Pics from Switerland

I'll catch up with my time in Italy but first I wanted to post a few pictures from Switzerland. The top one was taken from a place where we had lunch and the other three were just random pictures I took of the scenery. 

Catching up from Dublin

I arrived in Dublin, Ireland last night around midnight. I stayed in a hostel located in the city center and will be meeting up with a family friend today, Annie Johnson, to head with her to Galway to meet her boyfriend and a few of his friends. I have heard a lot of great things about the Western part of Ireland and I am excited to go with Annie.



I will catch up on a few things up until this point of my spring break:



I met up with Rob Armstrong (college buddy) in Zurich, Switzerland on April 2nd. I arrived in the airport and Rob was there holding a "DIESEL" sign waiting for my arrival. The good majority of my college friends and fraternity brothers all call me Diesel. My room mate when I lived in the house started calling me that, without specific meaning, but we decided it would stick because of the second name given to Budweiser, which is one of my preferred beers. We arrived in Zurich fairly late and only had time to have a couple of beers at a neighboring bar before the pubs closed. Speaking of Budweiser, did anybody know that there is a German beer (I think it is German) also named Budweiser? I took a picture of the bottle, so eventually I will post it so you can see the difference.



The next morning we woke up and caught a train to Interlaken, Switzerland. The train ride in gave a good preview of the beauty that we would eventually see. We would pass crystal clear lakes, most likely fresh glacier water. They had a big snow fall the week before so the mountains were still iced with a thick layer of snow. We arrived in Interlaken and went to our hotel called Rugenpark. I made a small mistake booking the room and booked a "double room" and not a "twin room". I guess the double meant double bed, and the twin meant two beds. I thought it would be the other way around. The lady at the front desk questioned us and asked if we were a couple, but fortunately enough she had a spare twin room and we avoided that problem. The couple that owns the hotel are fantastic hosts. If anybody makes plans to go to Interlaken I would recommend the Rugenpark B&B in a second. They helped every guest find exactly what they wanted to do with their stay. I had thoughts of going sky diving so that was the first suggestion I made. We didn't have much time on that Thursday (April 3rd) to jump out of any air planes so we decided that we would spend the afternoon thinking about it and would let her (the lady at the front desk) know later for the following day. Instead, she gave us a good "hike" to go on. The hike which required cable cars, like a ski lift to the top of a mountain, took about an hour and a half to reach the city Murren which was our destination. The city at 5,300 feet has a population of less than 500 where cars are not allowed, simply stated, vehicle free. All the houses are log cabins with only paths to reach each restaurant and bar. We had lunch on an outdoor patio overlooking the Alps. After lunch we went to a small bar where we played darts and pool while enjoying a few beers. Time slipped away a bit and it became dusk. We never thought of our way down until about 8 o'clock. I decided to leave the bar while Rob watched our jackets, to go check the schedule and see what time the last cable car went down. The last cable car left in 6 minutes.... I ran back to the bar, finished our drinks, went to the bathroom quickly, and we bolted out of the doors. We got to the cable station and visibly saw the last car leave. Kind of funny now, but I took a picture of it departing. We had no idea what to do so we decided to chase the car. Keep in mind that it was now getting dark. We were walking through the snow in the Alps finding bear tracks and saw a deer cross our path. We found a small house with a family inside and they helped relocate us to another part of the city about a 30 minute walk away, where another station was located. I left out a few details but we made it safely back to Interlaken. I actually had to use my Spanish to get help from a local guy that was there working in a restaurant. He ended up joining us at a Hooter's (very random) for a couple of beers. That night I talked Rob into going sky diving with me. I was not to sure myself if I wanted to go but with the help of a few drinks I convinced him that it was safe. The next day we went to book the sky diving trip but the weather was not allowing us. I guess they were expecting some type of storm later in the afternoon. That was fine with us because we thought we could go the next morning on Sunday. We'll that day was Palm Sunday and they were closed. I thought it sounded like a great idea to go on Palm Sunday, we would be getting a little help from the man upstairs! Anyways the skydiving fell through but it was probably for the better. It was expensive and neither of us were that "gung ho" about doing it. We looked at it like it was a sign, either to stay alive, or to save us some money.

Switzerland was magnificent. In my opinion Interlaken could be the most beautiful place in the world. I have had the chance to see a few beautiful cities, and I think San Sebastian is one of the finest, but this was different. On the way in Rob was talking about how he thought the Rocky Mountains were great but he quickly changed his mind in favor of the Swiss Alps. To go along with the breath taking views, the people were charming, mainly speaking English. I know that Switzerland is on the top of my list for returning cities.

On Sunday, April 5th we caught a train to Florence, Italy. The next post I make will go through my time in Italy but right now I have to head out to meet up with Annie.

Take care everybody!

Spring break mañana!

Here are a couple of pictures from London and one picture of Emily and I in Madrid.  The picture with the dinosaur was at the Natural History Museum in London. The dinosaur I am standing in front of was a famous dino that I studied last semester.  Than there is a picture of Dave and I standing in front of Buckingham Palace.  One picture of Big Ben, not to be mistaken with Ben Austin, and the other picture is me standing in front of the London Eye. I wish I could give better descriptions of each picture but when I upload the pictures I never know what order they end up in on the page.

I would add more about my trip in London, the week with Emily, and the week with my Mom and Megan, but the days have cut me short and now our spring break is starting.  I start my 18 day spring break today! Almost too much time to be away from San Sebastian but I am stoked about my travels.  I will give a little itinerary here so that you have an idea where I am at on each day.  I am meeting up with a friend of mine from IOWA in Switzerland and I will be with him until Italy where I will be meeting up with one of my friends from San Sebastian, and we will finish the trip off together.

April 2:

Taking off from Bilbao Airport and will land in Zurich, Switzerland after a small lay over in the island of Palma Mallorca.  I am meeting Rob at the airport and we are staying a night in Zurich.  

April 3:

Early train to Interlaken, Switzerland.  We are staying at a bed and breakfast here in the middle of the Swiss Alps.  An adventurous city with a beautiful view.  We hope to do some hiking, maybe skiing, or some sky diving....  

April 5:

Train to Florence, Italy.  We are going to stay a couple days in Florence.  We both heard that it was a great city to visit so we figured we could check it out for a day or so.

April 7:

Train or bus to Rome, Italy.  This was our main destination in Italy.  So many awesome things to see in this city and I hope 3 days is enough to get it all.  Roman architecture and things such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa will be some hot spots for us.  

April 10:

Flight from Rome to Dublin, Ireland.  This is were I am meeting up with Dave.  We hope to stay a couple nights with a family friend of mine, Annie Johnson.  The other nights if we are not with her we might stay with some family of Dave's in the western countryside of Ireland which could be a neat experience.  We plan on going through the Guinness factory and the Jameson Whiskey factory.

April 15:

Flight from Dublin to Madrid, Spain.  We have a flight transfer here and than we take a flight to Casablanca, Morocco.  Yep thats in Africa.  Im definitely excited to visit Morocco, everything is dirt cheap so we plan on feasting like kings while we are there.  We also have planned a camel ride in the desert.  Hopefully we get some nice weather and it would be the same thing as going to Mexico, a little unstable but everything is cheap and the beer is cold.

April 19: 

We catch our final flight back to Madrid where we will have to ride a 7 hour bus back to San Sebastian, ouch.  

So a summary of where I will be and until when:

April 2: Zurich, Switzerland

April 3 - 4: Interlaken, Switzerland

April 5 - 6: Florence, Italy

April 7 - 9: Rome, Italy

April 10 - 14: Dublin, Ireland

April 15 - 19: Morocco, Africa

So 18 days straight of living out of a backpack.  Super stoked and a little anxious to get going.  I plan on being exhausted by the end of the trip but I am sure that it will be well worth it.  I will not have my computer on me but should have access to internet every once in a while.  I hope to make a post a few times over the next couple weeks just to update everybody.  If anybody has any good ideas for places to see or things to visit in any of these cities, please leave me a message, I am open for ideas.  Talk to you soon

Hasta Luego!

Luke

Back again!

Joder! So a decent amount of time has passed since my last post.  If you were attentively waiting for some new news I apologize.  A week of midterms followed by a visit from Emily left me little free time, to make my next post.  I didn't realize how much time had passed since Brussels and here I am two weeks later. 

A quick catch up....

We only spent one night in Brussels but we made the best of it.  During the day we ate Belgium Fretes, which are french fries, but to the citizens of Belgium, there is no such thing as a "french" fry.  This confusion could have came with the fact that they do speak French in Belgium.  At night we went to the "Delirium Cafe".  This bar holds the world record for the most amount of draft beers served... 2003.  I think that Delirium was a fitting name for the bar seeing as how the majority of their beers were above 10% alcohol content.  The next morning before catching our train to Amsterdam, we stopped at a local restaurant and had Belgium waffles.  A huge waffle with two scoops of ice cream covered by that chocolate that hardens on contact, was quite the hardy breakfast.  

After Brussels, Dave, Bo, and I headed to Amsterdam.  Amsterdam was a beautiful city.  If their reputation was not tainted by their risky night life and coffee shops I still feel like it would be a fantastic tourist destination.  The city is full of museums and historical sites.  Our hostel that we stayed in was a five minute walk from the historic Anne Frank House.  We walked by her house but the line was a little long so we procrastinated it for another day and never made it there. We visited the Van Gogh museum, which was incredible.  I have always had interest in Van Gogh's paintings and the premiere piece of artwork was "The Starry Night".  The city transportation is phenomenal.  I would break down their forms of transportation like so, 60% ride bikes, 25% use public transportation, and the remaining 15% use cars.  It is wild to see a 5-story parking garage completely dedicated to bikes.  The inner city is lined with boat canals, some for tourist rides and others for personal transportation.  We also went through the Heineken brewery.  They started the tour with a brief history of Heineken.  Then we went through the process of how they mix the ingredients.  We got to grind up barley and stir up the first mix.  Half way through we got our first beer.  They taught us how to properly pour a glass, and properly taste a beer, moving it around in your mouth to different parts of your tongue so that you could taste the sweet, bitter etc.  The tour took about 2 hours and than we got to have our second beer.  We left Sunday night for Spain but had one more problem before we got back to San Sebastian.  The last bus from the Santander Airport to San Sebastian had left and the next bus did not leave for six more hours, at 5 in the morning.  We had absolutely no options and we were exhausted so 6 of us had to sleep outside in an outdoor bus stop for 6 hours.  It was terribly cold and it felt like forever.  Long story short...we caught the bus at 5 a.m. and made it home alive.

We had a great time in both cities.  For our first trip outside of Spain, I would not have choose a better location.  Maybe I would cut out our difficulties that we had with getting to Brussels, but that's part of traveling.

Once again sorry that I have not posted for a while.  I hope that everybody still takes a look every once in a while.  I will be posting again tomorrow afternoon to write about London and the week with Emily.  

Brussels

We needed 1 bus, 1 taxi, 1 airplane, 5 trains, 2 metro rides, and 21 hours and we made it to Brussels.  Not exactly what we had planned but we avoided paying for a hostel for one night.  Yesterday morning at 11:00 we caught a four hour bus to the Santander, Spain airport. A two hour flight put us in Dusseldorf, Germany at 7:30 p.m..  We were cutting it close for time for the last series of trains to Brussels so we flagged down a taxi and rode 45 minutes through Germany to catch our first train in Venlo. Than took our first train from Venlo to another station in Germany.  Switched trains there and wounded up in Holand.  Europe has a 5 day "carnival" very similar to Halloween where people dress up, drink heavily, and crowd the streets.  We did not know this until we were surrounded by clowns, army men, and flamingo dancers.  One train transfer in Holand and our next train was to Llegue, Belgium.  We had ten minutes at this station to confirm our travel route and realized that the times were not matching up to be able to catch the last train from Llegue to Brussels. I stepped on the train hoping to find somebody who could speak English well enough to help us out.  This is where we met Elijah (no idea how to spell this one).  During our train ride to Llegue he helped to inform us that we had indeed missed the last train to Brussels and would have to wait in Llegue until 4:45 a.m. He extended his apartment to us if we would like to rest.  Apprehensively, we joined him for a beer and than went to his apartment and met his room mate Miguel, whom was from Spain but currently working in Holand.  Bo, Dave, and I could not have met two nicer guys.  They both spoke very good English and were excited about an opportunity to practice.  While at their apartment they made us coffee, grilled some potatoes & onions and chopped up tomatoes.  We spent four hours at their place talking and learning and afterwards they walked us back to the train station.  They opened up their house to us, made us food, and stayed up until 4:30 in the morning when they both had work the next day.  They said they will try to meet us in Amsterdam or hopefully later in the semester in San Sebastian.  We took the 4:45 a.m. train to Brussels, found our way around the metro, and met with Dave's high school buddy at 7:00 in the morning without sleep and only Valentine's day candy to keep us going.  We took a small nap and should be heading out to grab some lunch shortly.  It would have been nice to sleep in a bed last night but I don't think I would have had it any other way.  We made a couple of friends and arrived safely at our final destination, all for one night of Belgium beer.  

Gipuzkoa y mi proxima viaje

 Last Friday the majority of the USAC students went to our first excursion to the city of Gipuzkoa, which is situated in the Pyrenees mountains, and we visited a 15th century Basque farm house. During the semester we will go on two different excursions where we spend an entire day and visit important cites.  It was interesting to see the layout of a house that has been around for 500 years.  The families supported themselves by planting vegetables, tending sheep, and brewing Sidra (hard cider).  The entire house is built around an apple press that consumes more than two floors.  They make enough Sidra during the months of January - April to last the entire year.  

On Thursday I am leaving for my first trip.  My room mate Dave, my friend Bo, and myself leave for Brussels, Belgium.  We fly into Santander, Germany and catch a bus to Brussels.  While in Brussels we plan on having some original belgium waffles.  We have also read up on a bar that offers the top 5 beers from a world beer competition.  From what I have heard so far, the city is beautiful and the night life is a lot of fun.  We will be staying in Brussels for two nights and Saturday afternoon we are catching a train to Amsterdam, Netherlands.  The three of us are meeting up with 6 other students that are headed there.  On Saturday night we have plans to scalp tickets for a band called Kings of Leon.  I have attempted to find tickets for this band in Barcelona and Madrid but with no prevail.  Hopefully I will have better luck with the foolish travelers of Amsterdam.  A few things that are planned for Amsterdam are: Heineken brewery tour, the house of Anne Frank, and the Van Gogh Museum.  Of course there is the Red Light District where prostitution is legal.......  Our return flight is Tuesday morning and I will only have two days until I leave for London.  

I had my first big mistake with my pronunciation of Español.  To make it short, a few friends and myself were at a bar.  I intended to order a draft beer from the female waitress.  The spanish word for any type of draft beer is "caña".  What I intended to say was "me gustaría una caña" (I would like a draft beer), but what I said was "me gustaría una coña".  Coña (with an O) is a slang term for the baby maker of the female anatomy.  So the look I received after I asked the female waitress for her vagina was not what I expected.  At first I did not understand why she just stared at me, so I said it again, and in the process of repeating what I said I realized what I had actually asked for.  My bad....I had a male bartender the rest of the night.

I will report back either during our trip or when we return.

I am not real sure why the first paragraph of the last post became a link.  If you click on any word of the first paragraph it shows a close up of one of the pictures.  I don't know why it is like that but it is kind of sweet.  

Hasta luego!