The Final Post

When Sam and I arrived left Athens we had 10 days left of the trip. In that 10 days, we slept in a train station, two airports, a bus station and a park.

Lets just say Rome was a great place; " you should see the Colosseum Spaniard". Just like in gladiator it is amazing that it is standing in such great shape and just an amazing feat today nevermind 2,000 years ago. I went to the Vatican, but spending 56 Euro as everyone will attest was a waste of money because the entrance fee to the Vatican doesn't exist as I came to find out and the lines I was promised that I wouldn't have to wait in, I did. The Vatican was ok for me, but the tour was worth it to know specifics about what exactly happened in different parts of the City.

After the Vatican, Sam and I went to the airport in Rome for the night for we had an early flight to Madrid.

We went to Spain for one reason: to run with the bulls and after meeting up with our fellow Australearner Jeff and his roommate Mikey we get off the bus in Pamplona, get the all white pants, scarf, and satchel de booze. We were ready for a night out. The night out literally means night out as we slept in a park and got kicked out (literally) of the bus station and into another park for a total of about 2 hours of sleep for all of us. At 6am we were all up ready for the running. Sam although he will say he got stuck with the bags, forgot that about a month prior said he was not running and once he said that, I knew we had a secure place for our bags and I was running regardless. At the end Jeff, Mikey, and myself where the three sprinters and we successfully ran with the bulls and survived to tell the tale. After the running Sam and I had a 5 hour wait for our bus back to Madrid, and once back we showered up and fell asleep as we knew our trip was coming to an end.

Our last of of the trip we realized we should have spent more time in Spain as it seems to be a very nice country, but broke, and tired as we were; we were ready to call it a trip and make our way back.

To conclude the adventure, we traveled around 12,000 miles over 47 days. Went to 11 countries and met a lot of interesting people some good some bad. Either way it was a great trip, but for the first time in my traveling life I was completely ready to go home, which has never happened before. I was able to do two things which I have wanted to do for years; cliff diving and running with the bulls( concussion and a slightly sore knee). I would not have done the trip any differently, we both heard too many stories of people saying they wish they did it after school, and that was a major driving force for the trip as we didn't want that to happen to us. Having said that, I asked a lot of people for years now about where should I go what should I see, and I know I was not able to see many of the places you all recommended, but I did try.

I would love to hear from all of you that have been following the blog, I am surprised about how many people said they are following. any inputs, questions, places I should head to next. Ireland and Northern UK will more than likely be my next trip to Europe.

Until then this is Michael and Sam from the USA, it was a great trip and Thank you Sam for coming with me.

Autobots Out.

Rome

Down to the final stretch.
With about a week left we have reached Rome with a slight delay. Athens although seems to be in total chaos thanks to CNN, is in trouble but CNN fails to show the other 23 hours and 55 minutes of peaceful protest.

Santorini is one of the nicest places I have ever been, it is a great place; cheap, friendly, and a whole lot of fun. As we said in the last post we rented some ATVs and we drove the island of Santorini three of four times. We went to several beaches, up the highest hill, sunrises, sunsets, and cliff diving. Cliff Diving was a lot of fun, I have never done it but our cliff diving experience was over two days. Let me explain.

After a day of driving around the island, we go down to the beach have a few drinks and some guy tells us about cliff diving. Immediately I get so excited to search out this beach the next day. After we spend an hour or two trying to find the beach we finally arrive to find a bunch of people jumping off the cliffs. The cliffs themselves have different heights, any where from 10 to 100 feet. The higher you go the farther you also have to jump out. So the first day I though I was the coolest kid in the world. I jumped feet first about 30 feet, which means I had to jump out about 6 feet or so. This went just fine, until I saw kids about 10 years old and diving in from at least 60 feet. Admitting defeat we went back to the hostel for the night.

After talking to people around the hostel, I was ashamed that these young kids not only jumped from higher than I did but also dove. I could not have this happen. The next day we took a girl we met (from colorado) all the way around the island and ultimately made it back to the cliffs. I went strait up to the 60 foot spot and jumped feet first. Sweet, I jumped from 60 feet, but now needed to dive to beat those little kids. I go back up again and dive off and there I am thinking I am as cool as these kids. All of a sudden, what we find out is a 25 year old guy from the Greek Special Forces comes running off about 100 feet up, over the 30 feet he had to clear and makes a perfect landing in the water. Ya ya, no way am I going to do that but I still beat the kids. No more than five minutes later does this 10 year old kid run and does a perfect back flip into the water. I finally announced my defeat but seriously those kids were nuts. After defeat had been declared I wanted to dive one last time perfecting my dive. Success rate=0. I dive and going off it did not feel right and no more than a second later, I did a perfect flop on to my balls, feeling like they split in two the whole beach got their laugh for the day. Once again I was the champ, but not really. Not only was I not the champ for almost losing my ability to re-produce, I am pretty sure I may have landed just right to actually give my self a concussion because the 3 or 4 days I was a little woosey. For that my cliff diving days are finished. For now.

While on the worst 8 hour ferry ever, we start hearing things about how it is getting bad in Greece. And it was the vote to get the bail out money was happening but we thought we would be just fine. We get back to our apartment at about 1 am, wake up and we decide to head to Sam's cousins place around dinner time. Sam gets in to the shower and the power goes out. At that exact moment we both knew it was time to get out. We packed up our things and headed out to figure out our flight information for the next day. Canceled; so we were allowed a free transfer and the best we could get was a flight to Milan which was taking off right around the vote for the bail out money. We took what we could get and after a long two days of waiting we made it to Milan.

I thought we could stay in Milan and check out the sites but after reading about Milan there is not too much so we booked trains to Rome with a stop in Pisa for the next day. We went back into the train station, found a spot and spent the night in the train station. The night of sleep was not terrible which was surprising, but we had an early train and spending money for a quick night of sleep was not economical considering we only have a week left.

Four hours to Pisa, and I would have liked to stay longer but that tower is cool. I walked up and all we could do is laugh...whoops. That is about the extent of our stop in Pisa but it was really funny. We hurried back to the train station and caught an early train to Rome.

Here we are in Rome, about a week left, and down to the last few hundred in our bank accounts. We just have to see the city of Rome, get to Madrid, run with the bulls, and make it back for our flight on July 9. For now we will doing a lot of free tours, and hanging out.

ciao,
Michael and Sam

Santorini

Since it has been about a week since the last post here is the update.

Sam got pick-pocketed on the 7 am train on his way home from the bars.

Therefore the past week has been Sam going crazy and bumming money off me. Besides that, we have been through Berlin, Athens, and now we are taking a vacation on Santorini.

Berlin, is an interesting city with so much history and since Cold war was one of my focus' in school I had a blast walking the Berlin wall, and seeing the fall of the Nazi Regime. The first day in Berlin we had to do laundry since it had been almost two weeks, after laundry was done we just relaxed for the next morning was the Berlin Wall. I had an idea on the train to literally walk the Berlin Wall, or at least what is left. Not that it is impossible but it is a long way and literally around what was West Berlin. So we began walking part of it and on a part of the wall that is left, they have all these murals painted all over the wall which is really cool, and the wall it self is at least 12 feet high. We were thinking that even if you get a clear run and jump, avoiding the gun fire from the "kill zone" there is no way you would make it over the wall. After a few hours we made it to check point Charlie which is a total tourist attraction and did not do justice to the significance of the site. After following the "berlin wall track" for a few hours it was time to head back to the hostel for the night.

The next day we didn't get up until about 11 and it was pouring rain. Sam looked out and was like no way, and I said well I have a jacket and tried to figure out what to do for the day. I found a concentration camp to go to, which seemed to be pretty easy to get to; train outside Berlin, signs and there you go. I get to the train stop and walk to Sachsenhausen part of town thinking Sachsenhausen Concentration camp would be in that part of town. False, after walking for about a half an hour I realize I am not in the right spot, and make my way to a car dealership to try to figure out where to go. At the dealership I didn't want to say concentration camp thinking maybe they take offense but finally we figured out in their broken english and my little piece of paper. So one of the sales guys literally dropped me off at the camp; note to self, when lost go to a car dealership. The camp itself was interesting, it was one where they would counterfeit money. It was an interesting experience for me because the close quarters where they would simply sleep on steel plates that you would see in road construction sites. After walking through it was time to head back to Berlin.

That night Sam lost his wallet, and the next day was filled with phone calls and trying to back track through Berlin. After helping Sam I went to the sites one last time and the next day we headed off to Athens.

Since Sam has family in Athens we have our own apartment 10 minutes away from the Acropolis and just a few blocks from the ancient Olympic Stadium. Athens is a cool place to see but not the most friendly of places. Cabs will gps the address we need to go to and then say they don't know where it is, and not even because of the riots. We haven't seen any of the riots, but there is a large group of people demonstrating in the town square. Having said all that; the acropolis is an awesome place would recommend it to any one that you have to see it. But after the acropolis yes some of the sites are good to see but a week in Athens is almost too much. After a few days Sam decided that we are going to head to one of the Islands and we chose Santorini.

Santorini is the shit. We rented ATVs for 30 Euro for 3 days and today spent most of the day driving around the island. After driving around we went to a black sand beach which is extremely hot, but the Mediterranean water made it all better.

So here we are taking a vacation within a vacation and couldn't have picked a better place to do it.

Until next time.
yassou
Mike/ Sotirios

Berlin

We came to Berlin a few days ago to switch trains. Four days later we are here to stay, until Thursday.

Prague was sweet! It is definately one of those places that doesn't come up in peoples minds about Europe but it should be. We arrived in Prague a little after dinner time on Wednesday and with not much to do for 4 days we decided to just hang out in the hostel and see where the night took us. We went out got a bottle of wine and really just hung out, after a long day of traveling and sitting on a train which smelled of really bad people. So at the hostel we hang out meet a few people and just hang out. I have said before how it is cool to meet people in hostels; listen to their travel stores and how they ended up in the same hostel as you. Every once in a while there is a story that is so strange you need to just laugh about it so here it is.

After leaving our seats for a few minutes, Me, Sam, South African Girl, and Irish guy, head back to where we were sitting and there is this older guy (around 50) sitting on the couch. Not a big deal. We then go where are you from, he answers San Francisco, and then we ask what are you doing in Prague, ( a natural answer would be "just came to see it, a lot of people said it was a really nice city, but then again I wouldn't write about it if it was a normal answer) his answer and I kid you not "to hijack a band". Wait, what the hell are you talking about, now realizing this guy had gone of the deep end. After Sam entertains the guy's story for about 15 minutes he then goes off on how he is going from a Youtube video to the Cannes Movie Festival. Again, since Sam has a great sense for bullshit and just being utterly confused Sam kindly asks, how he went from one extreme to the next. The guy proceeds to take his jacket off like he is about the throw a punch at Sam. Sam slightly inebriated, responds with "are we soposed to fight now". This sends the now completely crazy guy off to tell his sob story to the others in the hostel but for a few seconds of being friendly turned into 3 days of this guy calling out Sam of not knowing any thing. In retrospect, all we could do is laugh about if Sam didn't know any thing about "life" as this guy seemed to put it but how is he going to "hijack" a band if he can't keep a conversation without getting confused in his own bull shit. After all the jokes were made we headed upstairs for what we thought the night was over.

In hostels, for those who don't konw, the basic rule is you make a bed you sleep in it. So we get upstairs (116 steps), and there is some random girl about to fall asleep in Sam's bed. Like what the hell really, we totally think this girl is an idiot, why does she think she can just sleep in some random bed. Regardless situation was figured out we all had a bed and it worked out. The next morning Sam had one mission; to do laundry because he ran out of clean shirts about a week ago. So while he stayed back and "did laundry" I walked around Prague.

Prague is a great city not big at all but built during for the Holy Roman Empire, so the architecture is all about 1000 years old. The first thing I do is walk up a huge hill and look over the city, I could have taken the tram, but that costs money and wasn't worth it. At the top is a minature Eiffle tower, gardens which rivaled the Botanical gardens in Sydnez, and a very cool monestary which I could not even guess when it was built. After walking around more I found my self at the palace which over looks all of Prague, with the best views of the city. Walking all day in sandals was not the best idea so I started making my waz back to the Hostel. Getting back up the 116 steps I find sam taking a nap and zero laundry done....Great Success.

We plan on hanging out for another night with some of the kids we meet and we go out for a beer and an absinth shot with one girl from South Africa and other from Ireland. An absinth shot is not so much a shot but an experience. It starts with a shot and a sugar cube on a spoon looking thing. So after that, they light it all on fire, and stir the flaming sugar cube into the alcohol, and then light a second sugar cube on fire, to carmalize separately to chew on later. After putting out the fire the shot tastes a lot like mouthwash, but it is as warm as hot tea, so although it doesn't taste so bad it is just really warm and not totally enjoyable. I am certain, my green fairy days are over. We wait a little bit for the shot to settle, finish our beers and head back to the hostel.

Day 3 in Prague was an easy day. Some guy in the hostel told us to go check out some castle outside the city. Since we went to Prague on the same mentallity, sounded like a great idea. After some research, we found where we needed to go and the last thing it said was follow the crowd to the castle, and you will be fine (because you can't see it from the train station). We get up and go, make it to the train stop around 1. The idea to follow the crowd immediately fails. Not only were we the crowd but there wasn't a single sign directing us towards the castle. After looking left and right, Sam said he saw the castle for a brief moment on the train so we just wandered up to the castle and up on this hill is this giant castle. The castle is amazing, how they built all these castles, palaces, churches, etc in the 13th century is quite a miracle considering how many houses, and buildings don't last 100 years. With the hike to the castle behind us we head back to Prague, get a Big Mac and we decided to go on a pub crawl for the night.

The pub crawl was a standard pub crawl, bunch of kids going into bars getting a few free drinks and moving on. The last pub we go to was more of a 5 story dance party, again nothing too special. The even named the floors by what type of music; oldies, dance, techno, and black. Yes, one of the floors was literally named the black music floor. Everyone that was around us was shocked except for every person who was from Europe. So for the record, any type of music from Jay-z, Nelly, and little Wayne, is labeled not hip hop- but black music.

We always end up with one more day literally just enough to relax. So we met up with some canadien girls and an australian guy for a picnic in Prague and relaxed until it started raining. We found some trees to stay dry and walked around Prague the rest of the day.

There was no research at all for Prague. I reallz never thought it would work out to go there but I am really glad we did. It is not the biggest city in Europe but it is a very clean, low key city in Europe and would recommend to any one to at least go check it out (ya that's a joke because it is in the Czech Republic).

Berlin is next up. We are here until Thursday and then off to Greece.

So long,
Michael and Sam

Prague

Here we are on the other side of the Berlin wall and this is the word from the other side. Since the last post we have been to Scandinavia (Denmark), and Germany (Hamburg). Both have been different places so we shall start with Denmark.

We traveled all the way to Denmark to visit our two room mates from Australia Olivia and Pernille. We first stopped in Copenhagen to visit Olivia and her boyfriend Andre. After a night of traveling Sam and I check into our hotel and make our way to walk around Copenhagen. After walking around we went back to the hotel figured out a way to meet up with Olivia and Andre and off we went at about 9. Lets make a note that we didn't get to their place until 11:30 and the sun just went down completely at 11. Ok, we arrive at Olivia and Andre's place and we decide to have a few drinks. At 1 Andre tells us we are going to an after party of this music festival, we are excited to go to a bar and just hang out with some of their friends. And we take one last beer and head to the "after party".

The "afterparty"was anything but an after party. 1.) Located in the meat packing district in Copenhagen. 2) there are DJ's around every corner with a huge mosh pit around each. 3) as we turn the corner there are beer venders set up in the middle of the streets. 4) meat packing by day "underground" party at night. Meanwhile with glass being broken everywhere, there are no fights, no cops, and the two that drove through literally just drove through. After 2 hours, so now 3 in the morning we look at the sky and what do we see? the sun beginning to come up so there were really about 4 hours of pure darkness. Once the sun started to come up we decided it was time to head back to our hotel, which we didn't get back to until almost 5, and there the guy at the counter was nice to let Sam know to have a good morning, and we went to bed.

We get up the next morning and went off into Copenhagen for the day knowing at some point we had to meet up with Andre and Olivia because Andre set us up with a place to stay with his friend for the next night. We were invited over to their place for dinner, so we went back to the Hotel got our stuff and headed over for pizza. After pizza we were sent off to one of Andre's friends place, who we had met at the "after party", and both passed out until almost noon the next day.

After Copenhagen and seeing Olivia and Andre it was time to go see our other room mate Pernille. She was in a college town called Aarhus which was about 3 hours away by train. It was a great little town and we had a great time making dinner and Pernille's famous guacamole. The next day we got up and made plans for the rest of the trip and then off to the train station again for Hamburg.

The train to Hamburg, went rather quick and when we got there we checked into the hostel and walked around the city for a few hours. After what we felt like we saw the entire city, we headed back to the hostel for the night and decided we would just skip town when we woke up the next morning and head to Prague. People said we should go, its a cool town, so we said why not took the train to Berlin, and then on another to Prague.

From Berlin to Prague was an interesting train ride. It started with a cabin of 6 people (like the train in Eurotrip), and there were 5 people rather uncomfortable for about an hour. After we reached Dresdon, they all got off and we had the entire cabin for a few hours. The country side of Germany and the first part of Czech Republic is very nice, as we rode along a very nice river with a little mountain on the other side. With about an hour left two guys joined us in our cabin. These guys reaked of the worst BO of anyone I have ever smelt in my life. For those that have been to a Paris Metro in the summer, imagine that multiplied by 10. For those who haven't, imagine the worst you have ever smelt in your life, and multiply that by 100. That bad, it was so bad it literally killed the taste of gum in my mouth and the previously nice country side. With one stop to go before our stop they got off and we headed in to Prague.

Here we are in Prague for 4 days, then we are going to be heading back to Berlin for 4 days, and then we will be headed for the Mediterranean for 13 days in Greece to just hang out and do nothing.

That is all for now.

Mike/Sam

Denmark

15 Hours after leaving Amsterdam we have reached Copenhagen, Denmark.

Brussels was a quick stop. We went there just to check it out but when we got to our hostle we wanted to just relax, and wait until morning to see the city. So we decided to hang out at the bar in the Hostel where we sat down with a few kids from Ireland and on guy from the U.S. It is pretty cool to meet all the people who come into hostles who just want to hang out and are really cheap when it comes to sleeping for the night. After a few hours of hanging out it was time for bed and we both passed out pretty quickley. When we walked out of the hostel the next morning, it was pouring so we went got breakfast, went back to the hostel to get our things and then it was off to the train station and on to Amsterdam.

Amsterdam however has no rules. Prostitution is legal, pot is smoked and sold even more than in Boulder, and the rules of the road do not exist. After we dodged the tram, or a car, there was a good chance we were about to wrecked by one of the thousands of bikes in the city. There were so many bikes instead of a parking garage for cars there was a parking garage for bikes.

We are not sure why people think Paris is the city of love because at the end; it is kind of dirty and smells pretty bad. The canals of Amsterdam, the small cafes (which are every where), and the Red light district makes me want to think the city of love may be Amsterdam rather than Paris.

At the end of it Amsterdam was a great place. We had 3 roommates; 2 from London and 1 from Sydney and just hanging out with them was a great time, and they were all backpacking themselves so it was good to share some stories. We left the hostel around 5 with the two kids from London and headed to the train station for our 15 hour train.

The train station experience was interesting; we first got to the station and were directed to platform 8b. When we arrived on the platform there were people waiting at the same spot for Berlin, Copenhagen, and Prague. Since Sam didn't believe me when I said 8b for the 19:01 train he went to re-check. After about 15 minutes of confusion we realized we were on the right platform with a train sitting right in front of us, but no one was there to ask about the train and no one was on it. At 19:01 the train left, with all the people waiting for Berlin, Copenhagen, and Prague still on the platform. At 19.02 there was an announcement saying our platform was 15. '

So what the hell? If we actually got on the train who knows where we could have ended up and actually missing our train would not have let us get to Copenhagen until at least tonight. So once aboard the train, which half was going to Moscow, we settled down in our cabin right out of EuroTrip, and waited 15 hours to get to Copenhagen.

We are in Copenhagen now for a night or 2 to visit one of our roomates from Australia and then off to Aarhus, Denmark to visit our other roommate. After the visiting is over we will be off to Germany and Berlin to start and we will go from there.

hej hej
-Michael and Sam

Brussles

hello all,
In our last blog we were just about to leave London. We are now in Brussles and a lot has happened in the last few days:
1) Overnight Ferry to France
2)Normandy
3) 3 days in Paris
4) a train to Brussles.

Crazy Stuff that happened in the last few days
1) Overnight Ferry didn't put us where we needed to go for our Normandy Tour = 70 Euro Cab ride
2) We have the wrong eurorail pass= our pass is only valid until June 13, we leave on July 9
3)Honeymoon sweet in Paris= 1 bed for me and Sam
So the past few days have definately been interesting but we have made it through.

So the ferry was a great idea, and I would do it again but there was very little direction on where to go after and we were about 30 KM outside the city which we thought we would get off the boat. After a few hours of utter confusion we made it to our tour and Normandy is sweet, any sort of history buff needs to go there and just see the town. The town is almost 1000, years old and WW2 sites were almost unrealistic; I say that because the beach area of Omaha beach is a beautiful wide open beach and having over 30,000 soldiers succesfully up the beach would be hard to believe if we didn't already know it happened.

After seeing the graves at the cemetary and Point du Hoc, we made our way back into Bayeux and went to the train station. At the station we were informed our train pass was not the one we thought we had, and after a moment of utter disbelieve, Sam was able to calm me down, and we were on our way to Paris.

Paris is still as cool as it was 5 years ago when I went there. The hotel we booked was cheaper than any hostel so we booked it, up 5 flights of stairs and we found ourselves in the "honeymoon" suite with one bed and the bathroom down the hall. Naturally I called little spoon but we went to see the sights as we had about 4 hours of day light left (we checked in about 6). From what I remember the weather this time was hotter than it was when I went in July and here we are in the last week of May. We were able to go the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and many other sites pretty quickly. So we decided that we would head up to Amsterdam, but I made the executive decision for a stop in Brussles just for kicks.

Here we are in Brussles, just chilling out for the night. We are heading up to Amsterdam tomorrow and we think Denmark for the Weekend. This is the most current information about the lives of Sam and Michael.

-Michael and Sam