Considering Cannes can be one of the most frantic cities, playing host to the prestigious film festival, I was surprised to see how subdued it was. We tracked down an internet café for Annelise, because ATMs are sketch and she needed to make sure it didn’t screw her over. I bought a big ol’ bottle of peach nectar before we walked over to the sandy beaches and relaxed for a few hours. It was an interesting few hours, with anything from topless old women to creepy suitors to juvenile urinators pulling their pants down kindergarten style and relieving themselves right on [View Full Entry]

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The trip to the French Riviera was my first Shannon/Annaless trip, but I was in good company with Adham and Annelise. It all came together in one night. And it was the least stressful one I’d organized. This trip came at a critical time for me. I was in a rut; I hadn’t seen the sun in two weeks and language classes, my purpose for being there, had concluded among other things. I had a bad case of cabin fever. Our trek to Nice took us along the southern border of France, running parallel to the foothills of the Pyrénées. Not [View Full Entry]

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Well, it’s now easy for me to choose what my least favorite place in France is: Bayonne. I’m quite surprised, too. Although my history teacher is from Bayonne, he’s rarely wrong about anything. I mean, it’s even in Basque country. However, that’s about all it has going for it. The voyage there even foreshadowed the day ahead. Shannon and I took a bus there, but it broke down a few miles outside of Pau. The door stopped working. The only way it would shut is if someone tripped the switch from the outside, and well, no one wanted to be the [View Full Entry]

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it's 1962 March 28th I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train night is falling I never knew I liked night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain I don't like comparing nightfall to a tired bird I didn't know I loved the earth can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it I've never worked the earth it must be my only Platonic love and here I've loved rivers all this time whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills European hills crowned with chateaus or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye [View Full Entry]

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My time in Dublin was short and sweet. Once again, the weather was supposed to be miserable, but we were greeted with a beautiful, clear, cold, crisp winter day. After an hour-long bus ride from the airport, we were dropped off at the center of town. And our hostel was just around the corner. We dropped off our stuff at Marlborough hostel and headed to Dunnes, a grocery store. It blew my mind. Here were a whole slew of new foods with ingredients labels that I only had to skim to read. Still, I was probably in there more than I [View Full Entry]

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Sleep deprivation finally caught up with me at the end of our time at Krakow. I caught a nasty bug which really knocked me out of commission, so we made frequent stops to the pharmacy to pump me full of drugs to keep me chugging along. Which was an interesting experience in and of itself. Pharmacies in Europe are a critical part of healthcare, so it’s not uncommon to find one on almost every block. The FDA would freak the eff out to see the volume and potency of over the counter pharmaceuticals here. To maximize our time in Prague, we [View Full Entry]

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I could spew off endless statistics, but what hasn’t been written about this monstrosity already? The numbers are too immense for me to wrap my brain around. But words are forgotten, feelings are not. That’s why I skip out on tours. Now, more than ever, I had to experience this alone. And this is why I tell you my story of Auschwitz. It was an appropriately cold, damp and dreary day. We located a van at the train station on its way to Auschwitz. It was an hour long ride from Krakow through rural Poland to the camp, exactly as I [View Full Entry]

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After a close call with missing the train out of Pau, our train stopped unexplainably about two hours into our trip, not even at a station. We sat there for a good twenty minutes until we started up again. From then on, we traveled at light speed and made it to Paris still on time. Anna and I spent our trip speaking in five different languages (Czech, Polish, English, Italian and French). I still don’t think anyone thought twice that we were Americans, though. One double-extra-large gentleman sitting across the aisle was so offended by us that he would slam his [View Full Entry]

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The trip to San Sebastian didn’t start off ideally. The safe containing the money for the trip was stolen from the international student office, so we were asked to pay for our entry into the aquarium, which initially was included in out signup fee. I could understand, but at the same time I felt it was a little tacky. The bus ride over was a lovely trip through the French countryside, back into Basque country. We did pause briefly at a truck stop, which of course had fresh baguettes as well as Turkish pit-style toilets. There weren’t any elaborate welcome signs [View Full Entry]

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I enjoyed a day traveling to three different cities around Basque country. Basque country includes northern Spain and southwestern France. However, the three cities I visited were all in France. The Basque are a mysterious people. They are thought to be the first people in Europe (over 40000 years old), and not much else is known about them. They have a pretty interesting mythology, though. The Basque have their own language which is completely different from French or Spanish. Actually, it’s completely independent from any other language. However, it sounds Russian. There are six [View Full Entry]

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