Kiebingen and other adventures

. I left Munich on Friday an caught a ride to Tubingen to visit a German girl who I met in California when she was Couchsurfing at Dan’s place. She came back to Germany after almost two years three days before I came so everything was a bit new for both of us. Flori picked me up at the train station and we went out to get some drinks to celebrate my birthday. Not sure I have ever been so sick since I had food poisoning but I suppose that is only proper for my 21st birthday. When I woke up in the morning Flori’s mother came in my room and introduced herself. When I went outside I realized I was in Paradise. Flori’s grandpa owns a gardening business which is operated on the same property as their home so the house is surrounded by luscious gardens and has a luxury swimming pool which apparently costs 80,000 euros. We spent the morning swimming and trying to clear our heads from the night before. At two Joris, the Dutch guy from my polish adventure came to join us for my actual birthday. As I was still a bit sick we spent the afternoon by the pool talking to Flori’s family. We planned to go to a concert in the evening but Flori was upset because her mom wanted to go as well and so she ended up going and we, Joris and I, ended up going out in Tubingen and having a traditional Schwäbish dinner which was a bit difficult as all three of us are vegetarians and most traditional foods are made with meat. Flori came back form the concert around 5:00 in the morning so she spent the next day sleeping and Joris and I spent the day exploring the forest on and farm land around her house. We picked blackberries and attempted to back pie which turned into tarts because we did not have enough flour and we ended up also making jam with the extra berries. On Monday Joris left and Flori and I really got to spend some time together. After dropping him at the train station in the morning we rode our bikes over to Rottenburg, a village about two kilometers from the village Kiebingen where Flori lives. After coffee we decided to ride into Tubingen and do some shopping and see some of her friends. The ten kilometer ride to Tubingen was absolutely stunning, you are surrounded everywhere by lush green fields and vineyards. In Tubingen we met up with two of her friends and after another coffee decided to go with one of them and rent a boat to take out on the Neckar. First we went in search of bathing suits as none of us had one and then we rented a row boat and spent an hour touring the city by boat and swimming with the current in the river. After we went back to Flori’s house and made Lasagna and spent the night playing music and dancing. We spent Tuesday with her cousin at a lake about five kilometers from their house and so now I am completely sun burned but it was a really nice time. Tuesday night we ate dinner with her grandfather as it was my last night there and then in morning we ate breakfast with her grandmother from the other side of her family in the village before I caught my train to Esslingen. Of all the parts of Germany I have seen the small Schäbisch villages have been the most beautiful.

actually the pictures from Munich and Berlin

I realized that the last batch of pictures I posted were the photos from poland so here are the pictures from Munich and Berlin:

Berlin Poland and Prague

I realize it has been a long time since I caught up with this thing so instead of trying to recap everything in detail I will summarize most of the time and do more details about the most recent events. After the backpacking trip I traveled with Dan back to Stockholm and hung around at Linn’s house for a few days before flying to Munich to visit my friend Christian. I spent two weeks in Munich mostly meeting Christians friends, handing out by the river, and spent one day in the mountains wandering about. From Munich I took a rideshare up to Berlin and stayed with Tilman, and friend of a friend who had spent some time in SF, Toby, and Tim his flat mates. I stayed in Berlin for a week but did pretty much nothing the first three days because I got a UTI and had to take antibiotics which made me very sun sensitive and tired. On a positive note I got visit one of Germany's best hospitals. Tilman left on a trip to Switzerland on Wednesday and the same day my friend Jeff arrived from Oslo came and stayed with me in the flat. It was really great to see him again and have someone to explore the touristy and interesting parts of the city. He arrived in the afternoon and I took him back to apartment to drop off his rucksack and then we headed out to find cheap dinner before going to the Free Hugs event some other couch surfers had organized. The next day we went on a free walking tour which took us to most of the central touristy locations and gave us a good idea of Berlin’s history. After the walking tour we went back home for a bit to do some laundry and get out of the brutal sun. That night we went out to this rad squat in Friedrichshain that was serving dinner for a Euro and showing War Inc. on the wall. It was really fun except that the movie was dubbed in German and Jeff could not understand it. Day three we spent going back to some of the places we had visited on the tour and really spending time there and also exploring the wonderful eastside gallery where a long portion of the wall has been left standing covered in murals about peace and futility of wall building. On Friday afternoon we left Berlin and took the train to Kostryn where the Woodstock festival was being held for the sixth time in its fifteen year history. From the small town we took a bus crammed with people for the US dollar equivalent of 66 cents. From the entrance to the festival we walked toward the main stage as we had seen a graphic location of where the Couch Surfing camp would be namely in the forest directly facing the main stage and a bit to the right. We arrived at the camp relatively easily thanks to the giant blue tarp someone had put up and a big sign saying CS. The first night was one of the best for music. Jeff and I spent most of our time at the folk stage listening to polish-funk-folk-punk combinations. It was a bit funny walking around the festival because there were no rules really about where one could or could not camp so there were tents everywhere. The next morning we had a nice breakfast and got to know our fellow campmates a bit. As the music did not start until the late afternoon we went exploring after breakfast and met some of the Hare Krishna people who were running a big food tent for about a dollar a plate. That afternoon we went down to the main stage with a bunch of the couch surfers and had a great time dancing our heads off to polish bands everyone else could sing along to. Sunday we spent a lot of time chilling out at camp as it was blistering hot. That night it poured rain from about 8:00 to 8:00 so when we packed up to leave in the morning it was with somewhat dampened spirits. From Kostryn our plan was to take an overnight train to Krakow with five other folks from the camp. While we were waiting at the train station wondering what to do with the eight hours we had to kill before our train we met a Ukrainian girl and her polish friend who would end up being our saviors. They were volunteers from the festival and so had special accommodations in the train station where we could leave our backpacks and get out of the rain. They spent the afternoon showing us the city including the former pre-WWII ruins and a red soldier cemetery then helped us get on our train by arguing the people in our seats out of our compartment. Five of us slept in one compartment with a polish couple who were going to Krakow on vacation. We arrived in Krakow the next morning cramped and a bit exhausted although apparently I was the only one who got a significant amount of sleep, and found that we had a Couchsurfing host who was an American working for the consulate in the city. We stayed for two nights in his luxury apartment and explored the city a bit with him. After that I left our group with Joris, one of the Dutch guys from the festival, and we hitchhiked to Prague, via Wroclaw, a grand total of about 520 kilometers. Our first ride was a couple on there first night out since having a daughter who took us to Katowice where there was a huge U2 concert going on. From there we got a ride to Wroclaw with a polish business man and his wife who had been to some meetings in Katowice and were on their way home. They even helped us find a hostel which ended up being one of the nicest and cheapest I have ever stayed in. That night we went out for what we planned would be a quiet beer but ended up staying out until four in the morning talking to polish people about everything from politics to magic. The next day we headed out of town a bit late and had a lot of trouble finding the location that the hostel lady told us would be good for hitching to Prague. We finally found the right bus stop, took the bus to the shopping mall at the edge of the city and started asking at the gas station. Most people seemed to be staying in the city but one guy gave us a ride to the road that would take us to Prague a few kilometers away. From there we got a ride with a man who did not speak any English but drove us about 130 kilometers to the outskirts of a small town. Literally the middle of nowhere. From there we got a ride with a young kid who looked like he had been driving for about six months who gave us a ride to the border of Poland and the Czech Republic. By this time it was already about seven and we were getting a bit ragged from standing outside in the sun and not eating so we got some food from the polish dinner and tried our luck for about 30 minutes before we got a ride with a truck driver who was making a long haul from Warsaw to a small town in the Czech Republic. He spoke some English and his girlfriend was living in Colorado for four months. He also loved the Dutch because as he put it “ Marijuana is legal..and Armin Van Burren” which he said wildly banging his radio from which the famous DJ’s music was blasting. He only took us about 30 kilometers but he left us near a train station and as it was getting quite dark we decided to do the final 125 kilometers by train. We arrived in Prague around midnight and decided to stay in the train station as we could not find a hostel with availability. Around 1:15 we awoken by the police and told that the station was closing for the next two hours so we went outside and sat on the grass to await the reopening. While we were selecting a spot to sit we heard a somewhat desperate cry of “Do you speak English?” There happened to be three other girls from the bay area looking for people to sit with because they were afraid of the bums around and had been told that Prague’s train station was dangerous at night. One of them happened to know me from High School and somehow recognized me immediately even while she was still silluetted by the light of the train station and I had not heard her name or seen her face. All it took was oh your American from California? Oh from the bay area eh? Are you Jeanne Johnson? At the time it was completely mind blowing. After a restless night in the train station I left Joris dazed, confused, and in search of coffee, and caught my rideshare to Munich where I have been relaxing for the last few days and making arrangements for the last few weeks of this adventure.

Munich and Berlin photos

Jeanne

second half of sweden trip...a bit rammbely

We got up relatively early around eight and after a relaxing breakfast in the kitchen of one of the sleeping dorms we began our ascent of Kebnekaise the highest mountain in Sweden which at just over 2100 meters is arguably more like a large hill. Nothing quite like beginning the morning with a large steep hill. We headed back the way we had come the day before and about 30 minutes later took a hard right and headed straight up out of the valley. The first hill came out into a large boulder filled bowl where we could get our first glimpse of the summit. From there we climbed up about 500 meters to the base of the next ridge where we could see over into three more glorious valleys and from there up another 400 never-ending meters to the top of a hill I thought would bring us to the summit. On top of the hill was a rock city built by climbers. The entire hill top was covered in small rock piles built so that it appears to be a fairy village. From there we had to descend about 700 meters before climbing the 1000 meters to the top. We eat our pitiful lunch of tube cheese and wheat crackers at the base of the mountain and then struggled our way slowly up the sheer boulder filled way to the top. About 260 meters from the summit we reached an emergency hut where I seriously considered stopping and calling it quits but then after a bit of a rest we all kept going. The final 200 meters climb we had to walk through knee deep snow which given the blazing afternoon sun was very was slow going. The summit was set up on a nipple of snow at the edge of an expansive snow field and from the top you can look over something like 20 percent of Sweden and I think also on into Norway. The was a flag planted on top that just said Sneaky Steve and had a silluette of a man wearing sunglasses and generally looking very sneaky. Given the level of exhaustion that has already set in for me the glissade down the nipple really invigorated me. From the edge of the snowfield things got more difficult as tired knees and ankles had to navigate ´the steep and often unstable or nonexistent trail. About half way back down into the high valley I fell as the rocks I was standing on slid down the mountain. I was surprisingly ok, bruised in many places with hurt pride but no broken bones, after doing a complete summersault and landing pretty much on my feet. At the bottom of that valley we decided it would be a good idea to walk through the snow rather then around as we had done on the ascent and found out that underneath that snowfield was an icy lake. The numb feet took some of the pain out the 700 meter climb up the next hill and by the time we had gotten to the top our feet were warm again. After leaving the summit we had split up into two groups Adam and Bianca, the must stronger and faster group, left us somewhere shortly after the emergency hut so that they would be back in time to buy snickers for everyone before the shop closed. When I fell on the first hill the faster group was already half way up the second climb. We, the slow group, got back a full hour and half later then Adam and Bianca. From the bottom of the second hill we glissaded down a massive snow field into the bowl saving ourselves about half an hour of walking and lifting our spirits immensely. The next day we lazed around at the station and took a really nice sauna. In the morning we said goodbye to three of our companions. Anna, Todd, and Geheert walked out to Nikkuluakta and Daniel, Adam, Bianca, Jeff, and I continued onward. After a teary goodbye we walked 10 kilometers back through the valley we had come in through and then south up into the mountains where we found a glorious campsite on the edge of a lake. The weather was a bit stormy so we spent the night playing music and cards in Bianca’s tent. In the morning we walked down back on the Kundsleden and followed a brilliant blue river down into forested land seeing trees for the first time since the second day of the trip. We camped that night on the edge of a wildlife preserve at the bank glacial river and had a much needed campfire. Day three of the second leg brought us all the way through the nature reserve and across a massive lake that we had to row across using two boats and bringing them back across. On the other side of the lake there was an emergency hut where we ended our day at lunch spending the rest of the day baking in the hut with the woodstove going. For Dan and I that was the last night out on the trail. The next day we hiked up about 800 meters before descending down to Vakkoluakta where we would spend our final night camping on the banks of a massive lake. We had run out of fuel for the stove the day before and had then used the woodstove in the cabin and the last night since the hut did not carry the type of fuel we needed, we cooked on a big open driftwood fire using a grill we found near the campsite. Saying goodbye the next day was quite painful and full of promises and dreams of reunion trips and photo exchange. Honestly it felt like leaving a piece of myself behind with each person.

long awaited swedish post...but only the first half ( I know its long read as you will)

The journey to Kiruna in the north of Sweden’s arctic wilderness by plane took less then three hours, a small fraction of the time it would take us to return to Stockholm on the train even starting about two hundred kilometers south of where we began our hike. But that is a story for a later date. This entry is an account of the Couchsurfing Kundsleden Adventure of 2009. Upon arrival at the Abisko Tourist Station where our two week backpack would begin, we began to wonder how we would find the others in our group the majority of whom we had never exchanged a single communication with. Daniel and I started by stashing our bags having a stretch and contemplating the reality of our undertaking. To many this may sound like a ridiculous or even dangerous idea, not the 130 km wilderness trip including a summit of the highest mountain in the country and 24 hours every day of brutal arctic sun, but the commitment of two weeks worth of delicate travel plans to almost perfect strangers. However as we had anticipated and would re-affirm over and over on this trip, hospitality and community organizations like Couchsurfing offer platforms for people to develop positive connections if treated with goodwill can become conduits for fast friendships and opportunities for skill sharing and inspiration. Enough of the plugging and back to reality, while I was setting my bag down in the hallway of the tourist station I saw a woman to my left who looked suspiciously like the woman organizing our trip. It turned out that she was and the eclectic group accompanying her would be our companions on the adventure. After a brief set of introductions we settled down to cooking our first meal together and divvying up our food supplies. Bianca’s original plan was that we would walk only two or three kilometers on the first night as we did not begin hiking until about 6:00 in the evening. It turned out we all had a lot more energy then anticipated and with the help of the consistent sunlight we made it about eight kilometers to camp at a locked up winter camp for the Sami reindeer people. Over a second dinner, coffee and a campfire I finally really learned everyone’s names and in the morning I took my first swim inside the arctic circle. Day two we took a leisurely pace and enjoyed marvelous weather. About five kilometers into our day we arrived at the first supply hut, one of many huts along the Kundsleden which are placed conveniently about a days walk from each other. Near the hut was a beautiful swimming hole in a snow melt river where we founded the bare back club which would remain our tradition for the remainder of the trip. That night we camped up in a pass opposite another Sami camp on the shore of a lake from which glorious snow capped mountains could be viewed in every direction. This is where I started to feel scared. Fears that would latter prove mainly ungrounded pushed into my thoughts. Would we be going into those snowy passes, if these were not the highest mountains in the region what would our approach to the ceiling of Sweden be like? I don’t have boots adequate for hiking in snow. What are we getting ourselves into? I did not worry to much though as none of us was outfitted for spending much time in the snow including our trusty leader I figured we would somehow bypass the majority of the icy white stuff. On the third day of hiking we encountered a difficulty I had known was coming. Over the course of about three miles we had five shoes off stream crossings. We made it close to 13 kilometers that day our energy bolstered a bit by the meatballs we could look forward to for dinner purchased from the hut two kilometers from our campsite. After a leisurely breakfast the next morning we powered through the first five kilometers of our hike and decided to take a day trip from there up to see these two glaciers. Seven of us started out the journey with one of the group staying behind to guard our packs and rest his heel injury. We climbed up a valley following the path of the river which would lead us up to the glacier. About half way up we spotted our first herd of reindeer and frequently found antlers along the way. The climb up was a lot further then we had originally thought and many of us were not accustomed to our blisters yet so about a half hour after our lunch break four of us turned around. As we headed down we followed or chased very slowly the small herd of reindeer we had seen from earlier sometimes glimpsing them sillueted against the mountain surroundings and the sky. Given that we were exhausted and had no idea when the three others who continued on would return, we decided to ax our original plan to hike further and set up camp at the bottom of the valley on a small plateau above the banks of the glacial river we had been following. About two hours after we had set up camp the others arrived totally wiped. Apparently it was good that we had turned around as the glacier was another two kilometers up involving some climbing and walking over precarious snow bridges. What they said was they should have turned around and would not do it again given the chance but that it was amazingly beautiful and totally worth it. The next day it felt very strange to have my pack back on and I began the day with a bit of dread knowing that these would mark the highest point of the Kundsleden trail. After about six kilometers we reached the bottom of the hill. The first three hundred meters of climbing left me quite breathless and soon the ground was all mud and water making it difficult to keep my feet as dry and happy as I would have liked. About half a kilometer before the hut that would be our lunch spot we began encountering large patches of three foot deep snow. We stayed mostly dry by walking in the footsteps of others but as the day was quite warm and brutally sunny we often slipped through into the flowing water underneath. After a relaxed lunch with coffee and tea on board we continued up what would prove the most difficult but also fun leg of our journey. The next three hours of hiking would be almost 80 percent through snow. At the top of the pass we stopped for a rest to give our tired pruny feet a rest and look over what we had just accomplished. In hindsight we would have climbed up the ridge in the first place instead of coming up through the valley and thus avoided the majority of the snow. From the pass we headed down into the net valley which had far less snow due to its southern exposure but was still quite wet going. Out camp for the night was at the bottom of the valley and very exposed. This was the first night I remember being really cold. Our dinner that night was rice with soup but we were all so hungry that we had a second dinner of pasta and tomato sauce to keep us warm. I don’t think it has ever taken so long to boil water. Day six of our hike began very cold as we were in the shadow of a large hill (I dare say mountain). We walked the six kilometers to the supply hut where we had a scrumptious lunch of Swedish wheat crackers with cheese spread, jam, salami, and canned mandarin oranges. It was slow going from the hut on a full stomach with our feet still swollen a bit from the foot bath we had exposed them to the day before and I think for some of us the last ten kilometers were a bit of a death march. Close to the end of the hike we stopped at a beautiful swimming lake which left me feeling much more human then any bath I have ever taken before. That night we shared a massage exchange and spent time in the tent playing cards to escape the swarms of mosquitoes which harassed us constantly day and night. That night we left the fly of the tent open a bit and I awoke to the sound of sprinkling rain on nylon. After collecting the clothes we had washed and putting them under the vestibule I went back to bed dreading a bit what the morning would bring. It never really rained that night and in the morning the rain was still a bit off. We decided to pack up without having breakfast and so we walked the first six kilometers including a nasty cold uphill bit (can you feel the hunger talking here) before breaking down and cooking some porridge and coffee. Our choice of breakfast locale was by far one of the most beautiful places where I have had the opportunity to eat. We sat shivering on the shore of a half frozen lake wind and mist chapping our skin and couldn’t have been happier. After breakfast we started our decent into the valley that would take us to the Kebnekaise Fjällstation where we would spend the next days climbing and resting and where we would part ways with three of our companions. About two kilometers down the hill the rain finally hits us. The last nine kilometers were really some of the longest in my life. The damp cold and exertion made me nauseous and I had to stop and throw up a number of times on the way. At the station we pealed off our wet clothes and sat gratefully in the first heated room we had seen in a week. Dan and Todd wanted to eat dinner at the restaurant and offered to buy me dinner as well so that night four of us eat at the restaurant and the other four had some chili at the campsite. The next day would begin our ascent of Kebnekaise and the second half of our journey.

photos from Lappland

hey guys here are the photos from a 15 day trip in the swedish wilderness. I will tell you all about it when I have recovered more energy. Until then check this out:

photos from the Netherlands and out one day Cologne

here´s some more photobucket pics. Turns out Flickr has a 100MB per month limit so its back to this until July
so heres the photots mates

The Netherland´s and the Journey to Sweden

From the flight from London, we arrived in Amsterdam at about 9:30 and made our way directly to our hostel where we dropped off our luggage before going on a walking tour of the city. Our self-led tour led us to a small café on a quiet canal where we had a relaxing lunch. Our room was ready at 2:00 so after lunch we headed back to the hostel for a nap and shower before our big adventure to the red light district. After our nap we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the park near our hostel which is situated right in the middle of the museum district. Then we headed over to the Leidsplan for some Indian food. From the restaurant there was a really nice view of a cobblestone alley which was great for people watching and the waitress told us all about how to make what we were eating. YUM! From there we visited the Rembrantplan for a few beers and finally delved our way into the red-light district. It was like the Disneyland of prostitution. Women standing in lit up windows wearing nothing but bikinis, apparently they do have to wear that now with the conservative government you know, line the streets between sex clubs, greasy kebab stores, and coffee shops. For those of you who have visited this part of Amsterdam before it is probably a bit smaller then you remember. The recession seems to have hit the district hard. We walked the whole six by three block grid in a couple of hours enjoying the bath of neon and the oddness of it all. On the way home to the hostel we got a bit lost and ended up having to take a taxi to save our aching feet. The next day we had breakfast at the hostel and went out to explore some the nicer sides of the city before we had to catch our train to Vreizenween, a small town in the northeast of Holland where our next host lives. First we made a swing by the Van Gough museum but even ten minutes before they opened the line was horrendous so we compromised and went to the Rijks museum instead. Afterwards we went to the Waterloo market to check out the Dutch version of a flea market and I ended up buying a bike lock and bell for about five dollars. In the afternoon before our train Todd went to do the Heineken Experience and Dan and I headed back to the hostel so we could grab our stuff and meet him at central station. One thing Todd forgot to tell us was that his backpack was is luggage room number one not luggage room number two with all of all luggage so before we could leave we spent a good 15 min thinking that all of Todd’s had been stolen. Once we starting thinking logically we figured out what the problem was and finally got the hell out of the hostel’s crowded lobby. The train up to Vreisenween only took about two hours and our hostess Sabrina met us at the train station. She lives with her parents and younger sister so we got to know a bit about the whole family and are welcomed back anytime. It was a bit nice have a mom around for a bit. The first night we had spaghetti Bolognese and this tasty vanilla-chocolate pudding which comes separated in a milk carton. We slept in until noon the first day and generally spent the day lazing about as seems to be our first day routine everywhere we go. In the afternoon we walked around the little city close to them called Alemo, saw some shops and enjoyed a nice beer on the canal. That night we cooked dinner for the family. We had not made a very good plan and arrived at the store about 20 minutes before it closed so we ended up just having baked chicken breasts and a nice salad. Around 10:00 we headed out to meet some of Sabrina’s friends at the pub back in Alemo. Apparently asshole is something like the national card game of the Netherlands. When I suggested we play it sometime during the night I was genuinely laughed at and educated on the longstanding Dutch asshole tradition. The next day Sabrina and her sister drove us all the way to Cologne in Germany where we would have to wait until two in the morning to catch a bus to the apparently obscure airport out of which I had booked our flight. Note to self: when you fly with Ryan Air it is never convenient. So we spent the day walking around Cologne with Sabrina and sister in tow. We spent a lot of time exploring the famous Dom. Before meeting up with a big group of couch surfers who happened to be having a tapas dinner night to welcome someone home. The dinner was fun and I met a few people I would like to come back and visit. Afterwards we went down to the river in a huge group to kill some time and drink beer which seems to be a central social activity most places that we have been. We did that until about one in the morning when we headed over to the bus station to catch our airport line. The walk along the Rheine is really quite beautiful and the views of the Dom at night are amazing. It turns out Frankfurt (Hahn) airport is an old American military base that Ryan Air is leasing from us. When we got the entrance I thought maybe they were taking us to a concentration camp or something, not really but it was a bit creepy. After the terribly long night and three hour wait in the airport our flight was surprisingly nice. We got really lucky and sat in the emergency exit row so we all had mega amounts of leg room. Stockholm (Skanska) is just about as much a part of Stockholm as Hahn is a part of Frankfurt so following the flight we had another two hour bus ride to get into the city where-thank god- our friend Linn whom we have been staying with, met us at the bus station. As you can probably guess we spent our first day here in Stockholm sleeping off the exhaustion from our journey so we did not see much of the city or even Linn’s apartment until the next day. I will tell more about Stockholm and our adventures here when I have a bit more

lots of catch up

So catching up…Our last few days in Germany were spent in Anni's apartment and hanging about Esslingen, possibly one of the most adorable cities in the world, and Stuttgart, a short train ride away. Our first night we enjoyed getting to know her quirky roommates who will both be hopefully my long standing friends. The next day we walked about the city a bit checking out the old city where there is a really beautiful medieval church and market square which houses a really quaint used bookstore next to a open pavilion with a refreshing fountain. Perhaps you can tell by the number of adjectives in the last sentence that we really enjoyed the old city. Later that afternoon Todd and I went out and met Anni's roommates for a drink before having a small dinner party for which I cooked my now well established mango, garbanzo bean curry and followed that by going out and enjoying some wine in the park. The next day we lazed about because it was raining a bit, tried unsuccessfully to find a luggage store, and organized our bags. In the afternoon Anni`s cousin dropped by to spend the night. In the evening we went out to Stuttgart to have drinks with some of the people from the dinner party and another aupair friend of ours Max who happens to live in Stuttgart. Stuttgart is a beautiful city and I ended up enjoying myself so much that I had to walk the whole way to the train station barefoot crooked on Anni's arm for support. Word of the recently wizened: don't mix Sekt with Erdbeer liquor with white wine with Fig Vodka. No matter how good it tastes or what stomach of steel you think you have. Just say no. What would have been another late morning was destroyed by Todd's sudden early morning (f-ing 7:00 am) desire to cook breakfast for everyone. I’m not knocking it the breakfast was really quite tasty. After a very slow morning we toured more of Esslingen with Anni and her cousin Simon and even made it up to the one spot we had been meaning go to from the beginning. Above the city the hills are covered grapes for a few local vineyards and at the top of the hill runs the remaining side of the medieval city wall and fort tower fortifications. From there is an amazing view of the valley which extends for a few towns in each direction. After the long trek up the hill and a break to eat some ice-cream for, we headed over to the park to the roomies and say goodbye to Anni as she had to go to a birthday party back in Seedorf. Lacking much energy we slowly picked our way home to pack and recharge for a barbeque we had been invited to by some friends of Anni from school. Around 6:00 Vera, one of Anni´s friends from school who is really rad, came by to collect the five of us for the party. Michaela’s garden, where the BBQ was happening was nice a cool with a laden cherry tree and a stone BBQ. Michael, Vera, Todd and I walked over to the grocery store to pick up bread and things to be grilled and came back to freshly made salads and good company. Throughout the night the barbeque grew and grew until there were maybe 15 people when we headed off to Stuttgart around midnight. We spent most of the night sitting outside of the clubs as most of the places we went were packed and the ten of us all prefer different types of music. Ultimately we ended up going to three great clubs and heading home on the night bus at 4:15 in the morning. Needless to say we slept in a bit the next day and did not get up until around 1:00 in the afternoon. Daniel and I went out to get some lunch a bit later and as everything else was closed because of the bank holiday, we ended up at a small Italian restaurant. Around 4:30 we left Anni’s apartment and her roommate Marcus drove us to the airport. On the way we got stuck behind a four car accident and we were literally parked on the autobahn for about 30 minutes. The flight over to Stansted was uneventful following a ridiculous check-in process. After we had checked our bags I realized that I had forgotten my passport in my backpack and had to get my bag brought back out and then check it back in. After that I was really paranoid about them losing my bags but everything came out on the other end so everything worked out ok. After an hour and a half wait at the airport our friend Leigh picked us up and took us back to his house outside of Chelmsford which is as he describes it the beginning of the ass end of the middle of nowhere. His village literally consists of two or three houses and a pub which only serves food two days a week and is run by an 74 year old man. We did not get to his house until about midnight but Leigh’s mom and step-dad stayed up and had tea with us before we all crashed. The next day we had our typical late morning and spent some time watching Sleeping Beauty with Leigh’s mother’s god children. After that Leigh drove us over to a small fishing town called Molden where I got to have a Pukka-pie which is a pot pie that is pukka or tasty. In the evening we had a couple of pints at the pub next to his house and then had a tasty spaghetti dinner made by Leigh’s mom. After dinner Leigh’s stepfather taught us an interesting game called 3-5-7 that he learned from a Peruvian monk while he was stranded in the Andes for eight months. In the morning we met up with two of Leigh’s friends from neighboring villages and took the train into London for the day. Our first adventure in London was a visit to the British Museum followed by a walk over to Buckingham palace. It was the Queen’s birthday but we spent to much time at the museum and getting lunch and missed her arrival at the palace. After a nice walk through the park where we got a view of Big Ben and the Eye we went on a shopping mission in Camden Town followed by a nice hour and half relaxing in a pub close by. We got back to Chelmsford around 6:00 and went out to dinner with Leigh and Sarah at an Italian-American restaurant. Before going to sleep we had to pack as we had to leave the house at 4:00 in the morning to get to the airport in time for our flight. The drive from Leigh’s to the Gatwick airport led us through some really beautiful parts of the English countryside and we also got to see a beautiful sunrise. On the way to the airport we were all wishing that we could stay longer in England.

photos from England

the diatribe will soon follow but here are the photots from our 72 hour visit to the United Kingdom.

finally photos from Germany

click here for slideshow

sorrz for the delay..photos from Belfast...Gemany photos soon to come

I could not get the slidshow link to work so click here to see our Belfast photos

Germany so far..

On Tuesday morning Todd left us in Dublin at three in the morning to catch his 6:30 flight to Frankfurt. The story of his day there may be best left up to him. Daniel and I had a luxurious morning, slept in until about 9:30 and as I was feeling a bit under the weather made a slow departure for the city center. After getting everything organized we realized that the plan we had made with Todd to meet in Frankfurt was far to vague especially considering the first email we got from him was entitled help and said only HELP!. We have now come to a pack that we will make much more solid plans and avoid beer drinking before we make any big moves. Still in Dublin we did our best to reassure Todd via email and then left the situation to a prayer. After the lengthy bud ride back to the city center we found a Chinese buffet place to eat our 2:00 PM breakfast/lunch/dinner and whiled away the couple of hours before our airlink bus to the airport by stuffing ourselves. Our flight with Lufthansa from Dublin over to Frankfurt was really nice. I spent most of the time sleeping, woke up just in time to have a beer and prepare for the landing. This is where the chaos began. Our original plan was to take the train from Frankfurt to Stuttgart where we would meet Annika and drive to her home in Seedorf about an hour away. When I went to by train tickets from the Deutsche Bahn website however we discovered that the train tickets we 56 Euro per person. When I spoke with Anni on the phone she told us that she would pick us up in Frankfurt instead because it would be much cheaper. So we tried to email Todd with the changes in our plan but got no reply and had no way of checking once we got into Frankfurt. Dan and I spent an anxious hour and half in the airport waiting area devising options for what we would do if Todd did not appear before Anni. We decided that perhaps Todd had not gotten any of our messages and would be waiting for us still at the train station. So when Anni arrived with her 80 year old Opa in tow and found us Toddless we convinced her to let us try and find Todd at the Haupbahnhof. So it turns out that the main train station in Frankfurt has a section for each direction. To end your suspense here we found Todd within ten minutes of searching completely by chance as he was actually on his way to meet us at the airport but had gotten completely lost and was adopted by a helpful character who helped him get there in junction to the airport After that excitement we drove the three hours from Frankfurt to Seedorf accompanied sometimes by Todd’s snores and sometimes by folk songs from Anni’s Opa. The three of us are staying in Anni’s bedroom in the attic of her families country home which has a big queen size bed and two twin mattresses for us to fight over. We woke up around 11:30 on Wednesday to a fabulous breakfast on the balcony downstairs looking out over glowing green fields and farm houses. Anni really went all out with a big basket of local breads, homemade jam, meats, cheeses, and scrambled eggs. She has really been the kindest friend and best host ever. After a relaxed breakfast we all headed off to on a tour of the Schwartzwald which took us first to the Schwartzwaelder Freilicht Museum, a historic house and lifestyle museum which taught us all about how people used to live over the last 400 years. After the museum we drove to the highest waterfall in Germany which is in a small town called Friberg. On our way back from Friburg we stopped at the family home of Anni’s father where here Aunt, Uncle, Cousins, and Opa still live. It is a huge farm with two large houses, . They raise pigs and dairy cows and while we were visiting with her Opa we all got to try Schwartzwurst, blood sausage, made from a pig that he had raised. When we got home Anni threw a BBQ for us with a bunch of her friends and cousins. It was a really nice time and we got try even more of the local specialties. Later in the night we had a bonfire in their backyard and did not get to bed until later again. We spent Thursday relaxing, doing laundry and also went on a shopping journey to find Topo maps for Todd’s GPS which ended up being to expensive and to find a new charger for Dan’s laptop which we could not find. The trip was successful though as both Dan and Todd found some nice shoes. For dinner we made our own pizzas from scratch. It took us a lot longer to make the pizzas and we did not finish until 11:30. On Friday we climbed the highest mountain in the Black Forest- Feldberg- with Anni and her sister Louise. It was a really beautiful day but we all got a bit sunburned. After the hike we swam in the Titisee and made an exhausted trip back home. After hot showers we felt much better and we all along with Anni’s sisters Michaela and Louisa, went out to the best local German restaurant in town. Dan got to try his first schnitzel (read: not in anyway a sausage) and I got to have Jaeger schnitzel which had a nice mushroom sauce. Dinner was so filling that we had to come home and have schnapps afterwards with a few of Anni’s girlfriends who had come over while we were out. Around 11:45 we headed out to a party thrown by the local youth club which is about a five minute walk from Anni’s house. The party was held in the smallish clubhouse which was filled with loud music and all the youth from the surrounding villages. We were somewhat of celebrities because of our foreignness and specifically because we are from California. All night people wanted to buy us cocktails and the whole club was very drunk. Around 1:00 is started to rain and the three of us went out to enjoy the first rain we had felt in months. It was really fun getting to practice my German with so many locals. The whole visit here has been really beneficial for my language skills. Saturday we woke up very late and after a small breakfast headed out to visit Burg Hollenzollern, the ancestral castle of one of Germany’s royal families. From the parking lot it was a fifteen minute walk up to the castle and about five minutes into our journey a drenching rain starting to pour which made the visit very cold and a bit unpleasant but we enjoyed it none the less. We had made plans to go shopping in Tubingen but as we were soaking wet we decided to come home and make soup instead. While Todd was making the soup, I learned how to make Dampfknoedeln which is a yeast dough dumpling dessert served with vanilla sauce from Anni’s mom. Today we spent the morning watching movies and then packed our things and headed bz train to Esslingen where Anni goes to school. We are staying here until Thursday then flying to London. I will write more when I have more energy.

first batch of photos from Belfast

Belfast City Slideshow

first batch of photos

First night in Dublin and the North

Our arrival in Dublin was not surprisingly smooth. The airport there is being remodeled however and it took us about 45 minutes to get through passport control. Ironically the seven counters serves EU citizens were had no wait time. Our advice to Dublin is that they should organize the arrivals so there is a better balance between international and EU domestic flights in order to optimize the queue waiting time for passport checks. We took the airlink bus from the airport to Temple Bar near city center to meet our host Martha. We called her from a payphone near by and she met us at the bus stop. During the 15 minute walk from there to her flat on Exchange street I had a very familiar sounding epiphany that I would never travel with so much stuff ever again. I tried hard to comfort myself with the fact that I will be abroad for more then a year but mz hands, raw from the webbing handle of my duffle bag, and aching shoulders tell me that this excuse can give me little fortitude. Having slept minimally the night before the flight and only for a few uncomfortable hours on the plane, the three of us were exhausted. We dropped our bags off at Martha’s, took showers and headed out with plans to find some grub, which we did at a place called gruel, tour a bit of the city, and meet up with Martha upon her return from work around seven. Half way through our amazingly tasty gruel, half pork sandwhiches with stuffing and apple sauce and half bowls of asperagus potato leek soup all of were fading pretty fast so we decided to go and nap in the garden of Dublin Castle. Following a short nap there we went back to Martha’s house and waited for someothe ne to come in or out as we had no key to the ourside door but had two to open her the door the aparmtnent. The naps were somewhat satisfying but we were a bit drained the whole evening. Daniel and I went out to the grocery store and found a huge chicken pot pie for 2.99 euro so we had that and a salas for dinner. That night we went out to a really nice beer hall and then to a bar called the Porter House which had live music and was right around the corner from Martha's house. Temple bar is a really wild area at night. In the morning we were supposed to meet some Portuguese couchsurfers to tour the Guiness house but when we got to the bus station we decided it was to expensive to store our luggage so we decided to take an earlier bus up to Belfast. While we were waiting for the bus Todd and I walked around the nieghborhood to get some breakfast and Dan watched our bags for us. The ride up to Belfast was absolutly beautiful. So far on this trip we have had really amazing weather and thee view of the countryside was really nice. Celine, one of our hosts in Belfast picked us up from the bus station and took us back to her flat. While we were waiting for her boyfriend to get off work we walked around their neighborhood which is in an up and coming part of the city near the docks but only a ten minute walk to the city center. We toured around the old custom house and the Victoria square shopping area before we met Marty and headed back to their flat for some tasty take-away indian food. We were really tired still and spent the night watching movies and chatting with our hosts. This morning we got up around eleven and went over to St. Georges market, which is a farmers and craft market that happens every Saturday. At the market we met some of the other active couchsurfering hosts from Belfast and their guests who ended up touring the city with us. Our hosts were amazing tour guides and took us all over the city. One of my favorite places we went to was Queens University which is where my favorite poet, Seamus Heaney, was educated. The botanical gardens near the university were very beautiful and we really enjoyed sitting in the sun and getting to know the other surfers. After our six hour tour of the city we went over to a surfer Tobias's flat for dinner and a bit of a party which happened to be in a very shifty neighborhood. His apartment was right across the street from a protestant paramilitary bar and there were a bunch of rowdy guys sitting outside. Evidence of the troubles is still very visible here but the city feels very safe and many neighborhoods are being regenerated. Tomorrow Celine and Marty are taking us on a trip up the coast to visit many iconic spots including the Carrick-a Rede Rope Bridge and the Giant's Causeway. So far everyone here has been really friendly and lovely.

the plan

For all of you family and friends who are curious about my journey this summer here is a somewhat complete itinerary so you can see where I am and where I will be along the journey. I will keep updating it with more information as plans fall into place so check back periodically for the juicy tidbits.

itinerary