Recap of the last few days

Because of the room in Barcelona not having internet, my computer being out of battery and no internet on the train, I haven’t been able to post in a little while so I’ll do my best to pick up where I left off.

The last set of pictures, beginning at the bottom, shows a park in Barcelona which I visited on the day when i saw Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf. There was some cool modern art and a really great fountain that i think was part of either the zoo or the aquarium, or both.

Walking back I snapped a lot of photos of street performers, and got pretty lost but ended up seing a lot of Barcelona I ever would have seen. After the pictures of the soccer game, all the rest are from a bus tour I went on. The first couple blurry ones are of a building designed by Antoni Gaudi, the same architect who designed the Sagrada Familia, the big church there are pictures of. The church has been under construction for over a hundred years, and is expected to be so for about 40 more. The entire project is funded by anonymous donations, as well as the admission fees to enter, which I did not. I went on the tour myself and after the church, which was Gaudi’s most famous project, I went to Parc Guell, another of Gaudi’s masterpeices in the city. The park design was headed up by Gaudi but was worked on by 15 other architects at the time. It was originally supposed to be a high scale living are for the wealthiest Barcelonans, but it didn’t pan outand only Gaudi and a few others ended up living there. Since Gaudi’s death, the park was turned over to the city, and his house has become a museum. Anyway, the park is awesome and I bsically had to race through it because it was cold, rainy, and since I was on the tour I wanted to make sure I still had time to see anything else on the tour that caught my eye later.

There are a couple pictures on the alst post from the bus, a few of a monastery, the royal palace, and some cool building with a ton of vegetation hanging around it. That was our last night in Barcelona, and the folowing morning we packed up but had to sit around in Starbucks all day because we had nowhere to keep our bags until 230 when the office that ran our apartment opened. Our train left at 730 and we slept easy last night thanks to some help from the refreshments we brought on the train and later bought at the bar.

The train ride wasn’t so bad, even after getting a rude awakening by some Italian police officers at 6 am demanding passports. Seeing the Italian countryside was a bit cooler than the one in Spain, basically just because it wasnt dark the whole time. We saw some pretty sweet mountains, some hills, rivers, small villages and all kinds of cool stuff but infortunately my camera was outta battery and i couldnt capture any of it.

After a quick change over in Milan, and a 3 hour train from there, arrived in Rome whre they charge .80 euro to go to the bathroom. Taking a cab to our place we found it quite difficult to reach the owner of our apartment. We ended up talking to him because a neighbor was spying on us, called some other dude who had our owners number. He reached our owner and got him over, all after about half an hour or so, but once getting in our apartment we were more than satisfied. 2 showers, 2 toilets a kitchen and beds are more than enough for us four and we all made pasta for dinner (That is after i had downed 2 big slices of pizza from a store around the corner). Tonight we’ll probably roam the town and see whatever we run into, but no real big plans. Ill put some pictures up tomorrow of what ever we see.

I’ve been slacking on the pictures

Here are the rest of the pictures i haven’t posted. All are from Barcelona.

I’ve also got some terminology I’d like to explain to the grandparents.

‘Chill’ – cool, relaxing and/or soothing. Something that eases/does not cause stress.

‘Chattin up a bangin Parisian chick’ – I was talking to an attractive girl from Paris

Î cân pùt àccêñts òn lèttèrs wîth à spànìsh kéybóard

This post should have been put up yesterday, but there was a wardrobe malfunction

Yesterday was great. While everyone else was working on internship applications, and toying around in internet cafes on facebook and such, I did some professional walking and saw a lot of really exceptional stuff. If you start from 1200 AM when we walked into the club, to 1200 PM yesterday, it may have been the best 24 hour span ever.

After leaving Starbucks after yesterday’s post, i knew I had to take some good pictures due to the lack of those in Barcelona this far. I snapped a lot of street performers and of the market I’ve written about before, and then did some walking and ended up at Barcelona’s arc de triomf, then headed down a couple blocks to a garden with some really cool fountains and sculptures, which I have taken pictures of. Barcelona’s arc is not near as big as Paris’ but it was very cool regardless, and the area around it was very unique

After walking for some time, and know we had the Barcelona match to see later that night, we met up back at the apartment and left together. Along the way we stoppped and got some  official gear for the game, complete with jersey and scarf. The game itself was great, even though they only sold non-alcoholic beers. The guy infront of us was a real character, he was from the UK and was just heckling this girl infront of us, calling “hey girlfriend….” even though her actual boyfriend was sitting to her left.  After a 0-0 first half, Barcelona poured it on in the second, starting with an own goal by Sevilla, the one by the substitute Pedro, then two by world player of the year Lionel Messi.  You can check out the highlights here

On our way back from the game, we looked for the NFL games on TV but didn’t find anything worth sticking around for. The only game we saw was New Orleans smashing of Arizona, and we just caught the end.

Today were going to the Picasso Museum and Possibly la Segrada familia, a famous church

Its 58 and sunny, no big deal

In our first full and well rested day in Barcelona, we made no reservations. It truly was a wild and crazy day full of different experiences. I’ll pick up where I left off, yesterday, just after I left Starbucks.

After taking my compututer back to the room, we all decided to take a couple hours to ourselves, explore the city and see stuff that later we can all go back to and check out. Unfortunately, my camera died minutes after i finished the post so I have no pictures of yesterday, but I promise to get some good ones today. For that alone time, I walked up and down Las Ramblas, and through many of the city’s major streets. What is cool about Barcelona is the closer you get to the water, the more side streets and alleys there are, meaning in our area there are almost no blocks, just apartments/shops/homes crammed into oddly shaped areas. If you look up a map of the city you’ll see what I mean.

I visted a monster open market, complete with skinned rabbit, which Chip cleverly convinced me was dog for about half an hour. The market is truly impressive, and I’l get some pictures up tomorrow. After walking around for a few hours, we al met up again and walked together down toward the university, and ended up lost. It was a cool area though, lots of skateboarding and bars. Finding our way back to the flat, we decided to take the word of a couple DPU friends and go out to the Opium Club. There is no opium at the Opium club, its just a name, and the club is just a nightclub like you would find in any other city, but on steroids.  After pre-gaming at the apartment, we took a cab to the place to find it near empty at midnight, but decided it was to our advantage because they would probably let us in. The 15 euro cover wasnt bad, considering there were 6 bars, and open air area, included a free drink and it was on the Mediterrainean beaches. Around 1230 the club started happening and it really got packed. The place was pretty wild and when the party started to die down around 430, we decided to saty another half hour and left at 5.

Today, feeling beter after my first warm shower in a couple days and an AriZona green tea, we plan to see the Picasso museum, which I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I might take a bike tour around the city, and tonight were going to a FC Barcelona soccer match. For those of who who are unaware, FC Barcelona is considered by many to be the best team in the world, they are currently undefeated and #1 in the spanish league. They play the #5 team tonight, Sevilla and if they lose they also fall to #2 in the standings, so it is a very important game, and will be a blast.  Ill have pictures tomorrow

I really like Paris, I hope you like pictures

Counting down day four in Paris, I can hear the words of my dad resonate in the back of my head. “Your brother and I wished we had more time in Paris”. Today was another solitary day for myself, getting up early, 8:30, and heading off to Louis XIV’s Chateau Versailles. Even after being there once before, I didn’t remember too much about the place and knew I hadn’t visited the gardens yet so I thought the trip would be worthwhile. I couldn’t have been more correct. First off, I was able to use some of my pre-purchased metro passes in to use some of the non-metro trains (Paris has two train systems, the metro and the RER. The metro operates within the city, while the RER is used to get to places a short distance outside, like Versailles or Disneyland Paris). After looking up my metro/RER routes last night, the trip was easier than expected, and I really had no problems getting to the Chateau, and it wasn’t even as far away as the website advertised. The walk to the palace was really cool, getting closer and closer to the golden gates and statue guarding the estate. I was also pleasantly surprised when I was granted free entry, for reasons I still don’t know or understand. Along with my free entry, I got a free audio tour and free access to the gardens, so I was on fire. Maybe it was because I looked exceptionally good today, or maybe it’s because I look exceptionally good every day for that matter, but Versailles treated me like I owned the place.

Once getting in and beginning the audio tour, I was basically in awe the entire time due to the fact that people actually lived there, and the ridiculousness of the place. The chapel, hall of mirrors and basically every other room had something that just made you go wow. If you take notice at the pictures I upload, I tried today to get pictures of the signs, telling you what you’re looking at, then the pictures relating to the sign. I’ve been working on getting captions and descriptions on pictures but have had no luck so far. But back to the palace, after walking through the inside and thoroughly enjoying the experience, I went out to the garden to see some stuff I hadn’t seen yet. The gardens, even in winter, were pretty spectacular, the only negative was that when I asked a lady to take a picture of me, she actually had the nerve to say no. I was genuinely insulted, and a little angry. There was no way I was going to walk through the entire gardens, maybe in warmer weather, but I did take some good time there and really liked it. When looking through the pictues, many of the rooms are named after Greek or roman god/godesses, and that is because of the painting on the ceiling. Which ever god/godess is depicted, the room is named accordingly.

Heading back to Paris, I met some bangin Parisian chick because she needed help with her metro ticket, and I guess I looked like I would know what to do, when in reality I had the same problem. Neither of our tickets worked, despite never being used, so like a true gentleman I let her figure it out, then hopped the turnstile and chatted her up. Eventually we went our separate ways, but I could see in her eyes she was heartbroken, and crying on the inside.

Meeting up with the rest of the guys near the Eiffel, we decided to spend the remainder of our afternoon at the armory museum and Napoleon’s tomb. However, this didn’t quite go as planned. When we got the museum, Garrett and Kyle opted out due to the 9,50 euro price tag, and after Chip failed to convince the ticket booth person he was from the UK in order to secure a discount (Who knew a DePauw ID wasn’t proof of birth date or residence?), it was only me who would go into the museum. Despite the semi-steep entry fee, the museum itself was pretty cool. There was a lot of military history in there, from Napoleon’s conquests, to the armor and weapons used when the French helped in the Revolutionary War. It was interesting, but in order to preserve the stuff that was being displayed, the lights had to be pretty dim, so some of the pictures might not turn out well. There was also a chapel inside that was very neat, and I t had a series of paintings around the outside of the sanctuary that chronicled the final events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, and I took a picture of them in order so you could see that too.

After seeing all the military goodies I could handle, I headed around to a different section of the museum to see Napoleon’s tomb, which, for just housing his ashes, was monstrous. The building which housed his tomb held some other interesting people as well. His son, his son’s wife’s heart, some generals Napoleon especially liked and a couple others I can’t remember were there as well. It was definitely worth seeing, lots of the tombs were really ornate and had some really cool marble coffins with gold gilding and other designs. By this time the guys had gone home, and walking back to the metro station I had a pretty memorable encounter.

Crossing a bridge over the Seine, a guy named Jimmy (who knows if that’s his real name) stopped me saying “Your hair is beautiful! Will you let me draw you?” Figuring this guy was looking for a quick buck, I said no and kept going, but he was persistent, and really wanted to draw my hair. So after asking 3 times if this was going to be free, and getting three yeses, I let him do it. It was pretty embarrassing because there were a lot of people crossing that bridge and nothing screams idiot more than being sucked into this kind of stuff, but the guys was pretty funny and it was free right? While he was drawing, there was another street vendor, who walked over, and jokingly I asked the other guy if the drawing was any good, I couldn’t see it, Jimmy was busy at work, and the vendor shook his head no. Seeing this, ol Jimmy quickly piped up, “Oh don’t listen to him, he doesn’t know English, I’m making you look very handsome, you are very handsome, I love your hair” So finally this guy finishes up and hands me the drawing and its terrible but I saw thank you and start to leave but he isn’t done. Obviously he wants money, so besides being a terrible artist, he’s a liar and a cheat. He says to me, “My typical price is 70 euro (which is garbage too), but for you, you can give me whatever you like” to which I respond, “I’m not giving you anything”. Jimmy lost it. He saying stuff like, “I need money for coffee, 3 euro, 2 euro”  So if Jimmy’s gonna raise his voice so am I, I’m not going to be the loser here, so I tell Jimmy, “Take the picture, I never wanted it, you begged me to let you draw me, I said no, you begged me more, so I conceded, you lied to me when you said it was free, you made me look like an idiot in the picture, and I’m gonna throw it off the bridge if you don’t leave me alone.” Jimmy took the picture and left me alone.

Paris, Barcelona and Rome…OH MY!

Below are some details on the places were staying in each city. The links contain maps, pictures, reviews and any detail you could ask for in regards to our temporary homes in the coming weeks.

Barcelona: http://www.only-apartments.com/EN/barcelona/1629/

Paris: http://www.only-apartments.com/en/paris/5317/

Rome: http://www.only-apartments.com/en/rome/1826/

Amsterdam: http://www.shelter.nl/

Hello world!

Welcome to what will hopefully become the daily blog for this coming January’s winter term independent study in Europe! This blog will focus solely on the wacky and wild adventures of Dave, Kyle, Chip and Garrett. I, (Dave) will be the main contributor to this site, however I hope to include writing from all of us detailing our trip. For those of you new to the experience, Let me briefly outline our trip.

Beginning January 4th, we will depart the States for Amsterdam, where we will spend the remainder of the 5th, on to the 6th, 7th and 8th, when we will take an afternoon train into Paris. Here we will spend the nights from the 8th-12th, until leaving the French capital for Barcelona, an overnight train ride lasting a little longer than 12 hours. Upon arriving in Barcelona on the 14th, we will stay there through the 19th, leaving the 20th on another devastatingly, but possibly enjoyable, overnight train. This time we’ll be stuck in there for nearly 19 hours! Hopefully, while not sleeping, we will be able to take in the country side as we journey along the Mediterrainian into Milan, then south to Rome. This ride should provide a nice chance to rest and reflect on the experiences so far, we’ll more than likely need it! In Rome it gets a bit complicated. We arrive on the 21st, and have an apartment booked through the 25th. While I stay for a whole six days before leaving the continent, the rest of the gang will head out on the 24th, back north to Amsterdam, but not without making a quick changeover in Paris, a final goodbye to city we hope to make many lasting memories in, for better or worse. The three amigos will finally arrive back in Amsterdam the 25th, staying with Chip’s buddy that night, then fly back home. Thats quite the travel hours packed into a few days.

My purpose, and vision, in creating this web page is that those of you unlucky enough not to accompany us, though some of you might consider yourselves fortunate, can follow along with our daily interactions, experiences, and adventures. On this site, I’ll post pictures, video and of course, more text keeping our well wishers informed and conscious of our whereabouts. It will also allow you guys to leave comments on anything I’ve posted, free to say whatever you’d like.

The content of this blog will be mainly what I have previously described, but remember, between all the fun and games we have work to do, it is an independant study after all. Chip, Kyle and Garrett have chosen to look at the everyday citizen and their views on religion as opposed to the average American. This could include lots of things from interviews to observations to research through books and web pages that I hope to post on this page so you can learn too. As for myself, I’ve opted to slant my research away from the group, instead looking at the growth of the Christian church throughout Europe, from ancient Rome to present day. I would like to look at how external factors (i.e. other religions, geography etc…) have played a role in the formation of today’s Church. My research too will be posted from time to time allowing the fans at home to become educated on the topic, just as I am.

If I haven’t bored you to death already, great! Even if that is the case, I would like to cordially invite you to the site, free to explore, share and contact all of us withing this single blog. It going to be a lot of fun for the four ofus, and maybe you too, sifting through the memories we have posted in a effort to include you in what could turn out to be the time of our lives. Somebody warn the Euros.