I've seen London, I've seen France: Final Power Rankings + A Big Thank You

Left Goose behind (FINALLY!) to meet up with Timothy Walden at his family’s baller new flat in London. London’s scenery was almost exactly as I pictured it, but the people weren’t: the buildings and roads were all old school and pubs infested every street corner, but the general populace actually had reasonable haircuts and fair dental plans, contrasting popular stereotypes.

Because Tim had been spending all summer laying the smackdown on the MCAT he was previously unavailable to do awesome tourist activities until he finished that garbage and I arrived. So we took a page out of the “Smashmouth Tourism” playbook and efficiently crushed the city during the days and nights. Some findings:

-       The hats that guards in front of Bucky’s House (Buckingham Palace) and London Tower wear are utterly ridiculous, large, and impractical. But they are useful for this:

Why?

-       According to a misinformed and nonsensical children’s song, “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, my fair lady.” Tim and I agreed this song is just entirely false and asinine and needs to be banished from children’s musical selections everywhere. I personally witnessed the London Bridge in all her glory and not only is it not falling down but it is perfectly upright, intact, and a beautiful structure. That’s how rumors get started, kids. Probably written by the same group that stated, “Jimmy cracked corn, and I don’t care.” Horrible people. And don’t even get me started with Fergie’s remix.

-       Bangers and Mash sounds like either a sexual maneuver or a duo of villains from a cheap action film, but in London it is sausage and mashed potatoes. And it is delicious.

-       The British Pound is brutally destroying the U.S. Dollar (1.56 dollars to a pound), which presents a quandary for the common traveler who happens to be fresh out of college, jobless, constantly begging his father for money, and previously bought 8 too many gelatos and 1 or 5 too many steaks in France and Spain.

-       ESPN published an article comparing the Olympic village to a preposterous scene of boisterous horny athletes getting wildly and inappropriately drunk after their events are over and going on ridiculous weeklong romps with fellow athletes. Also, arriving at the village for them is apparently “like the first day of college” again. We did not get to witness any of this except for the Olympic Village itself, which is really nice and really expensive retail galore.

With that, I give London’s power ranking, and the EUROROMP POWER RANKINGS FINAL STANDINGS:

Hostel – 10

Stayed at Waldo’s which included a meal as well as a TV equipped with karaoke, provoking life-changing performances from the Walden brethren which may just land them a tour someday. Anything less than a 10 would be a great insult to him as well as his family and I just don’t have that in me considering how nice of a gesture it was. Bonus: they’ll also be hosting Goose (Tim’s future roommate at Duke. Fun fact.) next week, which may just push the hostel rating over a 10 for the first time ever.

Food – 8.5

Getting closer to American food, except for the waitress that looked at me like I just pulled a skull out of my raincoat when I asked for ranch dressing with one of my four orders of fries over two days.  Fish and chips with some mash served as my quintessential London meal for the trip. I was also fortunate to discover the beauty of a Juicy Lucy, a burger injected with cheese. This may demand a future outrageously impulsive pilgrimage to the Juicy Lucy’s true origins: Minneapolis.

Sites – 9

If you had bionic legs and prosthetic joints built for tourism as well as an Oyster card with unlimited Underground funds you still wouldn’t be able to do this whole city in two days. We missed a bit, but we managed to hit Bucky’s Place, Westminster Abbey, Large Benjamin, London Bridge, London Tower, Trafalgar square, Leicester Square (pronounced Lester, as in the formerly dominant Sox pitcher that now throws like a Halfling dwarf), Olympic Village, the Imperial War Museum, and streets full of pubs and fish and chip shops, which was a pretty good start, and all pretty awesome, despite the fact that it rains 18 hours a day, every day.

Large Benny

Suck it, Nazism.

Best Site – London Tower – 9

We had about an hour and a half to take down this overpriced castle.  The ticket lady told us this was probably a bad idea…so we did it anyways. We basically saw it all (we think) from the medieval armory to the crown jewels. The kings’ armory included one obnoxious suit of armor made for Henry V to blatantly put his manparts on parade and declare dominance over all other males in his army, which we thoroughly enjoyed:

Henry Five with some stellar rigging

We also got a taste of how the kings lived by walking around the castle grounds and, of course, seeing their toilets. One of the more ridiculous and disgusting yet genius things I learned on the entire trip was that their toilets were just cement holes that led down the back of the castle (no pipes) into troughs a couple stories below. They hung their clothes right next to this trough because the pee that incessantly hit their clothes apparently kept moths away. I have no idea who the first person was to pee on their clothes and declare it beneficial, but he/she is some sort of bold genius.

Probably cheap

Side note: Imperial War Museum WAS going to win Best Site, but Tower of London was cool and enlightening inside and out, not just inside. Additionally, we left the Imperial War Museum appetite-less and completely depressed after the Holocaust portion showed us pictures of millions of dead innocent children and such.

World Wars look fun!!

Nightlife – 7.5

Met up with Steve Selde who served as part tour guide and part ridiculous storyteller all three nights. The pubs were cool but for some reason shut down at 11 or 12 every night, as if the town is made of an entirely geriatric population. That was weird, but still fun.

With a strong 43 from London, I give the final power rankings to close out the Euroromp:

1) Rome - 46

1) Prague - 46

2) Paris - 44.75

3) Madrid - 44

4) Barca - 43.5

5) London - 43

6) San Sebastian - 42.5

7) Amsterdam - 42

8) Pamplona - 41.75

9) Vienna - 41.5 

9) Venice - 41.5

10) Nice - 41

11) Brussels - 40.75

12) Frankfurt - 40

13) Genoa - 39.5

14) Florence - 39.25 

15) Berlin - 39

15) Bordeux - 39

16) Marseille - 38

17) Narbonne - 36

I would like to personally thank all friends and family for the support on this trip. Without my parents none of this would have been possible because a) they gave birth to me and b) they funded everything. Without all my awesome friends and their tips I would have never a) known where to go and b) had anyone to travel with and put up with me (especially Goose) and c) had a pizza and desert calzone from Dar Poeta in Rome which, we all agreed, changed our lives.

The blog garnered about 4,000 views in my 5 weeks of writing, which is excellent for a quickly drawn up travel blog.  Obviously, 98% of these hits are due to me and my countless number of friends, and the other 2% from Tom, John, Ben, Will, Becca, and Goose’s friends (I’m THAT COOL), meaning 98% of this thank you is from me. So, to each of you reading now: thank you very much just for caring, and I will hopefully see you all somewhere soon.

Ring Challenge Update: Olympian Status Ring-wearing Achieved.

San Sebastian: Doing Nothing Did a Lot

I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that this has not been a normal summer. Not in the least. Meaning, I haven’t swam in any urine-saturated country club pools, haven’t thrown any golf clubs, haven’t sat and stared into space for hours at a time, and haven’t really relaxed too much at all. Always moving. So following 2 hours of sleep and running from monstrous beasts in the morning, all I wanted was to lay on a beach with soft sand and gorgeous water surrounded by mountains and do absolutely nothing. So we did. For about two strait days. This was probably one of my favorite stretches of the entire trip because it consisted of two of my favorite athletic activities: daydreaming and not moving.

..like this.

            At night, we did much of the same, sitting and talking on a cliff overlooking the ocean. But those around us didn’t. San Sebastian is located in “Basque Country,” which is comparable to Texas because, similarly, the rest of the country hates them, they think they are better than Spain and all their countrymen, and they want to secede. Also similarly, a lot of the country would probably be OK with this. So, for reasons we still can’t figure out, there was a festival all weekend with constant music and marching bands in the streets. We honestly didn’t know if they thought they were finally independent for some reason or if they were celebrating the mere idea of becoming independent. Regardless, this led to two of the more ridiculous sites I’ve ever seen.

            The first is the urinal system at the concert:

Yes, we see you.

 We were amazed by this structure, which is essentially just an organized tree. And with better drainage, instead of the urine hitting your feet. To me, this was even more ridiculous than the outdoor troughs placed around Pamplona’s stadium because those were built hundreds of years ago in a city that really couldn’t care less about hygiene, and this is a modern creation someone thinks is going to boom. There was no hand sanitizer in site and you go with zero coverage, so male bathroom secrets from peeing style to the fact that about 2% of men actually wash their hands are now exploited. This device has singlehandedly transformed the phrase “Hey honey, I’m going to the bathroom real quick” to “Hey honey, I’m gonna go pee in the organized tree, try not to get any on myself, not wash my hands afterward then come hold yours.” Basque country – true revolutionaries.

            The second was their version of fun:

            This was, at surface level, a guy inside a metal bull-shaped structure that shot flames and sparks five feet perpendicular to its path while he paraded through a dense crowd of people. But if you look closer…no wait, that’s exactly what it is. This was a site for the ages. It induced about as much mass chaos as the time my friend was told to dress up in a turkey costume and hand out candy in Prep’s lunchroom in honor of Thanksgiving, and instead stood on the stage/tables pelting everyone in sight. Or the time snakes in Prep’s lunchroom were released. Or the time in Prep’s lunchroom people were standing on chairs chanting “Black Pope!” during the papal election. Anyways, it was the same level of chaos, except this guy was nearly lighting everyone within a ten-foot radius of him on fire. Kids were running around the guy as if it were some fake light show, Spanish adults were screaming, and tourists were literally running for their lives as he approached. Stunning. Great way to celebrate whatever it was they were celebrating.

RUN KIDS!!!

In the end, this awesome little beach town turned in a solid power ranking:

Hostel – 8.5

We had the nicest, shortest, little old Spanish lady help us into the hostel she ran. She didn’t have room in the 7-man spot we were originally designated for so she threw us in her library, which had enough walking space for ants to pass through. The location couldn’t be beat as it was close to two necessities: the beach and patatas fritas con ali-oli (French fries slathered in pepper garlic sauce).

Food – 9

Everything was great, except for the system of half of the restaurants. You basically go up to the bar, put what looks good on a plate for your table, they look at it and name a price that they think sounds good. “Ehhhhh, veinte?” And we oblige. No complaints about the taste.

Sites – 8.5

Ignoring that the area is full of signs supporting their fellow separatists in the movement to become fascist/socialist, this is a beautiful little beach town with a tropical feel.

Saw another statue of a Greek God on the beach

Best Site – I forget the name of it but I’ll just call it “The Big Jesus Statue on the Cliff” – 9

Basically, this was a big Jesus statue on a cliff. The walk up to it provided some of the best views of the entire trip, with a perfect sky bouncing off the purest ocean water available to man while mountains just hung out in the background. 

Nightlife – 8

The flaming bull on parade’s chaos was hilarious for a good 5 minutes until we left because sparks were too close landing in our hair. That was a site to see. The place is chalk full of bars and separatists that want to party, and the nightly concerts where we knew 0 of the words thanks to their insane dialect were a solid addition to the nights. But in the wake of Pamplona, we couldn’t get ourselves to really take advantage of it all.

42.5 gives a big score for a little guy. With just London left to attempt to Usurp Prague and Rome, the power rankings sit as follows:

1) Rome - 46

1) Prague - 46

2) Paris - 44.75

3) Madrid - 44

4) Barca - 43.5

5) San Sebastian - 42.5

6) Amsterdam - 42

7) Pamplona - 41.75

8) Vienna - 41.5 

8) Venice - 41.5

9) Nice - 41

10) Brussels - 40.75

11) Frankfurt - 40

12) Genoa - 39.5

13) Florence - 39.25 

14) Berlin - 39

14) Bordeux - 39

15) Marseille - 38

16) Narbonne - 36

Ring Challenge Update: had to amputate.

Pamplona EuroRomp Power Ranking

Now that you’ve fully imbibed yourself with our Pamplona experience in my last post, we can move on to the power ranking:

Hostel – 6.75

Pretty bad location and price, and the room was basically just one big bed with a bathroom the size of a Backstreet Boy (in their prime). We did sleep in shopping carts and cardboard in a park at night at night though, so I suppose the hostel didn’t get much of a chance.

Food – 8.5

“The last supper” was a pretty phenomenal steak and a standard order fries covered in sauce along with 5 other tapas. Aside from that our only meal was Don Simon’s finest sangria, which was just fantastic and pure as usual.

Sites –7.5

Didn’t get to see too much but walking around a bar-infested town overflowing with drunk adventurists, locals and children alike wearing the same wine-splattered outfit was pretty amazing. Despite the entire town smelling like MA’s bathroom (BC shoutout!), and making sure to carefully plot every step not to avoid tripping but to avoid cess pools of man sweat, stale urine, rat shit and general grossness, it was an amazing place to be.

Best Site – Pamplona’s Stadium – 9

I will reemphasize that what takes place inside here is the closest thing to The Coliseum’s hayday since…the Coliseum’s hayday. Reaching it at the end of the run and finding Goose and Sam (instant high 5’s all around) felt like a life accomplishment and an athletic feat simultaneously. Standing on the ground and (while there weren’t bulls running rampant) just taking in the ~25,000-seat old cement stadium lined with columns, children screaming, “rip his head off!” in Spanish, and the crowd going nuts when someone was impaled or trampled was incredible. I can’t really compare it to any other experience, until I am again dodging wild animals in front of thousands cheering for bloodshed.

Nightlife – 10

Can’t say much more about the incredibly vile and anti-hygienic style the town parties in for the week throughout the streets, but I can say plenty more that I would do this 11 out of 10 times. Our only regret was not enough time spent there to take all the festivities in. No doubt about it. Nevermind the unidentified fungi likely crawling all over our legs and my weird new desire to go get revaccinated for everything ever – it’s worth it. 

Updated Standings:

1) Rome - 46

1) Prague - 46

2) Paris - 44.75

3) Madrid - 44

4) Barca - 43.5

5) Amsterdam - 42

6) Pamplona - 41.75

7) Vienna - 41.5 

7) Venice - 41.5

8) Nice - 41

9) Brussels - 40.75

10) Frankfurt - 40

11) Genoa - 39.5

12) Florence - 39.25 

13) Berlin - 39

13) Bordeux - 39

14) Marseille - 38

15) Narbonne - 36

Firsthand Account: Running with the Bulls

     To begin, I’d like to apologize for the lack of solid documentation of such an outrageous event. Goose’s old camera was stolen while I was sleeping in a shopping cart, and he and ‘Drea in cardboard boxes in a park next to plenty of homeless people. How did we end up sleeping in shopping carts and cardboard boxes the night before we ran in front of 1,500-pound animals with horns designed to kill? Well allow me to explain…

     Before arriving in Pamplona, what I knew about Running of the Bulls was that it was one of the most barbaric displays of human idiocy available to mankind for one week every summer. Also, to paraphrase BC scholar Jake Burke, I heard that I would “drink 2€ bottles of wine, your shoes will be drenched in Spanish urine, you will be robbed of something, and you will sleep in a park surrounded by drug-addled English tourists.” Just my style! My only previous viewing of the event had been clips in Sportscenter’s Not-So-Top-10 about once a year in which some unfortunate guy’s mangled body was being tossed in the air by an animal 20-times his size. Seeing the festival firsthand is a whole different beast though - it was remarkable just how right Jake was.
   
     What I didn’t know about it was that this wretched manifestation of human incompetence is a world-renowned festival honoring San Fermin. To honor him, thousands of clueless Americans, hammered Irishmen and babbling Spaniards gather themselves in the town while donning the same traditional white and red garb, nearly drink themselves to death at night, and only then proceed to throw themselves in front of massive animals in narrow alleyways. To adequately prepare yourself, you need to be ready for all three of these things.


     In Bordeux two days before the run, I planned on picking up a pair of white pants to add to my white “proud to be an American” shirt as my garb. We rolled into a place that must have been some sort of fohawk magnet, because everyone in there had one. Along with shiny jeans that would have fit me in 5th grade and button-downs that would make Enrique Iglesias dance in his grave (is he dead?). My options were some version of capris that looked like a skirt stapled together at the bottom, pleather white pants with a convenient zipper pocket, skinny white jeans, and some reasonably plain white shorts. Went with the shorts, waited in like for about 80 seconds and gave up, threw them on a pile of deep v-neck shirts and got out of there. Had to get out.

     We arrived at the train station the next day without a ticket because that would have been way too smart and far too well planned for our likeness. Sold out. Everyone was going to Pamplona for the last day of the festival. So I contemplated jumping a rope and illegally hopping on the train first, and finding wild Andalusian horses to bareback to the promised land second. In the end, Goose played the empathy card and gave a beautiful, puppy-eyed Spanish soliloquy to the ticket senorita about his sister waiting for us in Pamplona alone. Boom. We’re on. 8 hours of travel later, we arrived. My clothing situation was solved within minutes as they apparently have stores dedicated solely to this festival (debatable business model…), and our food situation was solved when Goose treated his sister Andrea and I to “the last supper” around 9.

     Returned back to gear up, and that’s when I decided to throw on the HuskGuys.com (my other, more awesome blog. But if you didn’t know that we probably aren’t that good of friends and I probably don’t actually like you.) threads. With that, I felt unstoppable. Unconquerable. Suddenly I was praying to the Gods that they imported some Texas Longhorns for the next morning’s run just so I could rip their stupid horns off, bring them back to Texas and shove them up Mack Brown's… anyways, I was ready. That was until I decided I needed to watch some “game film”:


So now that I knew if a bull fell on top of me its horn wouldn't stab me but corkscrew into me and be “tearing flesh and wiping out vital organs” on its path, I was more ready than ever! But Goose explained that there had only been about 13 deaths in 100 years, so I liked my chances.

     That night, we headed to the heart of the festival underneath a sky lit up by fireworks. We arrived and walked the course, which felt like the Green Mile. Met a kid named Sam who was traveling alone and after we bonded over some rash sarcasm toward Texas (which I call "The Nebraskan Litmus Test") we became best friends for the night. We proceeded toward the heart of the festival near a part of the course called Dead Man's Corner (fitting), and were immediately bombarded with the incredibly pure scent of foreign urine puddles. On our walk, one man literally just dropped the pants right in front of hundreds of people and peed on the wall. Nice. Good night in the making.

   A couple hours after I stepped in a pool of vomit (seriously) slowly seeping into the cobblestone, we found ourselves in the streets hanging out with a hodgepodge of English and Irishmen. I bonded with a professional English rugby player over Newcastle soccer (which consisted of him legitimately slapping himself in the head and letting out roars of approval), and then I met a nutjob of an Irishman which set up the story of the night.

    He told me two epic tales: 1) the last person to die on the course was an old woman who peeked her head through the fence to see if all the bulls had run by and upon doing so received a fresh horn through the skull. 2) The only person to ever run the entire course did so by climbing up walls in the alleys. Both seemed really likely. Next, with a look of "I have no idea what I'm talking about" crossed with "I'm going to regret this tomorrow" in his glazed over eyes, he went on to confidently claim that he was going to be the second ever to complete the run (although plenty have completed it). Obviously I had to challenge this, so I dared him to prove it and climb the wall across the street.

    I've made some dumb bets in my life but only a few where someone's life is legitimately on the line. He looked back at me one more time as if to ask if I was really serious, and although I absolutely was not he promptly started climbing a plastic pipe attached to the wall like a palm tree. The key word here was 'plastic.' With the pressure he was putting on it climbing in the manner he was, it was simply not going to hold. No way. After he was about 8-10 feet in the air and the masses were gathering below the Irish manmonkey, the pipe SNAPPED IN HALF and sent him propelling off the wall as if a grenade just exploded within it and he landed flat on his back, to the horror of hundreds of onlookers. Obviously at this point our group's first reaction was to double over in laughter and I almost crumbled into the dried puke and pee beneath my feet until I considered he could actually be hurt. I looked back up and there he was on the wall again, back on the horse, finally reaching his destination of a porch about 15-20 feet up the building and receiving a warm round of applause. 0 chance he completed the run in the morning.

   A couple hours later we all encountered a wave of exhaustion. At about 3:30 we made our way to a park and I made two important discoveries along the way while going to pee in a not-so-private location behind a skinny tree: 1) an empty shopping cart and 2) a pile of human fecal matter. This allowed the night to officially eclipse both Lollapalooza and Notre Dame RV Weekend as the most vile event I've ever attended. I took the shopping cart and we arrived at the nearby park to nap amongst the homeless, even though we had checked into a hostel just hours before. This is when one of the worst decisions in the history of sleeping amongst the homeless was made. After I climbed into my turned-over shopping cart "for protection" (best decision, not worst), Sam decided to put his Droid phone on TOP of the cart "so that I couldn't reach it to snooze it." This was like communism: good idea on paper but just NEVER going to work as planned. Normal intuition, not 3 a.m. intuition, would tell you that even if I DID wake up while a criminal was laughing at us and easily snagging the phone off the top of the cart, I wouldn't have been able to grab back for it because I was trapped in the stupid animal cage of a shopping cart. So we (miraculously) woke up 2 hours later down a smart phone and Goose's old camera, which was ingeniously placed on the ground next to us. Excellent. No documentation of anything would happen that day. No need to get caught up in that though, we had more important things to worry about. So at 6 we proceeded for coffee and viewed the bulls in their pen one more time (conclusion: they were not small). About 15 minutes before the first rocket my heart rate kicking up a notch when the mob of people packed like sardines in a plaza were jumping rhythmically singing "Ole, Ole." 10 minutes before - Goose, Sam and I reach Dead Man's Corner, our start spot, heart jumps up another notch. 5 minutes before - stretching, press taking pictures of us, heart rate up another notch. The daze from the night before and the lore of the entire event were preventing me from realizing what I really needed to: this was really happening.

    Our goal was a ~350 m stretch known as Dead Man's Alley: a notoriously narrow alleyway starting with the famous 90-degree turn Dead Man's Corner and ending with the stadium. I wanted the stadium. 3 minutes. We start wishing each other luck and I take a look up Dead Man's Alley to see thousands in their white and red and thousands more packing it in on their porches overlooking the street. This was the point of no return. How could I know what was going to happen next?

    One minute before the first rocket. I look down at the rolled up newspaper I was holding and notice sweat marks. I'm excited yet curious, confused yet anxious. People are doing calisthenics around us, others saying prayers, others kissing or tapping a San Fermin mural for luck. This suddenly took a turn from "Haha, I'm running with the bulls!" to "Jesus Christ. I'm running with the bulls." 30 seconds. The runners go weirdly quiet. Everyone knows what's about to happen. Some have done it hundreds of time, but the pre-race jitters aren't like a normal track meet. Your path is going to be anything but strait, anything but flat, and your life is on the line if you make one misstep. Death is rare, but it doesn't feel like it. 15 seconds. Goose starts jumping up and down with anxiety, Sam joins. I'm standing still soiling my pants.

    Boom! "FIRST ROCKET" Goose yells - the bulls are out. They'd be arriving in about a minute to our spot. BOOM. Second rocket - the last of the bulls are out, along with the last of my croquettes from the night before in the back of my pants. A couple seconds later we see the pansy boys running for us - probably French. The bulls were nowhere near and I convince Goose to wait it out. Then came the second wave. We all start jumping to get a better view. I see a surge of people running frantically around the corner about 75 yards away. I turn left and Goose and Sam are gone. Just how we drew it up! I'm on my own now. First glimpse of a bull and I start out on a jog, dodging people in my path. 5 second later I hear the bells around their necks and they echo in my head. 5 seconds after that, I turn anddd HOLY GOD THIS IS REAL. A pack of six brown army tankers (scientific terminology) 15 yards away. They barrel up the street and wizz past, and when the lead bull caught a glimpse of my jersey I saw him point with a hoof and non-vocally warn his mates not to go anywhere near a boss like me.  Still too close for comfort. I think a) my Irish friend is most certainly bleeding to death right now b) I am not faster than bulls. c) I can't believe it's over.

    It wasn't. There's a clearing in the crowd and a second pack of six is crushing the cobblestone. Conveniently, I ran into a pack of veterans on the right side of the street. Not the nice, "Oh hey it's you!" kind of running into though, the literal kind. I'm stumbling about and turn to gaze into the eyes of some mammoth "young bulls" (no chance) 20 yards back. I make the split-second idiotic, ill-advised decision to just sprint right in front of them and cross the street. Definitely started running like a gay boy at this point, with my back arched as if that was going to create further separation from their horns. They pass on my right again, and I file in behind them to finally reach the stadium. Surprisingly, this is where the fun really starts.

    Being in the stadium is easily the closest thing humanity has left to The Coliseum days. Essentially, once every idiot is trapped in the base of the stadium and gated in on the dirt floor, the bulls are released from tunnels for periods of five minutes. They come out like someone just bit their testes (which is basically what happens, but with a rope), and proceed to maul anything in their path. Quite simply, I have never seen such savage human behavior in my life. The ~25,000 seat stadium was on their feet, going nuts every time a bull would ram an idiot tourist. They loved it. They wanted blood. So there I am standing in the base of the stadium dodging raging bulls with my friends and we have 25,000 locals cheering for our death. Despite regressing 2,000 years in a matter of minutes, humans have never amazed me more.

    In 20 minutes we not only avoided the bulls (I put the Rex-Burkhead-versus-OSU-juke on one of those fools) but saw at LEAST 15 losers get run over, speared, or tossed by one of the 4 bulls we saw released one at a time. One guy was legitimately hanging on to the bulls neck for dear life - awful plan and did not make that bull happy. Horn to rib cage. It then set in that we had no siting of Andrea for about an hour. She had a head start but we instantly assumed there was no way she made it to the stadium. So after a half hour of a search party around the outside of it, she turned up with a casual "Oh yea, sorry, I was on the ground of the stadium too." Casual Saturday morning.

With all of our limbs intact and brains semi-intact, we trekked back two miles to the hostel while simultaneously noting the incredible ever-present dank urine scent in random patches of the street and deliriously recounting each of our stories. Passed out for a half hour, made it to the train to San Sebastian with 2 minutes to spare, passed out on the train, made it to our hostel, and passed out on the beach for a couple more hours. Woke up from that in a daze and with a slight headache and crispy red shoulders, happy to be alive. We crushed San Fermin.

   

This was Sam.

Acceptable for brothers and sisters to sleep like this on special occasions only.

Bored-eaux!

      Bordeaux was intended as a transition spot for a night between the city of lovers and the city of vicious savage party animals (and party humans). So we took in the city along with some cheese and wine because we are classy as hell. Being the world’s wine capitol, I was convinced my 2 Euro glass was top-notch stuff but it very well could have been Franzia poured strait from it’s industrial sized grocery bag in a box and I wouldn’t have known the difference. Unfortunately, we missed the two-hour wine class, so any shot of sounding like total tools while discussing “the beautiful legs” of the wine and whether or not we prefer half or whole bodied wine with rich men in black mock turtlenecks was stifled. Instead we just walked around and were lucky enough to catch the live stream of a ballet outside the opera house!!!! Apparently ballets are like sporting events here, except no guy playing or watching is strait. The crowd gathered on the theater steps boggled our minds, and we left after 5 minutes of some life-changing pirouettes by a man in excessively revealing white tights.  Sadly, we couldn’t find any Gamecast coverage on ESPN.com of the performance on Goose’s phone at dinner so we missed the end – if anyone could fill us in that would be excellent.

Gathering of the masses for a particularly moving piece here..

Went to dinner and a bar and that was pretty much what Bordeaux had to offer. That night, extensive mental preparations for what was about to take place in Pamplona began as we returned early around midnight. (Cliffhanger: stay tuned for the Pamplona post. It’s a dandy.)

 Bordeaux's Power Ranking:

Hostel – 8.5

Lucked out with a 3-person room without a third roomie. This meant only one thing: I got to put two beds together to form a king, despite Goose having about 3 inches and 60 pounds on me. He slept in a twin with half his body hanging off. I wasn’t backing down. This was worth a whole half-point bonus.

Food – 8

Wine and cheese in a place too nice for us was pretty cool, although I was raving more about the prices than what we were actually consuming like a true wine connoisseur. Had some average crepes and some excellent nachos (a French delicacy!), leaving Bordeaux with an 8. 

 Sites – 8.5

Pretty cool small town to walk around with old school French architecture galore. It was Soldes Week, which is basically when every store in France cuts their prices in half and heteros, homos and metros alike celebrate in peace with a shopping frenzy. Bordeaux is apparently wildly big on fashion and wine, so Goose and I fit in perfectly walking around the joint.

Best Site – St. Andrew’s – 7.5
This would have been more like a 9 if it were the first cathedral we had seen instead of the 100^th, but instead it was a 7 with a .5-point bonus for being named after the patron saint of blogging, Nebraska Football, and unhealthy decisions – Saint Andrew.

"Go Eagles" - Saint Andrew

Nightlife – 6.5

The ballet that blew our minds was a definite game changer. Unfortunately not too much else outside of some casual pub drinking occurred that night. The real fun would kick off the next night…

For now, Bordeaux comes in with a 39, leaving the standings as follows:

1) Rome - 46

1) Prague - 46

2) Paris - 44.75

3) Madrid - 44

4) Barca - 43.5

5) Amsterdam - 42

6) Vienna - 41.5 

6) Venice - 41.5

7) Nice - 41

8) Brussels - 40.75

9) Frankfurt - 40

10) Genoa - 39.5

11) Florence - 39.25 

12) Berlin - 39

12) Bordeux - 39

13) Marseille - 38

14) Narbonne - 36

Paris: bring your lover.

Eiffel 65

If Paris were human, Goose would make sweet love to this city. And I’d consider joining. Between the history, the buildings, the scenery and the crepes, it pretty much has it all. I also discovered that France’s people are awesome in a pretty unique way. Upon arrival, my metro pass didn’t work because that would have made too much sense. Goose went barreling away down the stairs (probably because I had recently called him out for his fanhood being spread too thin) into the depths of the metro system, leaving me with a giant bag, 0 functioning metro passes and 4 words of French known. But an elder, stereotypical-looking French man donning a blue suit coat and gray pants nearly put his life on the line to make sure I could get through and cheat the system. After realizing we couldn’t communicate, “The Saint” pointed at the turnstile and wanted me to get in behind him within the same slot, grinding up on him like a rap music video and getting through in one swipe. Because I’m neither gay nor French I shrugged that idea off. He didn’t give up. What happened next was an incredible feat of human strength and altruism combined. After people flooded out the automatic, sliding exit doors he shoved his arms in them as they slammed shut and nearly decapitated him, and began to pull them apart like the Incredible Hulk. The Saint was easily 70, and easily defeating this machine. Unfortunately, I couldn’t squeeze through the space he made. Strike 2, sorry Saint. After another solid series of “It’s OK, merci!” shrugs from me and looks of “I’m getting you through these doors even if I die doing it” from The Saint, he stopped a middle-aged woman who was really digging my American vibe and allowed me to squeeze in the turnstile with her. We got friendly for a second, and I scooted through behind her without paying. I shook The Saint’s hand, almost genuflected and asked for a blessing, found Goose, concluded that old French men are all amazing, and we moved on.

We extended our stay in Paris to make it three days in lieu of two days in Paris and two in Bourdeux, which was a superb decision. This way, after walking around and seeing all of Paris’s big hitters the first two days, we could go see the most obnoxiously large house of all time on the third day: Chateau de Versaille. King Louis the 14^th made Versaille the capitol of France and from there he basically said, “We’re goin’ big.” He proceeded to construct a home that could house my entire lineage back to Neanderthals.  Surrounding this would be two man-made lakes and hundreds of statues and fountains placed throughout hundreds of acres of meticulous hedges and gardens trimmed by, at the very least, a top-3 AP Press landscaping squad in the world.

After street food for 4 strait days, spending ~50 Euro combined in that span, we decided to treat ourselves the last night. Similar to Nice, Goose treated himself far better than I treated myself. Meaning, my plate of lamb was overshadowed and outmanned by an order of escargo, French onion soup, steak and potatoes, crème brulee, and two bottles of wine. 83 Euro. He wears the pants in this relationship. We also treated ourselves and did laundry, and by that I mean Goose woke up and did our laundry while I slept.

Clean laundry is an amazing feeling after about a week of using “the smell test” on boxers before wearing them and wiping myself dry with a mildew-infested Bear Grills style camping towel. Over the trip, I’ve slowly discarded the following: 3 pairs of sweaty socks, one pair of boxers I didn’t feel like washing, 5 out of the 400 La Quinta Inn shampoo and body washes that my mother packed me (love you Mom!), a stick of deodorant, and Becca discarded a non-empty toothpaste tube for unknown reasons.

After a pretty awesome experience, we’ve arrived in Bourdeux to begin mental preparations for Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls this weekend. Here’s what we ended up with for Paris’s Power Ranking:

Hostel: 8

Not the best location in the city, although being based in this neighborhood allowed me to discover that Paris has a very large population of black people. Fun fact! Plus, it was super spatious:

SHOTTY BIG SPOON!

Food: 9.5

The final meal showed French food off. We had been talking to a Canadian couple at the table next to us for about a half hour and when I tasted the bearneaise sauce on my lamb steak I made the claim that I would probably eat my shoes if they were covered in berneaise. I’m still not sure if they thought this was funny or really weird, but I was pretty serious. France’s fine dining owns.

Sites: 10

Went for a run in the morning, got lost (only) twice, and still enjoyed it just for Paris’s architecture and parks. On several instances strolling the Seine River I went “full Asian” and just clicked away, not really finding a point to put my camera down. I snapped pictures until I finally snapped out of it when I realized I was taking them of houses and buildings that didn’t even register on the map of Paris we had.

Ex: We actually didn't even know what this was.

Move it or Louvre it!

Best Site: Top of Eiffel? Chateau Versaille? Sacre Couer? – All 10s.

While picking the “best site” for the city, we compared the best sites to a bullpen combining to throw a no hitter (not a perfect game, because there were a lot of walks in between). It’s a great feat, but done with a spectacle of performances by at least a couple pitchers, not to mention the rest of the team as support. In simpler words – there’s a lot of cool stuff in Paris. A lot. The whole squad came to play. But only one can be credited with the win in the stat book at the end of the day, so I suppose that would be the top of the Eiffel as it allowed me to see everything within 5,000 miles. I have good eyes. Wherever we went the same conclusion generally held true though: bringing your lover here is essentially mandatory. So Goose and I will fill you in on wedding details soon.

I hate ledges.

Probably the coolest place I've ever tossed a disc around. This or Council Bluffs.

Side Note: many may consider the Notre Dame Cathedral the best site. Considering how painful it was to give Marseille’s Notre Dame any sort of recognition as a USC and BC fan, we deemed this illegal. We also perpetually pronounced it in exaggerated French, so as not to give any indication that we were hanging out near anything remotely related to a corrupt Catholic university in the U.S.

Nightlife: 7.25

Saw some cool “Indie” bars that would be a smash hit in Omaha, but chilling next to the Sen and Sacre Couer at night was much cooler. Sacre Couer, obviously, is French for “sack of Coors,” or, “epic basilica on top of a giant hill overlooking the entire city where lots of people go drink and lots of Senegalese men try and sell you the same thing.” I think. Whatever it is, it was awesome and we had another phenomenal acoustic cover artist accompanying us on the hilltop who drew a crowd of probably 200. Not a bad summer night.

Ring Challenge Update: I think you can actually see skin growing around it now. It's a part of me. Also, this picture is completely original and never before attempted by any previous tourists. Copyrighted.

Brussels Sprouts with Life

After a weekend in one of the more unholy places on the planet, the Brussels stop was intended as a cleanser of sorts. Unfortunately, and fortunately, a 24-hour Belgian cleanse consisted of two deep-fried Belgian waffles for breakfast (no parents!), one covered in ice cream, one in chocolate and strawberries. Yes, I added strawberries to complete a balanced breakfast touching the five food groups – carbs, fruits, fats, chocolate, and grease.  On top of that, Belgium has some weird “French Fry Complex,” as I have aptly dubbed it – they claim to have invented French fries. As a consequence of France claiming name rights, they abuse all of their tourists with fries slathered in about a liter of whichever of the thirty sauces you choose in their stores dedicated to fries. So Goose and I accepted this, and housed two orders in our time. No regrets.

The result of our stay:

Hostel: 8

Pretty clean with a fine location in walking distance to the city center. The only real issue was some deodorant-deprived Indian men coming in and out of the room at 4 a.m. Sadly, that still leaves it with an above-average mark.

Food: 8.5

The waffles, fries, and falafel combo was deadly. I would be totally fine with doing that the rest of my life as long as I buy quadruple bypass procedure packages in bulk somehow, but it’s tough to say if we actually consumed a real meal at any point, so that leaves Belgium with an 8.5.

Sites: 9

Being the “Capitol of Europe” (where’s the Capitol of North America?  Or Antarctica?), Brussels definitely has the old school look down pat, but it left a little to be desired considering one big tourist attraction is a little boy taking a pee. There’s also a complimenting “peeing girl” statue in another part of town and that was just excessively graphic and awkward. For some reason it seemed far more acceptable to look at a 4-year-old boy taking a tinkle. Europe is weird.

I know. Awesome picture. Two first ballot hall of fame Catholics here.

Best Site: Grand Palace – 8

Goose and I came to a pretty vague conclusion here: “That was probably the best square we’ve ever been in, although the one in Prague, two or three in Rome and a couple in Madrid were also really awesome.” Nonetheless, walking through and around this area full of antique buildings, French fries and rain puddles was a treat.

Nightlife: 7.25

Walked around and tried some local Daddy Pops (beers), and Goose celebrated Roger Federer’s Wimpy (Wimby, whatever) win at an English pub. For me, all that’s ever really mattered in tennis history is that fellow Omahan Andy Roddick has the fastest serve in history. And that Anna Kournikova was…herself. I’ve noticed that Goose and I have a stark contrast in the sports world. I have a concentrated fanhood: Nebraska football, Boston Red Sox, U.S. Soccer, Nebraska Football, BC sports, and Nebraska football. That’s really it. Goose on the other hand has something like the following list: USC football, Roger Federer, Nadal as 2^nd favorite, L.A. kings, Spain soccer (his “3^rd favorite team”), Barcelona, Mariners in the AL, Pirates in the NL (I never knew about this…until they were first in their incompetent division), Seattle Seahawks, Buccanneers in the early 2000s but the Titans in ‘99, other USC sports sometimes, Cal State Fullerton baseball, the Clippers now, soon acquiring Duke Basketball, and more. Also of note is his abandonment of Nebraska Football during the Dark Ages, also known as the Callahan era, but he’s slowly coming back around to his roots. Thus, once Nebraska returns to glory this year (this is the year!), with that lineup of teams he will never be unhappy again. Ever. Now, this created some controversy for me as three of his teams have won their respective championships in the last 4 weeks. My teams have combined for 3 championships in 5 years, which is awesome, but they’ve all been BC Hockey (THANKS!). Aside from those, I think the ‘Skers beating an unranked Oklahoma team in ’09 was the next greatest moment in the last 5 years. Or U.S. beating powerhouse Algeria…then ousted by Ghana. Great. Despite our differences, we remained civil gentlemen and enjoyed the evening following Fed’s 17^th championship at Delirium, a brewery-turned-bar, and retired early.

40.75.  The new rankings:

1) Rome - 46

1) Prague - 46

2) Madrid - 44

3) Barca - 43.5

4) Amsterdam - 42

5) Vienna - 41.5 

5) Venice - 41.5

6) Nice - 41

7) Brussels - 40.75

8) Frankfurt - 40

9) Genoa - 39.5

10) Florence - 39.25 

11) Berlin - 39

12) Marseille - 38

13) Narbonne - 36

On to Paris.

Amsterdam: A Life Experience

On a Eurotrip, a weekend in Amsterdam is comparable to a college football team’s marquee game. You do your best not to get complacent and let it overshadow your current challenge, but you’ve had that weekend circled all season. This weekend, indeed, was a thriller.

The place is, literally, crawling with tourists.

Amsterdam might just be the greatest mistake on the planet. Aside from the omnipresent dank scent of marijuana consistently invading your nostrils and clothes alike, the constant inquiring whether a girl you just looked at is a hooker or not, and the prostitutes in the Red Light District stationed across from a church in clear rooms so that desperate men can conveniently and literally “window shop,” this is a great family-friendly location! And by family-friendly I mean I would never consider bringing anyone that has a glimmer of a chance of having good morals to this city.

But, when you’re young, it’s a life experience. The entire city is old school, colorful, and carved with canals, so for the 70% of the city that’s wacked on drugs it’s probably like walking around Wonderland with Alice herself. The man holding a yoga pose for a couple minutes in one of the squares while wearing black jeans, boots, and a backwards women’s swimsuit was a testament to this. The first night we bounced around three of the squares that hundreds pour into every night. In Rembrandtplein, an Irish street musician came and put on an acoustic concert that nearly moved people to tears, and we watched every minute. The only downfall of this was using the restroom because in Amsterdam you pay 50 Eurocent every time, which just goes along with the theme that the city doesn’t really make much sense. .50 Euros to use the world’s most plentiful resource – duh. One of these bathroom experiences I went into a “coffee shop.” As it turns out “coffee shop” in Amsterdam roughly translates to “Everyone is buying weed and getting high in here.” Solid group of scholars hanging out in that joint (play on words kinda intended)!

The second night we went after it on the “Ultimate Party Pub Crawl.” By the third bar some fellow Americans and I were responding to Australian cheers with a riveting version of “America the Beautiful,” we shredded dance floors galore at the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th, and the end of the night consisted of heckling and booing people climbing the I Amsterdam letters from across the pond because I wanted a good picture without tourists doing stupid poses in it. This strategy cashed in because the tourists left, but the picture part was pretty unsuccessful.

nailed it! great lighting.

Overall, the weekend was successful, and the power ranking is as follows:

Hostel – 6

Our room was full of Australians (maybe English kids?) that came back at 7 a.m. both nights causing a total ruckus, but made up for it with stories of jumping in the canals at 6 a.m. It seriously must be mandatory for every Australian ever to be outrageous and hilarious. Really wanted to shower after sleeping coverless in a pond of sweat in an A/C-deprived hellhole, but after I saw spiders crawl out of the shower drain I had a change of heart. No showers over an Amsterdam weekend – healthy!

Food – 8

Everything was good, but the only meal that made me lose my mind and want to stay in Amsterdam forever was Wok to Walk at 3 a.m. I found love in a hopeless place.

Sites – 10

Apparently Netherlands used to be completely underwater until it was drained {hence the name Netherlands [like Netherworld (thanks, Goose!)]}, so it makes perfect sense that there would be a bit of water left in the city. But Goose and I had no idea that the entire city was Venice-like with all its canals cutting it up, so this was a nice surprise. The Dutch style is awesome, colorful, weird, and fun, which describes me pretty accurately too (emphasis on weird), so I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Best Site – Anne Frank’s House – 8

Pretty cool, but not spectacular. Being in the annex, it was pretty easy to conclude that being Jewish really would have sucked at that time. She was essentially trapped in a 4-room house with 8 people and not allowed to go outside or talk during the day for about three years. For me this was outrageous because she definitely missed out on things like imitating Eric Crouch in her front yard, block parties, and the Ding Ding Man. I guess the fact that she and all Jews of the time were missing every basic right a human is entitled to, including but not limited to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is important as well. The house itself wasn’t the cool part, then, but reading her words and putting her story into a setting (for just 9 Euro!) was.

Nightlife – 10

The entire city is a sin, but it’s a sin not to give the nightlife a 10.

I would have remembered any of their names but they were from Texas. Sorry.

New Power Rankings:

1) Rome - 46

1) Prague - 46

2) Madrid - 44

3) Barca - 43.5

4) Amsterdam - 42

5) Vienna - 41.5 

5) Venice - 41.5

6) Nice - 41

7) Frankfurt - 40

8) Genoa - 39.5

9) Florence - 39.25 

10) Berlin - 39

11) Marseille - 38

12) Narbonne - 36

Ring Challenge Update: my left forefinger will never be shaped the same again, but it's still on.

- andrew