The Great Spiral

Sky Dive Interlaken

devinashley — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 01:33:00 GMT

Disclaimer, this keyboard switches the y's and z's... Its a Swiss kezboard, Im not going to bother fixing it. Sorrz also for the mispleed words and evidence of haste, Im on a timelimit.

So, Katie and I had an extra daz somewhere and I suggested we should really go skzdiving. So we sat down and re-arranged our schedule and ended up here in Interlaken Swityerland... We checked in and took it easz last night because we knew that todaz we'd be experienceing one of the cooler things in life... skydiving (and as I havent found how to tzpe the 'Exclamation Point' here, just imagine one being present)

We woke uo with grez skies and littel rain. We gto readz and went to the lobby where we were supposed to meet with out instructor and the rest of the participators... Because of the weather thez delazed it a few hours. We came back at 11.00 and were transported to the landing zone, a big field with the hanger bz it. We paid and were instructed on how to arch our bodies on exiting the helicopter, then after dressing up in our jump suits we waited. Iwas verz nervious last night and even a bit this morning, but after seeing the videos of the people jumping and the letters of excitement people had written, I felt better. Actuallz the nerviouness went awaz completelz. Until I was in the helicopter and it began to lift off. Katie was jumping first, so she was hanging halfwaz out of the helicopter the whole ride... It was Sooo awesome, I cant express in words the beautz. It was the most incredible view of mz life... The Swiss alps surrounding us from where we were taking off, there were ice capped montains in the background, just shining with the suns reflection, and as we tipped the moutains in front of us you could see forever. The citz so small below us. And teh jump... zou stand on the edge of the helicopter and take a picture with zour mind and then smile for the real camera that the tandem instructor has in his hand...and zou fall forward. I told katie that the high dive doesnt seem so intense anzmore. hehe. We fell quicklz. I was trzing to inhale, but mz lungs were full of air. I couldnt breath I was so exhilerated. It went bz so quick, its just a buyy in mz in, the free fall at least. Jeremy Lyons gave me some advice, he said, make sure zou take in the view... not to just scream the whole time... I reallz couldnt focus until the chute was pulled. Then I saw Katie down below and thought, good she is alright. haha. Then Andrew mz tandem instructor gave me the straps of the chute and said pull hard to teh left and we started doing circles, spiraling downward and then he said pull right and we started spiraling the other waz... What an amazing job he has. So the most powerful and nerve racking moments of mz life one rght after the other. It was worth it. I bought a video and will have it when I get home...

so... now we are in the Funnz Farm hostel, not much funniness about this palce, its actuallz reallz nice. A big hotel in the front and a tent, pool, hostel commons area with more rooms in the back. Jermey Lyons also gave the advice for this place. So, thus far Interlocken Swityerland has been a prettz cool place, we think we are gong to go canzoning or white water rafting tomorrow before we leave. Its a nice place and we dont want to leave. But as we onlz have 10 more dazs on our trip we must get in as much as we can. I cant believe it is alreadz the 26 of July. I think on the 26 of June we were in Belgium with Ray and Charles... yes a good time. Well I am going to trz and load some pictures before I get off. until next time I have computer access...

Gallery: Switzerland

devinashley — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:42:00 GMT

Sky diving

Gallery: Germany number 2

devinashley — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:59:00 GMT

Neuschwanstein castel and Munich

Hacking with 'The David' in Florence

devinashley — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:19:00 GMT

So, our emails were along teh lines of 'We will meet you in front of the bell tower at San Marcos at 6.00. We will wait until 6.20 and if we dont see you then we will come back at 8.00 and 10.00pm.' So, we didnt catch him at 6.00, therfore we went on a Gondola ride. It was very peaceful. Our driver was great, he sang (and squaked like a bird when we passed a seagull on a pike in the water) he also rocked the boat with his legs which made us laugh... It cost 80 Euros, (we knew this getting on) but Katie really wanted to go on a ride. It was a unique experience though. So, then we went back to the square at 8.00. We waited until 8.20 and nothing, I walked back and forth a lot but never saw him. So then we went to eat... Which was a mistake at the place we were at. I think it was the equivalent of Denny's but with prices of Red Lobster. It was like eating fast food in the country that controls cuisine... Anyway, we went back to the square once more at 10.00 and waited until 10.15, and I thought, 'Ill make one more pass through the square and if he isnt there we will leave.' Of course on the other side of our meeting point there he was sitting in the middle sof the plaza area. We hugged and laughed about the meeting and then we pulled out the Hackey Sack to finish our 'Hack Across Europe' that we started in 2003 in Spain. It was like 'poetry' Matt and I determined, the reason I told the CHS hack club that I would take pictures of me hacking in relevant places around Europe... and Matt was able to join...

Anyway, so we are now in Florence Ive got another 10 minutes on teh computer here, I'd better wrap it up, Ill post another blog later... tonight we are off to Munich where tomorrow we will visit Neuschwanstein castle, then to Switzerland, Lichtenstein, France and back to Germany to head home... We still have about 2 weeks (or a fourth of our trip) but it feels like its already over...

Ill post more later.

Gallery: Italy

devinashley — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:05:00 GMT

Venice and Seville... comparable

devinashley — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:28:00 GMT

Oh boy, so I'm thinking that I have a new city that rivals with my Favorite Sevilla! We are in Venice right now, Katie has been talking this place up quite a bit for the past month and a half and I can now see why. I think that the element that interests me is that it IS so much like Sevilla, in the back narrow streets, the old buildings, the cobblestone roads (well, they are kind of immitation cobblestone roads,) but there are no streets, only rivers. It really is an amazing city. It's not noisy as a typical large city would be with cars and the typical bus traffic and horn hoking... because there is no automobile traffic, just water traffic that is limited to the canals. It is a pleasant city to get yourself lost in, which happens easily. Katie and I had just went out to go walking around and we decided to go back to the... hostel(?, we booked it on hostelworld, but it's really a bed and breakfast) to get ride of our coats and change to shorts and we turned one street before we were supossed to walked a few blocks and found out that we counldnt cross the canal, due to there being no bridge. I'll try and post a picture we took, trying to capture this moment... We have become quite skilled in arriving unknowingly at cities that are having public holiday parties by chance the same time we are in the city. Last night was 'festa del redentore' kickoff (that comment I made about the city being quite doesn't apply here,) a festival that celebrates the end of 16th century plague. Im pretty sure all 60,000 of the cities inhabitants and the extra...50,000 (or so tourists, Im not sure how many there are,) people were all in San Marcos square and on the walk on the front side of the island to watch the half-hour fireworks show at 11.30. It was the longest fireworks show of my life! It was nice though.

Yesterday we went to Murano, an island close to VEnice were the government moved all the glass blowing factories many years ago due to uncontrollable factory fires destroying parts of Venice years ago. The glasswork is famous through out the world, many beautiful pieces, all way to expensive and fragile for me to get involved. We also became regulars at a sidewalk cafe yesterday, having visited it more than once... haha. And we will possibly visit it again tonight we when we meet up with Matt Lilly, who just happened to be coming to Venice around the same time we were here (we stayed an extra day to pass time with him.) Matt is at the core of the 'Hack Across Europe.' Where as while we were in Spain (and portugal) in 2003 we made the joke that we would Hack across Europe... (this explains all the pictures of the Central High School hackey sack club to the right!)

We have had a great time here in Venice although we have spent much money and we will be sad to leave tomorrow. Country number 21 on The Great Spiral.

Waiting for our 37 hour ferry ride.

devinashley — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:40:00 GMT

I really feel like the trip is starting to wind down. It's strange because we still have about 3 weeks left. I think maybe its because we've hit 20 of the 25 planned countries. Plus over the next three weeks we will return to Germany, Austria and France. Germany for Neuschwanstein (sp?) castle, France for our winery tour and cooknig classes (Katie's birthday present to me) and to Austria just for traveling through.

Anyway we had a good time in Greece. We stayed at Athens backpackers hostel, which had an incredible view of the Acropolis! The Parthenon was just above us on their rooftop bar. It was kind of funny, seemingly every other backpacker there was from Australia.

Another interesting part of this leg of the trip was that as we entered Greece on Monday morning our... steward (?) the guy who checks our tickets, gets our bedding for our sleeper car, tells us to be quiet, ect. entered our room and said, "get your stuff ready you will be making the rest of the trip by bus." Apparently the train conductors were going on strike all over Greece and it started while we were on the night train from Bulgaria to Thessaloniki (in route to Athens.) So, fortunately we didnt run into any problems with the bus, we arrived where we needed to be and in a relatively timely manner. However this morning, when we went to leave Athens... I guess they are still on strike! We went to the train station, (and not being able to read Cyrillic) we sat there for about 20 minutes before I turned to Katie and said... "You know, no trains have come through and I noticed that the ticket booths were closed... I wonder if they are still on strike." Sure enough they were. I had also noticed that there were no annoying announcements on the intercom system. So, we along with about 75 other various travellers had been sitting in vain. Luckily we caught on early enough and after Katie asked around a bit, we found that the bus system was still running. So we made our way to Station 'A.' After sifting through the broken English of the locals and trying to decipher the Cryllic signs we bought our bus tickets to Patras. A 3 hour ride along the coast that just increased our anticipation of being on our ferry for 37 hours (they seriously are fun, it's like a mini-cruise ship, this will be our 3rd sail.) The only problem was that we didnt have tickets for the ferry... which could have been very problematic. But we asked God's favor and felt at piece about it. When arriving we not only found our port quickly, we recieved a discount for being Eurorail pass holders. We were not aware that a discount was possible... our last 2 ferries that were in Scandanavia were from 100-150 U.S. dollars and they were no longer than 15-20 hours. We bought our ferry passes from Patras, Greece to Venice, Italy for 45 Euros, (about 65 U.S.) We were greatful for the (as I put it,)spiritual discount.

So a little about the ruins in Athens. Very cool, very impressive. We woke up early our second day so we could explore. We spent the larger part of the 1st half of the day on the Acropolis hill where many of the monuments/ruins are, then we went to the Temple of Zeus/Haydrians Arch and ended our day at teh Ancient Agorra. I found the Acropolis theater very small. It seemed much larger in the "Yanni Live at the Acropolis" video. lol! Seriously though, it was really small. We made out way up to the temple of Athena and the Parthenon, taking many pictures while there. After sweating much at 9.30 am we descended and went to the Temple of Zeus. It was immense! The pillars were so large, so tall. It was like somethng from The Never Ending Story. I now wonder what God's Temple is like (or at least his dwelling place) if Zeus's was so impressive. Outside of the ruins Athens was pretty cool, except that it was impossible to sleep in our hostel it was so hot. And the thought of the huge Cockroach that I saw running in our room. I swear Katie and I are carryng all sorts of bugs around in our bags. Im going to have to unpack in the back yard when I get home.

Gallery: Bulgaria

devinashley — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:51:00 GMT

Gallery: Greece

devinashley — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:51:00 GMT

The mall of Sofia, an oasis in Eastern Europe

devinashley — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 00:12:00 GMT

Well, not quite an Oasis, but they did have clean bathrooms. We arrived early and arranged our night train out of the city. This will be our 3rd night train in a row now in which we have not been able to shower. We still have one more night train to go. The feeling is lovely let me tell you. Its going to be good to arrive in Greece. After arranging our night train, we left for the city center, not sure what we would find after Bucarest. After trying to find out how to buy our bus tickets we read in "let's go," our guide to Europe that we could pay the bus driver... he wouldnt accept the money, so we got a free ride. I'm worried I might get another fine like in Budapest! Lol! I dont fell as bad, for we tried to pay. Anyway, we ran into a mall nce we got off of the bus. That mall was slightly air conditioned, they had a lot of cool stores that we would have gone in, but we were so disgusting that we didn't even window shop! We looked around and then headed for the city center, where we found a small statue, a mosque a chruch and a synagoge. Not much happening there, we enjoyed the day though and walked around for a bit. But once again we found ourselves with about 5 hours to kill. So we went back to the mall and watched, The chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian. Katie fell asleep, I enjoyed it. Afterwards we drank some coffee and headed back to the station and sat and chated for about an hour before we boarded our train and pulled from the station on our way to Greece... Very excited about the thought of a shower!

The butthole of the world

devinashley — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:03:00 GMT

So, I have officially travelled to the "butthole of the world." Bucarest, Romania. The most disgusting place on earth. I would really like to write about theis experience but... I'm trying to forget this part of my life! haha. No, it was really disgusting though. We tried to go to the city center, but we were so disinterested within our first hour after arrival that we went back to the train station and hung out in McDonalds for 6 hours. YEs, I am ashamed of myself, this was THE exception to our mandatory culture exposure for each country/city. The bathroom... I can't even explain it... it was a third world country of it's own. We had been warned before we went, but thought that we could overlook just about anything... Guess we were wrong.

I was happy to get on the train and head for Bulgaria.

Gallery: Romania

devinashley — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:51:00 GMT

Gallery: Hungary

devinashley — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 03:43:00 GMT

cool horrible subway systems

I think I missed my chance to go to a rave

devinashley — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 03:22:00 GMT

On the train yesterday to Budapest, Katie and I met these two Hungarian guys who lived in Budapest, Thomas and Aandrew. We were able to talk with them for a good part of our 7 hour train ride, (I swear the trains are slower in Eastern Europe!) They gave us a heads up about Budapest, where to go and where to stay away from (aka, where the gypsies are!... Thanks guys!) Anyway, we arrived at our hostel and essentially went to bed...However, before we went to bed and we were writting in our journals we heard the loud, drunk college students in the hallway talking about going to a rave. I contemplated asking them where it was and grabbing Katie to tag along, but she would have nothing to do with it... I guess it's for the better, we would hvae had to sleep in and then the day would have been shot. Maybe in another city, and we actually had a really good time here in Budapest today, all exceot for the fine we recieved on the subway system. We apparently had to buy a ticket for every line we used regarless if we saw the city above ground or not (like it is in EVERY OTHER city in europe.) I'm usually a rather laid back person but I yelled at the guy who fined us and told him how ridiculous it was and that we didnt know, (which we didn't.) It put me in a really bad mood for the first part of the day. The fine was 6,000 'forint' which is about 30 Euros or 45 U.S. dollars. Luckily I had plenty of Euro on me to pay the fine... oh well. Spilt milk, huh? Teh architecture here in Budapest is really cool, the buildings have so much decoration on them, it's like ever building has this massive air about it. Like it was at sometime someones palace. I'll try and upload some pictures. All the streets are the typical narrow back streets of Europe which was pleasant. I must add though, I really miss Prague, I think mainly from the people we met there though... which could have happened in any city... Sara, Miquel and Laura our Spaniard friends, (who are welcome anytime in the U.S.)

I'm gonig to get some pictures up.

Gallery: Zagreb, Croatia

devinashley — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:15:00 GMT

Buzz Backpackers in Zagreb, Croatia

devinashley — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:57:00 GMT

Croatia really wasnt that interesting! We arrived in the afternoon and by evening we had seen everything that we thought was relevant. As this has happened before on this trip once, maybe twice, the next day we looked for a movie theater. I think it was in Krakow that we watched Kung Fu Panda! I think I have a new favorite movie! haha. And I'm not joking either. So... I can't wait to watch my new favorite movie in... English, lol! Well, we didnt find a theater in Zagreb, Croatia. So, we engaged in our other passtime... coffee drinking! We ordered with out the menu this time. As neither Katie nor I really like black coffee, we got some iced drinks, I think mine was an iced mocha something and Katie got an iced chocolate drink. Its a good thing we had time to kill because it took him about 25 minutes to get those 2 drinks to us. Its good though because the thought was to kill time.

So for dinner the night we arrived, we ate at a place the hostel owner recommended to us. It is called Old Friends Bar and Grill. They had traditional Croatian food, which just happened to be traditional Slovakian food... I think we were mislead somewhere. I order some Venician stew with dumplings. It was pretty good and Katie had some type of meat... with no sides, nor sauces... haha! It was funny! I dont think I'll be eager to visit Croatia again!

Oh yeah, how could I forget. McDonalds has some very... exotic, unique,... just different items in Europe. They had here in Zagreb, the Greek Burger. It was almost just like the picture that they used for the advertising! The meatwas bigger than the bun, the lettuce was fresh and the dressing was thick. A very good sandwhich. I've also seen in European McD's, shrimp, the Italy burger, the Asian Ming burger and the chicken ming sandwhich, (or something like it.)

Gallery: Slovakia

devinashley — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 07:12:00 GMT

Bratislava, Slovakia

devinashley — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 06:51:00 GMT

So as the movie "Hostal," was supposedly filmed here we had an interesting first encounter. There was a girl waiting at the platform that the passengers of our train exited by handing out flyers for a hostal that she works for. We had not made reservations yet, so we took her up on her offer, a doubles room for (30 U.S.) and free transportation. As we followed her to the taxi I asked Katie.. "Isn't this how the movie starts?" lol! I checked the car door on teh taxi before I got in to make sure that it would open if we got moving... of course it did. Obviously it was no danger to choose this hostel, it was a more organized happening than I have time to write but... we have found out why it was so cheap and why there was free transportation. Upon entering our room, we documented our experiences by video camera as we ususally do, during this time we filmed a cockroach crawling around on the sink (later seeing another bigger one crawl;ing through the vernts on the door) and it also took us about 55 minutes to walk to the center of the city. The hostal is ghetto! Straight from the 50 communism era. I'm not sure what this building ever was, maybe an apartment or dorm building or something. Anyway, we got past the dissappointing stuff when arrived in the coty center. Very impressive, very clean, a good European feel to it. We ate dinner at a very cool traditional Slovakian restaurant. The food and atmoshere were excellent...

Well, I hate to cut it short but, our train leaves at 4.00 am tomorrow and we have to leave here in 3 hours. I'll post some pictures and write more later!

Gallery: Czech Republic

devinashley — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 06:50:00 GMT

J. Lyons once told me that this place was great.

devinashley — Sun, 6 Jul 2008 21:31:00 GMT

(Disclaimer, on this keyboard I cant hit any key twice in a row, so bot should be boot, ect. Ill try and catch the mistakes.)

Our arrival to our hostel was a hassel. First, our train was about 45 minutes late, then we had some troubles trying to buy our transportation tickets, we had pulled money out of an ATM but it was only in bills and we needed coins for the machine that gave us our passes. So I had to go and buy the cheapest thing I could find in the convinient store thing (something that slightly immitated a candy bar,) in order to get some change for our passes. Once we got through the subway our directions said to take bus number 207, of course the 207 didn't go in the direction that we needed it to go. So we rode the entire route in the oposite direction to find out that we could have walked the distance to the hostel going the other way. Which would have been fine, if Katie didn't think that her foot was possibly broken or splintered. Her foot has been hurting her for about a week now, every time that she steps on it she says that it feels like it is cracking. So, we are going to go to the hospital today to see what the problem is, hopefully nothing to serious that would hinder her trip. She says that she'l tough it out in any case. I just think that she doesn't want to have to go home because then she will be really behind me in the "countries visited competition." :) Really though, we will deal with it if her foot is broken. It will probably just mean that Im carying more weight in my back pack which is fine.

Yeah, so last night we tried to met up some American students studying in Poland that we had met on the overnight train to Prague that we took two nights ago. We walked the distance and took the busses to the meeting place, (A park high up on a hill with a giant metronome) but we were unable to find them. We did however find that this park had ben taken over by the skaters of the city. There had to have been at minimum 100 kids skate boarding, jumping off of ledges, practicing their tricks, videotaping everything. It was quickly clear who the more advanced skaters were. It was kind of funy they had themselves sectioned of by skill. Of course the better skaters were taking the bigger jumps. I'll try and get some pictures posted before we leave Prague.

Last night we also ate some kilbosa at a garden restaurant in the park and a little later we went to a bar and grill that some Anericans recomended to a guy that we met here and have been hanging out with, (Blake.) It was called The Frackle.

Gallery: Poland

devinashley — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 19:07:00 GMT

Berlin, Germany part II

devinashley — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 20:21:00 GMT

My first post on Germany wasn't very extensive, I only had a few minutes and couldn't load pictures, due to no USB port. Last night while still in germany we met this cool Argentinian guys, Nano, Esteban and Ioni. They had some questions about the terminal that they were at, if it was correct or not. They were asking me in Englsh and I heard them taling to each other in Spanish... so we made the conection there. We were all like 2 hours early for our train so we shared some culture with each other, ceese, bread and grape juice! lol. Once we were on the train we all hung out in our cabin, (a smalllll, room with six beds, 3 on side, 3 on teh other with barely enough room in teh middle to turn around...actually imposible to turn around it you have your backpack on) I'm not sure if our room mate was too happy about it... Nano, brought his guitar to the room, which I'm sure was annoying teh neghbors,m but we had a good time. I could hear him coming down the car in his Argentinean accent (guitar strumming, guitar strumming, "Oops, sorry.!" more guitar strumming, more guitar strumming, "Oops sorry!") I think it was 11.00 os so at this point. Good times.

Nano had been in India for 5-6 months and just last month he meet up with Ioni and Esteban. We sang songs in our car and chillaxed with our roomie (jetz, a Dutch girl, living in France who was travelling to Poland to teach in a summer school) and a neighbor, Steve, from Canada who is going to go to a Polish Med school in August and was visiting it for the first time... We plan to meet up with Nano, Ioni and Esteban in Bratislava in a week or so. Hopefully we can connect.

A few days ago katie and I went to see the Blue man in concert in Berlin. It was something else, I'd seen the show on DVD while I was in Mexico, but never live. Afterwards while i was playing hackey sack with them, one of them touched his head and got blue paint all over his hand and then touched my head. Once I got back to the hostal I wasn't very happy, it wouldn't come off. My head was stained blue with a giant hand print! It was still there in the morning and even a little so after my shower. It was a prblem I had to deal with for the hackey sack club! lol.

We also saw many sections of the Berlin Wall, we saw some museums, like Checkpoint Charlie, where we actually were able to get 10 stamps in our passports... 10 official stamps from the 60's to the 80's. It was odd that we were able to do so... but the guy was official Berlin M.P. Not just some dude from the street wanting to mark in our passports. We ate twice at this Kabob place that was a few blocks from our Hostal. 3,50 for a kabob and drink. I dont drink pop... well I didn't until I came here, I've wanted to drink pop, more than anytime in my life, it always sounds soo good. I've been breaking down lately... I guess I could use the calories. I know Im loosing weight, probably 10 pounds by now, I'm looking thinner. Hopefully I can balance it out somehow.

Well, I need to catch up on my other entries in Scandinavia. aufweidesehen!

Yes, I played Hackey Sack with the Blue Men in Berlin!

devinashley — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 18:53:00 GMT

Hey eveyone short entry today we have a lot of berlin to see! I just wanted to add that last night, katie and I went to see the Blue Man Group here in berlin. It was awesome! Afterwards, we went to the lobby and I had Katie take a picture of me playing hackey sack with them. Oh yeah, Chris Pank. I was sitting in our hostal comons area earlier, listening to the music while we planned our day. Dude, Andy McKee was playing on the system! I had to go and ask the receptionist to make sure. How cool huh, Im going to tell Andy!

Gallery: Germany

devinashley — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 19:07:00 GMT

Gallery: Sweden

devinashley — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:05:00 GMT

Goteburg