sounds cool, but when my savage yet whimsical dancing style led to five pounds of sand in my boat shoes the beach club idea seemed a lot less cool.

NOW THIS IS HOW YOU START A NIGHT! Naked wine and pizza!!

This leaves us with:
1) Madrid - 44
2) Barca - 43.5
3) Nice - 41
4) Genoa - 39.5
5) Marseille - 38
6) Narbonne - 36

The next chapter
This is a day I have been anticipating for quite some time: the reunion. Tommy, Kinz, Will and Ben meet us around 8 tonight in Rome (hopefully...). Suddenly, the trip feels far more complete, and when I see Kinz flopping about like a whale in Trevi Fountain tonight I’ll just nod my head and proclaim, “Yep. This feels right. We’re back.”

- Andrew

Nice Nice + A Nice Power Ranking

Nice place!!!! Now that we got that pun out of the way – Nice is awesome. Definitely the Mugsy Bogues of Europe thus far, proving that size doesn’t matter and it can still hack it in the league. It’s a quintessential tiny French town with old Frenchies in barrettes carrying baguettes and wheels of cheese in their market bags, and the tiny cobblestone streets wallpapered with colorful clothesline apartments are simultaneously bogged with tourists looking to take cute pictures.

Goose and I made it in on a train that was simultaneously the train from hell and the train from heaven. Heaven was the scenery, the hell part was, quite literally, what I picture the temperature of hell to be. After soiling far too many articles of clothing with sweat and spending about a half hour debating with myself whether it’s socially acceptable to ride trains with my shirt off or not, we made it, and immediately got lost. Once the hostel was located it was strait to the beach. This was an experience. 

Another heaven and hell experience awaited. France apparently does not believe in barefooted beaches, but are strong advocates of bare-topped beaches, which is fine, pending the woman's age. The beach was a pile of rocks, but these ones kept you guessing. Although flat and ideal for skipping, no rock was the same shape or size. So every barefoot step was a miniature surgery minus the anesthesia. Leaving the heavenly water was twenty feet of the most treacherous journey of your life. I collapsed twice next to some French family that was formerly really digging my treading water ability. Crawled back. Goose came back with the same report and an additional claim that he was extra buoyant in the water which, we agreed, could mean one of two things: the water is extra salty, or Goose is extra fat. Gotta be the salt.

This guy on the air mattress has the right idea.

Goose. Total focus on the beach invented by terrorists.

We decided that since we stole our train ride in the afternoon (sorry Mom, you’re welcome Dad’s wallet), we would compensate the Nice economy with a hearty dinner. Hearty for me meant steak with sides of salad and potatoes, hearty for goose meant a bucket of mussels, plate of fries, fillet of beef with salad and potatoes, crème brulé and a bottle of wine. Followed it up with gelato but the selection wasn’t great so it was hard. 104 flavors. Took off andddd good GOD this world is small – ran into a good friend Rachel Weed from BC and her brother. Eagles are taking over Europe.

Proof.

Karaoke bar was the obvious next play. Unfortunately, 60-some greasers there trying to swoon French girls with Italian love operas nobody knew the words to stymied Goose’s attempt at a Spanish solo, so we had to take off.

Power Ranking:
Hostel: 6. Great spot in the “old” part of town (meaning like 300 years old, not 100?), but the shower water which was pumped directly from the arctic penguin tank at Henry Doorly Zoo didn’t help their power rank stats, and the room attempting to compete with the train’s scorching internal temperature made things a bit worse. Combine that with motorcyclists insisting on crushing back alleys at max speeds, which legitimately sounded like someone was taking a weedwacker to my ears, and you don't exactly get ideal sleeping conditions.

Our view/what every street in Nice looks like

Food: 9.5. “The key to my heart is just strait through my stomach. About 65% of my trip’s enjoyment will come from food, 15% from the sites and stuff, and I guess the other 20 from the people I’m with.” So there ya have it – my best friend Goose has spoken! Food is a bigger part of his life than me. Which, at least for this trip, is fine because we have hit jackpots several times over, so he’s at least 65% happy, leaving me responsible for only about 2-3% of his happiness after that if he wants a passing happiness grade. Steaks, mussels, gelatos, and cheesy potatoes were all “like 4 minutes of unmitigated happiness,” as Goose described his morning crepe.

Could any picture do that statement any more justice??? *as Goose French Kisses a mussel*

Sites: 10. Walking around this place is just constant moments of trying to take pictures with my eyes because I’m not going to be a girl that puts up 7,000 pictures in a facebook album after every country. I’ll be more in the 5,000 range.

Best Site: 8.5. The beach. Due to unhindered amounts of pain on the feet, thanks to Marseille previously destroying all means of protection on the bottoms of them, the Best Site lost a couple points. But looking around you and seeing the Mediterranean encompassed by apartment-dotted mountains is never a bad thing.

Nightlife: 7. Didn’t make it out too long due to Rachel and brother John being up since 4:30 a.m. and Goose’s failed Karaoke attempt. But the life is definitely there and streets were crowded into the night. Had to saw off my hand at the wrist and sell it in order to buy a drink though, that was too bad.

A nice 41 from Nice, upsetting Marseille! What a story.

1)   Madrid – 44

2)   Barca – 43.5

3)   Nice – 41

4)   Marseille – 38

5)   Narbonne - 36

Marseille Power Ranking. Notre Dame Sucks.

“Let’s get rich and buy our parents homes in the South of France, let’s get rich and give everybody sweaters and teach them how to dance…” – Ingrid Michaelson

Aside from my older sister’s massive girl-crush on her, I always just knew Ingrid Michaelson as a singer with a weird first name and a high voice. I can’t identify with her desires to give people sweaters, mainly because I actually love my friends? Definitely don’t really want to teach people to dance either, being a self-made man on the dance floor and all. But I can definitely understand the South of France thing now. Especially a house for my mother, who spent about 20 years being pregnant and could use a house or two on the mountains over the sea here. Unfortunately the first part of the sentence is “let’s get rich,” which poses a real issue for me. Sorry Jane!

We arrived at 5, got to the hostel, and began a trek and a half up the steepest set of stairs of all time. Our destination: “The Basilica.” You might check your maps and question, “Andrew, that doesn’t even exist in Marseille??” Well, the true name was “(something French) de Notre Dame.” As devout USC and BC fans that care about the college football world as well as the future of America in general, we refused to accept that we have anything to do with that university. Thus, the proper name was rejected. I actually didn’t even want to go there in the first place. But it’s what tourists do. Thankfully, after Goose sweat out 18 cups of coffee and 4 crepes and I had a miniature asthma attack, we reached the peak for a 360-degree view of everything ever. I definitely saw my house.Went out to dinner and watched the France game on a TV set up outside while a crowd mounted behind us, despite the general state of disgust with their team’s performance.

Woke up 5 times through the night because the old lady (creepy) next to us was moaning in her sleep which was realllllly unenjoyable to think about, and the 6^th time was for good. Went to a Mediterranean beach that was awesome because it was surrounded by mountains, not awesome because the beach itself was made of mountains of rocks and the bones of my feet are now clearly visible. But still - very cool.

Anddd then my camera just said, “Andrew – you know what’s going to make you really mad? When I break your memory card for no apparent reason and all those pictures you took of a place you might never get to visit again don’t work! HAHAHA!” Sooo sorry about that, fans.

But essentially, minus the shoddy camera work, this is what we saw:

Hostel – 8

Nice spot with a cool location by the port. The showers actually had doors, everything worked, and I had two free suckers from the front desk.

Food – 7.5.
Nothing special, really. Had some awesome Italian food for dinner, but that’s like saying American food is awesome because the Chinese is phenomenal. It’s cheating? The post-game crepes were the saving grace.

Sites – 9

The only big knock was that Marseille has seemingly used Omaha as a model for how to approach construction, which is something like: “Blow the entire city up and we’ll go from there I guess? I don’t know, just make sure we blow it all up at once.” So the sidewalks were so narrow I thought for sure I was getting clipped by a moped and dragged for miles. But the views in between walks were pretty awesome.

Best Site - 9

“The Basilica.” Again, I would never generally give any award to anything with the words ‘Notre’ or ‘Dame’ in it unless it had something to do with corruption or losing, but this was exceptional, and happened to be the only attraction we got to go inside. So congrats ___ ____ de Notre Dame, you finished 1^st out of 1, just like the football “powerhouse” from 1920-1940 (GOT ‘EM!). Additionally, this Notre Dame was on top of a mountain and America’s Notre Dame is in a cellar/hell. I’ll stop. A full point was subtracted from their initial 9.5, .5 for ‘Notre’ and .5 for ‘Dame’ being in the name.

Nightlife – 5
Marseille is comparable to a 6’5, 245 pound black guy that runs a 4.3 40 time and decides to pursue the drug trade. Or academics. Lost NFL potential. But the potential is there nonetheless. The town was a little dead considering their country was playing to stay alive in Eurocup, which is literally a matter of life and death for many countries. Nonetheless, every restaurant, no matter how fancy, had it on TV. Tuesday night problems.

So as we cruise into Nice right now, Marseille cruises into the power rankings with a 38. Also, for the record, this is the coolest train ride I’ve ever been on. Take that with a grain of salt – I’ve only been on NYC’s subways, Boston’s T, Chicago’s L, and a 12 hour train to Denver as a kid when I just played with action figures in the corner for at least 11 of those. There’s something about whipping through mountains and farms overlooking the ocean and not sitting next to people who smell like cough syrup and look like they want to mug me that’s pretty refreshing.

The rankings:
Madrid – 44

Barca – 43.5

Marseille – 38

Narbonne - 36

Reinforcements

So the second wave of travelers, made up of Xbox phenom Will Hubbard, esteemed Stanford grad Ben Arnstein, accent master John Kinzer, and yours truly, departs for Europe today. The first destination is Madrid, Spain, where based on the reviews by my fellow blogger, manwomanandchild, my comrades and I are set to have one hell of a time.

The original plan was to pack so I would be able to bring enough clothes and other random supplies in one hiking backpack I would be able to "carry on" to plane to last myself the entire trip. However, after the experience of packing last night I discovered there would be no way in hell I would be able to carry on what turned out to be a 40 pound bag ready to burst at the seams and spray clothes everywhere like food out of Bluto's mouth in animal house at the slightest touch. Not necessarily the double fist to the cheeks, more like accidentally drop a pen on it and my clothes are all over the loading dock at Newark Int'l Airport.

Tonight I sleep over the Atlantic ocean, and tomorrow night I sleep in Madrid, with a belly full of tapas, and a camera flush with pictures of Will flamenco dancing alongside Spanish bombshells. Then its off to reinforce the troops against the hoards of Hannibal at the gates of Rome. Don't fret Andy! I am on the way! And upon my arrival we do as the Romans do...

I wont have my computer with me, but I hope to somehow make posts as frequently as possible. You all can expect me state-side again when I run out of money. Until then, Go Thunder, and God Bless America.

One night in Narbonne - S'Go!

Il a essayé de me violer!!

Translation: “He tried to rape me!” Opened Goose’s pocket French book and that was the first phrase I read/learned. I instantly concluded that this was a sign, and due to the general air of flamboyance surrounding males in the French culture, this was going to be the handiest (no play on words intended - gross) phrase I could be armed with while in this country.

Arrived in Narbonne and this trip suddenly made far less sense. I grew up speaking Latin, Cantonese and Portuguese in my family (sarcasm – my family couldn’t be more white) so I speak 0 French with exception to “he tried to rape me,” and Goose was interlacing Spanish with French for a bit. Couldn’t read anything and couldn’t understand any maps being in such a small, pure French town, and ordering food was a wild affair. But we made it through day 1 thanks to Goose’s brain working as Neo’s in The Matrix – he swiftly grasped that he was The One through some sort of prophecy, realizing he’s essentially fluent after a couple weeks in France two years ago and flipping through his French pocket book in the morning. Makes sense. Just plug it in the brain and we’re good!

Morpheus - download the "fluent Frenchman" program into me.

So it’s off to Marseille with my new French friend. S’GO! (Side note: this has become the phrase of the trip. I.e.: “Hey soo wanna see the cathedral now and eat in the town square after?” “Yep - S’go!” I.e.: “Goose – it’s 2 p.m. and we’re still in bed in Barcelona, S’GOOOOOO!”)



But first, Narbonne’s Euroromp Power Ranking:

Hostel: 6.  

It was located a stone’s throw (or four if you’re my girly French Murse-toting friend Goose) from a Castle/Cathedral which is always fun. And the hotel clerk was cute? Stayed in a small two-person room because apparently Goose decided that if any French people doubted that we are dating/married beforehand, those doubts may be put to rest via our room selection. Nice. The shower was a display of pure French ingenuity – why have a shower separate from the rest of the room when you can have a hole in the floor right next to the sink and a complimentary water-pusher to make sure the room doesn’t collapse from flash flooding? Genius. Also, sneaking suspicions that a child had formerly defecated on the wall. Aside from that, good spot!

Innovation.

Food: 8.5.

Lack of French came back to haunt me. After 6 strait dinners ending around 1030, we left the hostel at 10 and found one (1) restaurant open – the nicest in town. This was great because we are really rich kids fresh out of college and just want to spend lots and lots of money! Get it outta here! We hate money! That was the first problem – the second was when I ordered “Tartare le beoueuoufffe” or something. The waiter and Goose both looked at me like I had just shot a child. Sure enough, thinking he was going to plop a nice juicy French steak in front of me, he drops a hunk of raw, uncooked meat with a salad and fries down. The blood was still flowing through it. MMMMMMmm - yummy! About 8 seconds later it was on Goose’s plate, who had undergone a sudden transformation from a flamboyant Frenchman to savage Dothraki and absolutely polished it.

Next time I'm just getting the raw ferret!

Goose crushing a baguette with goat cheese and goose liver. "One of my favorite snacks."

..But the quiche in the afternoon and severe carbo load in the morning were lovely.

Sites: 8.5. Thanks to Band of Brothers, this was exactly as I imagined quaint little French towns. Minus the exceptional levels of gore, buildings exploding around me, legs falling off, friends being shot in the head and French civilians curled up in their small cute houses. Really was an awesome walk-around spot.

^personal opinion: one of the better battle scenes of all time.

Best site: Catedral de St. Jue – 8. Extremely surprising they had such an oversized, immense church for how little the town square and everything was. Goose and I concluded the size-of-church-per-capacity number was probably the biggest in the world. The cathedral probably sat 100 and was like 2,000 feet tall.

Nightlife: 3. Unfortunately Narbonne is trying to hack it with the big boys. It’s like in high school when kids from Brownell Talbot’s 8-man football team would say “Yea we’d be good if we had 12 times as many kids.” That’s great and real cute, but unfortunately doesn’t get them far. We gave Narbonne the benefit of the doubt being a Monday night and being a small town in French Riviera – an inherent disadvantage.

In total, Narbonne comes in with a 36/50 – a passing grade. Narbonne taking over 1^st would have been like a 13-seed winning March Madness, so, true to most mid-major schools, it fell just short.
Updated rankings:
1) Madrid – 44
2) Barca – 43.5 
3) Narbonne – 36

Barcelona Report Card + Updated Power Rankings

We recovered from jet lag on Thursday, and pretty sure we reset our systems by the end of Saturday night (see weekend wrapup for details). My body is so confused and disgruntled with me at this point. But before we go out to watch soccer in a small French town, I present the report card.

Prologue: Goose compared Barcelona to the rebellious brother of Madrid, who ran away and created a culture with an absolutely rabid nightlife, didn't care to put as much effort into his architecture yet stayed true to his roots in some areas, and came up with irrational art and wild amounts of different foods. Probably the most accurate way to describe Barca to a blind man/newcomer. Further analysis:

Hostel: 9. Not a bad location, good view, and met plenty of people including two hilarious Austrailian dudes that almost traveled with us to Narbonne. Still have not met an Australian I dislike - the "per capita funny people" level there is amazingly high. The nightlife provided put the hostel over the top, but one chink in the armor of the experience was last night's sleep experience. Uncomfortable bed led me to whisper to myself, "Good God, am I going to fall asleep tonight?" God responded with a blatant 'ABSOLUTELY NOT!': we had one of the better snorers in the history of time in our room roll in around 3:30 a.m. Transcended all snoring ever. Like, a German couple got up and just left at 5 a.m. they were so tired of it, and I almost got up and applauded. After the 5 others in the room combined for 8 hours of sleep, we awoke and the Australian guys instantly compared it to "a pissy guy strangling a dog," whereas I made the claim that he will be crowned in the pantheon of great snorers ever. The inhale was a hog snort, exhale was a balloon deflating. Guy didn't miss a beat all night. Amazing.

View from hostel. Sorry for enormous phallic structure in middle.

Food: 8. Similar food to Madrid, but Madrid is better at it. But Barcelona is better at Kebabs and American style burgers? So that was just confusing.

Pig brain, hearts, tongues/penises for sale!

Sites: 7.5. The walk-around-the-city atmosphere was not within striking distance of Madrid. But the whoa-look-at-that-view-from-really-up-high views were magical, just far apart.
Best Site: Castille de Montjuic - 9. Pretty awesome watching a sunset from a castle. And just being in a castle on top of a mountain. Which overlooks Barcelona. Which is huge.
Night life: As told (and not told..) in the Weekend Wrapup the post before...pretty successful. 10-worthy.

So, currently, by a slim margin, we are left with:
1) Madrid: 44
2) Barcelona: 43.5

Next post from Marseille tomorrow.

- Andrew

Surviving Barca: Weekend wrap-up

 

Goose and I are in the middle of a ten day stretch with just each other (finally some alone time with him!!!) and en route to the southern coast of France for 3 cities in 3 days, where we will hold hands the entire way. The second wave of travelers is deployed in Rome on the 23^rd. The key here is not where we are going but where we have been, and the fact that we are alive to continue our journey.

Day 1: Arrived in Barcelona with a couple warnings in mind:
1) “Madrid is fine, it’s Barcelona where you need to be careful.” – Ashley Michelson
2) “Europe is full of liars, cheaters, thieves, scammers.” – Sister Abs, who travelled in Spain and her hotel was bombed (really positive outlook!)
3) “Every one of my friends that has ever gone to Europe has been robbed or mugged. But not me.” – Mother Jane. Definitely not an exaggeration. Mothers are always right.

With these in mind, I initially walked around Barca judging everything that moved, shooting my hands in my pockets if I even saw someone looking sketchy from a distance, as if my wallet was going to dissipate from my short pockets and end in their hands. I was re-running through the Ken-Po routine from P90X workouts in my head, ready to strike at will. JAB, HOOK, FINISH! But it was fine, no threats.

Walked to La Sagrada Familia, which is a ridiculously intricate church that began construction in the 1800s. Pretty sure if you take the “siesta” out of the normal work day it would have been done before World War I, but it’s not. Not even close. But still really cool.


Walked down a rabid shopping street/market called Las Romblas and almost bought a turtle. Next stop was Port de Barcelona, whose biggest imports are Asian tourists with large cameras and rich people with large boats. 

The final stop was Parc Montjuic, which would go on to receive “Site of the City” in our Power Rankings (stay tuned). Took a sky rail midway up the mountain which almost made me lose lunch on some tiny French kids inside it/the yachts below.

Goose knows no fear. Don't let this picture mislead you.

Great blurry pic with no scenery courtesy of Dutch girl

Hiked to some other stops and stopped at them all mainly because a) it was beautiful b) Goose was sweating through his button down.

Castille Montjuïc ("Castle with a mountain of Jews" is the proper translation, of course) was awaiting at the top and provided an unreal view along with several chances us to make up what sounded historically correct. “Yea that cannon there? Yea probably 18th century.” “Yea, sounds right. Probably Moorish influences or something.” Watched a romantic sunset at 9:30, back to the hostel, and the night began. And by began I mean people eat dinner here until like 1 a.m., then go out.

Goose taking the phrase "go man that cannon" far too literally

Joined a Spanish Beer Pong tourney at the hostel, which is essentially two minutes of a Spanish host yelling at you, rolling a dice when you make certain cups, and yelling at you some more to drink. First round loss was well-deserved. From there, they bussed us to Sotavento, a nightclub on the beach. Great night - met someone who went to Australia with a friend from middle school/high school (Tyler Dare), naturally, along with other people with cool travel stories. We then took total control of the dance floor and didn’t look back until it closed. Quite positive they almost hired me professionally. Made the obvious decision to walk back about 4 miles at 4 a.m., tried another club, got rejected, and dragged our feet home.

Day 2: Woke up at 11. Snooze button. Woke up at 2. Cleaning ladies were mopping my head while in bed I think. Got out of the hostel at 3:30 and went strait to the beach. 10 Euro later I had purchased a pair of American flag sunglasses (should I just wear a target on my forehead instead?) and a massage from a lady who spoke no English.

not embarrassed about it.

Ate tapas for the 10th time with no regrets and prepared for night #2 - the bar/club tour. This consisted of being bussed around the city to 4 of the best spots Barcelona had to offer, including one on top of a mountain. Started hanging out with an English bachelorette party while drinking drinks we pretended we could normally afford (nope.) . My Arthurian times accent was in full force as expected, and everything was proceeding smoothly until the maid of honor requested that I go blow coke with her in the bathroom. This rattled me a bit, as I realized I have never had to reject cocaine before. I then secondly pondered why I don't look like somebody who is fun to do cocaine with? But thirdly recognized I'm pretty happy I don't. Moving on. The natural progression of the night led me to run into Andrea Bollom and two other BC girls in one of Barcelona's biggest clubs, because things weren't quite weird enough I guess. Danced. Performed well. Trudged home and reached beds at 6. Barcelona is a mess.


Day 3: Camp Nou was closed. Good planning. So we went to Casa de Battlo, a house the genius architect/artist Anthony Gaudi designed. The place is weirdly cool, and, to me, seems like the result of a mastermind going on a sleepless 7-day drug romp, waking up and finding what he's just designed.

Goose never stops learning.

There are no strait lines in the whole house. That's too simple.

From there we tried to buy a turtle again, had an unreal burger at Kiosko (thanks to Dot Brown), and climbed Parc Guell for an absurd view of the entire world while the sun set.

www.huskguys.com . Awkward hand placement?

Night #3 - ran out of gas. Engine failure. Sleep.