1 world cup, 5 beers, and 1.8 million Hamburgers

Guten Tag,

The hostel I'm staying at in Hamburg has by far been the quietest yet. It has set the mood for my stay here over the last few days. The first day I explored the city quite thoroughly walking around and noting the architecture and marveling at the parks (which most cities in Europe excel at crafting). It also got me contemplating the varying etiquettes used by the locals when it comes to crossing the street in various countries.

To illustrate: In London people crossed the street whenever then wanted and the colour of the light made little to no difference. In fact, if you stood waiting for the light to change when there were no cars coming you might be pushed over by the mass of people behind you waiting to get across. Conversely, here in Hamburg there may be one person waiting at an intersection with absolutely no cars on the horizon and the light just turned red and they will wait a full 4 minutes for the walk sign to reappear. At first I felt out of place just walking across, fearing that Hamburgeain J-walking laws may be the strictest of the EU, but I have yet to encounter any resistance.

My other pastime here has been visiting the Harley Davidson festival which is occurring a few blocks from my (eerily empty) hostel. The rally just ended today, but I saw my fill of Road Kings and Sportsters. Also set up at the rallypoint were tents to watch the World Cup matches. It has been great to visit these, drink a beer, and get into the games. As of today Germany just beat England (in a stellar performance) and the city erupted with honks and cheers. It has been about 4 hours since the game ended and people are still driving down the streets celebrating and waving flags. I am switching my support based on the country I am currently in and supporting the local team. This helps in making friends and with the US out, why not?

One more full day in Hamburg then off to Berlin!

Tschüs!
Eurokid

...more like Campsterdam

Hallo,

Greetings from Amsterdam! It has been quite a journey from Brussels. The bus ride took a little under 4 hours and the last few days have been spent exploring this majestic city, mostly in an attempt to get away from our first hostel. Of the ''hostels' we have stayed at so far, it has been the worst. Let me try and explain the facility; At first I thought we had stumbled upon a set for Hostel 3 (they actually have a poster for the original movie "Hostel" in one of the trailers. Pretty out of place if you ask me. Thought Jeri might get a kick out of that). The place is actually more of a campsite than a hostel, filled with a number of small trailers no longer on wheels where everyone sleeps. The kitchen and eating area are outside. This makes for annoying breakfasts when it is raining in the morning. Bathrooms are located in an outside building but are surprisingly acceptable. However, the worst aspect of all is the tram ran by the campsite that we must take every time we go the city. 1 € per ride. It could be worse. There was one cool aspect a small movie trailer that claimed to be the world's smallest cinima. We watched District 9 in it and it was nice just sitting back and watching a movie. Regardless, in upcomming hostels I will make it a point to search for a high "location" score.

Amsterdam itself is quite amazing. Raven and I went to the Anne Frank house (thanks Steve) and spend several hours reading signs as we walked through the structure. It was a somber experience walking through the house, but good none-the-less. After this we met up with some friends we had made back in England. It was great catching up with them and seeing how their journey was shaping up.

As of this post Raven's journey on the trip has come to an end as she took off for the airport yesterday morning. I certainly will miss the company and correct directions she provided during her duration. I have since moved from the scuzzy campsite to a normal hostel in the center of the city where I have 1 more night. The 24th I will be taking off for the green fields of Germany as I head for Hamburg.

Thanks for following!

Eurokid

If ya can't Belgium, join em'

Hallo!

I will preface this post with a brief statement on the way Belgian's set up their computer keyboards. In short this is the most annoying one yet encountered. Just a few letters are out of place, but not enough to warrent constant monitoring of the keys I stroke. This ultimately ends up to cause more work as the backspace must be freauently employed. Ah the trials of travel... But who cares about keyboards lemme fill you in on Brussels.

So far the city has been rated the highest in the 'Character' category by both Raven and myself. Lots of cool sites to see in the city that I feel is grossly over underrated and often forgot about. One of my favorite sites has been of the peeing boy . Dunno how or why its popular, but it was cool to look at. Tomorrow we tour a Brewery which I will scrutinize fully and compare to the superior Shell's Brewery.

After that excursion we leave for Amsterdam the next day via bus. It is the last stop for Raven on her tour and the place the solo journey begins.

Farvel!
Eurokid

P.S. We did get waffles and they were decent, but I think what the Belgians started, Eggo may have perfected.

I´d be Lyon if I said we were in France

Bonjour All,

Well, due to some miscalcuations of flight times Rav and I missed our flight to Lyon. The next day´s flight was full so we could not leave then either. As a result we have spent the last 2 days laying on the beach in Barcelona. Not the worst place to be stuck and an important life lesson learned: always quadruple check the airline check-in times.

On a sunny note, our tans are awesome.

We will now only be in Lyon for one night and one night only, but we have a good portion of both days to check out the city before we take off for Brussles. I think I shall sample the waffels there but may pass on the sprouts.

Au revoir,
Eurokid

OMG!

I´ve been only blogging once per city but this occasion calls for an additional post.

As Raven and I watch a stellar performace by the famous water fountian in Barcelona we decided to grab a cheap bite to eat at a small pizza parlor. After trying a pizza with some weird, sweet meat paste we glace over my shoulder and who is standing next to me but the famous MACAULAY CULKIN! He literally was right next to me in this pizza bar accompanied by two punkish body gaurds. For the record he is really short.

I´m still comming down from the excitment. Great end to a great stay in faboulus Barcelona. Lyon has a lot to live up to.

Eurokid

Two backpackers walk into a Barcelona...

Hola!

It is as if each new place we travel to keeps getting better and better. I fear that this trend cannot be sustained much longer.

Barcelona is absolutely great. The hostel where we have been staying has the best showers of the entire trip thus far. It is a huge improvement over the ones in London where, to operate, a button had to be pressed every 15 seconds or the water would stop and there was no temperature control. Other than the awesome bathrooms the facility is clean and has a quaint kitchenette where simple meals are easily produced.

The people here are also super fun. The first night the hostel organized a sangria night where we met a huge group of friends. The next night we went out with a group of 9 people to grab kebabs before heading out on the town. (FYI: drinks in Barcelona are extreeeeeeeeemely expensive if you are on La Rambla, the main street. We are talking €6 bottles of budwiser, €8 Vodka Redbulls, €8 Bloody Mary´s (sorry Kem), or €10 Mojitos. This is a far cry from the €1.8 liter bottles of beer in Lisbon. Moral of the story: pregame)

Today it was raining in the morning, but it cleared up and we made our way to the beach. This officially marked the first time I had set foot in the Mediterranean. It was awesome except for the large wave that almost stripped me of my speedo. Needless to say it was a huge wave. Tomorrow we plan on climbing a mountain that is only a few blocks away from our hostel and do some minor sight seeing before we leave the day after.

The trip will march forth as Raven and I fly to Lyon, France. A lot of other French cities would have cost over €100 to fly/train/bus to. Dunno what awaits on on the next leg, but if the past is any indication, it is going to be epic.

Adios!
Eurokid

Lisbon up! InPortugal announcement!

Ola!

Portugal is an unplanned success. Flying here was last minute worked out great. We flew EasyJet which was very nice and landed yesterday. It was a little sketchy comming in at night, but everything worked out well. After a few minutes of wandering around downtown Lisbon we found our Hostel, convientiely named "Home". After meeting a few English speakers from Kansas City and Austrailia it seemed to be appropriatly named.

Today Raven and I explored downtown where there are a multitude of statues and uneven streets. We also went to the ocean were a school of Magikarp tried to swim up on shore in an expansive school of lameity. Finally we and went to the local castle where the ramparts were ungaurded and deadly, but we managed to navigate them successfully and escape with our lives. It was sunny and a great day for walking. We also purchased some swimwear for tomorrow when we will travel to the beach with is about 30 minutes away.

Lisbon is great, but I still hold the west coast of the US in higher esteem. Next is Barcelona, in which I hope to utilize the 2 years of C+ Spanish I pushed out in highschool.

Hope all is well back home in the great state of Minesooooooooota.

Adeus!
Michael

Jolly Old England

Greetings from the tiny hamlet of London. It has been quite a trek so far and we are only 3 days in!

To recount the tale thus far, we had no issues at the MSP airport as we flew out of the Humphrey terminal. The flight to Iceland was pretty long. I was thinking it was a lot closer to North America, but now realize why it is still considered Europe. However, Iceland Air did provide me with ample leg room which I fancied.

Iceland was a barren desert and they have only a paltry selection of goods to consume in the airport: be advised.

The next leg flew us into London Heathrow and the fun began. We took the tube right to our hostel in Camden Town. We looked at the shops in the area. There are tons of them that have every single item you could ever want. The fashion here is pretty different too. I would venture to say different in a good way. After that we went back to the hostel for the night and passed out right away.

The next day we took in more traditional sights. We strolled through Regents Park, Queen Mary's Garden (Grandma Onie would love it), and down to the Eye of London. We didn't ride because the line and pricing were ridiculous. Instead we went to the aquarium which was delightful. After a long day of walking we tubed home and enjoyed a few glasses of London Ale. During this we met a load of people staying in the Hostel. 4 guys from Austrailia, 2 girls from the US, a girl from Canada, and one from Brazil. Everyone was super nice and we might hook up later on the trip.

Today was more a relaxing day in which I took not 1, but 4 naps. A little more strolling was done and now we will have our last night in London.

Small change in plans. We are going to Lisbon tomorrow instead of Paris because it worked out better.

I'll tell the story later my time is almost out.

Cheers!

Michael