Homeward Bound

Due to some stuff at home I am leaving Europe. It has been great but with all that stuff on my mind it was kind of clouding the experience... Europe will stay here.

So today I took a train ride from Budapest to Dresden. It was 550am to 245pm. Now I had the bright idea that since it was Thursday I should still go out. And I did. And since I went out... why go to sleep? It actually worked out well. I got back at like 4am which gave me enough time to pack, make sure everything was in place, and get to the train station and figure out what was up. When I got to Dresden I headed straight for Jeff's apartment. Now he is in Heidelberg so I thought I would be camping in the hallway til 11pm for his roomate to get home. But both Jeff and Rene were awesome and talked to the building manager so he let me in to Jeff's room.

Now, Saturday morning I have plans to catch a train to Berlin around 7am so I can arrive around 1030am. But it is already 215am. I think I am going to stay up and take the 5am. That will give me an extra two hours to get from the Berlin Hauptbahnof to the Berlin-Tegel Airport. Cause I have a flight to Heathrow at 445pm. I need to box my bike so I want to get there early so I can get all my shit packed in case they do not have the box for me to buy.

Once I get to Heathrow I get to spend 2 whole nights in the terminal waiting to fly back to Dulles... Monday night 530pm to 850pm. (7 hour flight, flying back in time zones though). So yeah, I am going to be that bum who shaves in the airport terminal and lives there for 2 days. Unless I can somehow get bumped up which would be amazinggggggggg!

Wish me luck.

See you all soon.

Thanks to everyone in Europe who has been amazing.


Love
Frank

Leaving for Budapest tomorrow

So tomorrow I leave for Budapest. A nice long 12 hour train ride.

Krakow
Krakow has been an amazing city. I think I like it more than Prague. It rivals it in beauty and gains points in the fact that there are less tourists. The first night I was here I met some people from the states, Australia, and Canada and headed out for some drinks. We met two local Polish guys in the bar and they told us they were going to take us out for a good time. They took us to one of the underground bars/dance clubs. What is interesting is that in Krakow, and other cities in Poland, during WWII whole underground networks were built for the resistance. These places were used as places of planning and discussion and what not. The layouts are neat in that the walls are completely rock and you get the feel that you ARE in a top secret bar. So that was really cool. Then we headed out to get some Doners. Not as good as in Germany, but cheaper. Yeah, Krakow is also a lot cheaper than all of the other places I have been. We called it a night after taking shots to the Aussies 24th birthday. The next day I spent all day touristing. I checked out all the monuments and Krakow castle. They were extraordinary. When I was walking through Old Town Square I saw two guys sitting down drinking with maps next to their touring bikes. I stopped and asked what they were up to and about their tour. I wound up sitting with them for an hour and a half drinking beer and talking about their crazy biking experiences. The older gentleman has biked in 45 countries throughout Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and Asia. He gave me some suggestions for places to see, about teaching abroad programs, and even bought my beers. It was a good talk. I got back to the hostel and a bunch of us decided to go out to the Jewish Quarters and get food. We wound up getting some typical Polish meal and Polish beer. It was a semi-nice restaurant and surprisingly my portion of the bill including beer was only 20 zloty (about $7.25). A guy got a beer with red syrup/juice in it so I asked him what it was. He only spoke Polish but was very eager to communicate so started yelling across the restaurant to get his girlfriend to come over. She told me it was in fact a juice and grenadine with the Lech beer. The point here is how helpful people are - and thats a theme. Next we decided to bar hop. We started out at a bar with cool music icons and lyrics over the wall. This inspired the ladies to want to find karaoke. They stopped and asked a man in the bar if he knew where one was. He, also, only spoke Polish. But eagerly he ran around asking people in Polish. Even though he was unsuccessful, again someone went out of their way to help. We went to a Hoola bar. We ordered a bucket of vodka and fruit juices (orange, pineapple, grenadine). It was delicious and the bar was chill. The DJ let one of the girls in our group choose all the music so it was fun. There was also a stag party there so they were goin kind of crazy and the bachelor was dancing provocatively. Hah! Again we decided to bar hop and found our next destination at some Spanish bar. They played a lot of spanish music obviously and included the bartender dancing on the bar. He was quite humorous. There was also an old man who was really fond of one of the girls in the group. Also very humorous. We left again and at this point the group split. Two went home and me and one of the girls kept going. It was only 2 am! So we found a club and danced and drank more and eventually got home. The walk wasn't bad and the club was fun. Went to bed around 3 or 330 cause we had big plans for the next day.

"Work Will Set You Free"
Or "Work Brings Freedom" or "Work Liberates" or whatever ironic statement they wanted to choose. We took a tour of Auschwitz, today. It had to be one of the most appalling shocking things I have ever seen. We read about it in school. We hear about it a lot. But to see the grand scale of the operation is amazing. You really do not grasp how large it is until you go there. And the conditions. Just wow. This day really made me question humanity. I have thought of it before... but to run an operation like this how did people not know? And how do so many people get convinced to treat people like animals? Killing and genocide is one thing. Killing and genocide and systematic torture is another. You can see the ruins from when the Nazis were evacuating. The stables (they lived in wooden horse stables essentially) all burned down and what was left remainaing were the brick fireplaces. So a large percentage burned down but when you look out into the camp (as far as the eyes can see) you just see a bunch of chimneys. We walked through the gas chambers and crematoriums and its just hard to imagine what was going through either parties minds. Another thing that surprised me was how bad the Polish citizens were treated. Krakow got lucky because it was treated as a vacation spot for the Nazis in Auschwitz... but Warsaw got leveled. Polish people were also systematically dehumanized. If ever in the vicinity of Central Europe I suggest going.

Moving Away from that Depressing Bit....
I leave for Budapest tomorrow. Its a 12 hour overnight train. I read in a travel tip book much like frommers that they highly discourage night trains from Krakow or Warsaw to Prague or Budapest. Why? Oh because of the gangs of theives who come on the trains with sleeping gas cannisters to mug you OF COURSE! Well, wish me luck. If I don't get sleep cannistered hopefully I will at least get a gay Italian man with a moustaches to accost me like in EuroTrip. Hah!

Peaceeeeeeeeee!
Frank

To Krakow, Poland

Tomorrow I leave all normalcy. But I am getting ahead of myself!

Happy July 4th
We just wound up drinking a lot. We boiled hot dogs, ate nacho tortilla chips, and watched youtube videos of the star spangled banner, America the beautiful, and Team America World Police. It was amazingly American. We then headed out to an Indy club. It was called Katy's Garage. They had good music (played Muse, Forward Russia!, Nirvana, etc). We made a German friend named Patrick and got his information. We played foosball a lot and lost a lot. All in all good times, as we got kicked out at bar closing... at 4am. Everyone wanted Doners and they got them, we walked home and eventually got to bed around 5am. Alex had to leave early... sucks.

I dont feel like updating
I leave Dresden tomorrow for Krakow, Poland. I guess that fulfills my obligation to let people know where I am in case of accidental death. I changed my mind from Prague cause I have already been there. So we will see how this goes. I might let you all know.


Peace. Hope you are all having a great summer, by the way.

Dresden and Praha

We last left off with our main characters arriving in Dresden and getting escorted to the International Guest House.

First Night in Dresden
Jeff decided that it would be a good idea for us to all try Heroine. Sort of. It is like heroine... but it is called "Doner." Now as I found out German's don't really have much of a special delicacy. Enter the Turks. Now there are Doner shops everywhere. It is kind of like a gyro, but much better. It's hard to explain the amazingness... I suggest you wikipedia it to get a better idea. Jeff and Jess took us to Neustadt for this German specialty, which is like the young person hip part of town. There were a punch of punks throwing beer over each other singing happy birthday in english (because english is hip) in the middle of the street. It was a funny sight. The night commenced with us sitting on the Elbe looking across at Alstadt (I think) drinking some "good" German beer. It's alright. But the view was pretty!

Arrival of Alex
Jeff's brother Alex came to hang out with us. Before his arrival me, Greg, and Jeff took a 20 mile bike ride to Pirna to get a Doner. And then came immediately back. We met up with Alex. This called for Chinese food. Jeff doesn't know of any places.... We got Indian. We also made plans to meet up with Emily. So me, Jeff, Alex, Greg, and Jess departed on our 45 minute walk to the Indian place in Neustadt. We met up with Emily. I got chicken biryani which was delicious. Dinner was fun because as Americans we laugh hearty and enjoy ourselves. A quick look around the room reminded us we were in Germany... everyone was quiet and serious... boring. After Indian we all went back home and crashed.

The Weekdays Mean Jeff Works
Our first Monday. Me, Greg, and Alex slept til like noon. There is something awesome about going to another country and just doing what you would have done at home. Change of scenery, ya know. Jeff came back and took us to the Mensa, where we would meet his Canadian (read: American) friend Terry. The mensa is interesting... its a cheap cafeteria where you get 5 preset options to choose from along with a few a la carte items. BUT part of the payment process involves the language barrier showdown. The language barrier showdown is when one person who is entitled to the discount brings 3 friends to also get the discount. These four people only speak english and the cash register person only speaks German. You cross your fingers and hope for the best. We got through! Score: 1-0. The next day, we were in a deadlock. She spoke German at us, we kept shoving student cards in her face until she caved. We won again! 2-0. As far as what we did in Dresden, we got drunk in hallways of socialist buildings. We went into socialist construction sites and climbed to the top of buildings. We got ice cream. We got doners. We drank German beer in massive quantities. We got cheap wine. I mean that pretty much sums up the week without going into boring details. We also listened to German metal in Saturn, the electronics store. That was awesome.

Skipping to the best part... the best city in America: Prague
We, as good Americans, got drunk on the train to Prague. Greg had some very alcoholic rum with his coke. Me and Jeff had some knock off jager with OJ. We arrived in great shape. After some minor confusion in the city some Brits pointed us towards our hostel. We got there and had just enough time to meet Alex at his hostel. The first night we went out to "Nebe" which was a neat little dance club/bar. It was fun. Time flies when you are having fun. The next day we of course touristed. Alex found out about some Indy show for like 90 kroner (22kroner = $1). The Prostitutes headlined and they are good. Look them up on Myspace Music or something. Road Side Mary also played... they were decent. The show was good. The beers semi-cheap with a good taste of American Lager (yes, I like American beer over German beer. I must be defected). A good night overall. The next day we touristed more and read in a park that was an island in the middle of the river. Twas cool again. Jeff introduced me more thoroughly to Forward Russia!, they are awesome. We got Bohemia Bagel, which is an awesome food place in Prague. It screams American. That night we followed our guide (Alex) to the outskirts of town to go to a "grungy expat bar" called Blind Eye. It was relaxed. We met an awesome guy named Big Rock. Ask me about him typed words can not do him justice. People in other countries are weird... they do not get started til like 2am. Well eventually someone brought up the fact that it was 4am so we headed home. It was already getting light out. We decided to stay an extra day cause we never got to go the spots in the mostly touristy areas. So we went to M1 and Chateau. They were meh... it WAS a Sunday. They were also more expensive which sucked! Anyways... that was pretty much it. We picked up some wine for our train ride home on Monday and got tipsy for the ride back.

Back to Dresden
Well I got back and took a nap around 1pm ish. Woke up with a massive headache. We grabbed Jess and got some beers and headed out to the Aquarium. We also grabbed Jeffs friend Navin. They had some cool live jazz music that really helped the setting. We just drank casually and talked and headed back for the night. Surprisingly, we did not get a Doner that night. Possibly because we got one as soon as we arrived in Dresden. Oh yeah... they recognize us. We got high fives upon entering. Tuesday meant Alex's arrival. He got here, Terry, Jess, Emily and her friend Steve all came over. We listened to some music, drank some beers, and headed out to Neustadt. The goal was to show Alex a good part of Dresden before he left... on a Tuesday night... during exam week. We got chinese food/doners and headed into a place called "Katy's Garage." One of the first songs we heard was by Forward Russia!, so needless to say Jeff was excited. They continued to play good music by Muse, Nirvana, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. Overall it was a good night full of beer, dancing, foosball, and meeting cool people. Once again... we realized it was 4am and got home around 430am.

Best Day in the World
It is now the 4th of July. I have finally caught up on the blog by cutting it really short. We plan to be very American today. I plan to head back to Prague on Friday I think. I think I am starting to see that much of Europe is similar so the travel effect is losing its effect on me... hence me reading news back home, talking on AIM, etc. Maybe 3 months was overzealous. We will see.

From Darmstadt to Dresden

Ok, so long time no update. Right now I feel like I am back in College Park in a good ol' freshman dorm. Why, you ask? Because after going to the school cafeteria with Jeff where I picked from 5 preset meals, me and Greg went to get a train ticket, and are now chilling in a bedroom listening to 90s American pop writing on the internet. I came to Europe to pretend I am in America. But I am getting ahead of myself...

Darmstadt, the nice lil' city below Frankfurt am Main
I really liked Darmstadt. It was a real small city... only about 100,000 people. But beyond that I really liked how it was relatively untouched by people trying to make a buck off of the history the city had. They really did have a lot of pretty buildings and monuments. As I always promise... I will post some pictures when we can get them up. Considering we haven't updated since Sheffield, England don't hold your breath. But yeah, it was real cool... when you walk into the zentrum of the city its all tram tracks and pedestrian walkways. The whole center of the city is pretty much what makes the city liveable. It is all the local shops, eateries, bakeries, corporate stores, etc. But it is not done in a Greenbelt plaza kind of way... it is done very well. So me and Greg walked around there quite a bit. We also used the internet to contact Jeff being as we were fully intending to mooch off of him. And then Laura was awesome and bought us food at some nice lil cafe joint. The food was pretty good. I got an interesting salad with some bad "yoghurt" dressing and Greg and Laura got a vegetarian pizza with ham. Makes sense, right? And of course because beer is cheaper than water we got beer to wash it all down.

We got to experience a good bit of the night life in Darmstadt I think. I also realized I was way in over my head. We went to a club, I forget the name of it, and met some of Lauras friends. Some people from Virginia Tech and other random schools. The beers were fairly priced and came with a 50 cent refund if you returned the bottle. By this time I had already pregamed a lot so wasn't drinking much. But the business man in me decided to make back my cover charge by returning some random bottles. I also got a falaffel (this is the beginning of an addiction you will be hearing about). I got real tired and sat down... cause it was friggen 3am. I asked when the bar/club closed and was told once the last person left. I made it obvious I wanted to go home and we left a little after 4am I think.... the club was still pretty packed. I hand it to the Germans.... they party harder than I could handle.

Laura had a Rhine river boat cruise the whole next day so once again Greg and I walked around the city. We took some pictures and dodged into buildings to avoid the rain all day. When Laura got back we met up with her and some other friends in the park. The park has one of those life size chess boards too, which was pretty cool. We just got wine and drank in front of some student building til he told us to leave. We then went to a Turkish hooka place so the other kids could do their hooka. Got a beer (apparently you have to since the hooka is so cheap). We got a doner. Remember I said the start of an addiction last night? Well after one, we couldn't help but get a second literally 15 minutes later. We had two German kids our age take us to "Doner land" and then run off to catch a tram so her dad wouldn't be pissed at him.

That was our last day in Darmstadt, overall it was a really nice city and I had fun. I would go back and try to visit some more of the history and get a better feel for the city if I could... but alas Jeff awaits!

The train ride to Dresden
The train ride was supposed to be 8 hours with 3 transfers or so. Needless to say train rides are always fun. First train as we were sitting there... a few girls in cop uniforms made their way through and made an announcement over the trains intercom. It was in gibberish (German) so we didn't understand but the other people were laughing. A few minutes later two others came back and made an announcement in English. APPARENTLY they were the FBI (beer in hand) and transporting a prisoner. We laughed. At this time I went to find the bathroom to clean out my nalgene so I could make a mixed drink. Well a few cars back I run into the root of the previous episode. A car full of thirty girls in cop uniforms. I must of froze out of surprise because by the time I knew what was happening two of the cops dragged me in. They gave me some German beer. They told me their friend was getting married (the one dressed like Paris Hilton) and they were going to create crazy all night. Me and Greg were invited. We had a train transfer in literally 2 minutes though so we had to go. It was quite funny, though.

The transfer went fine. We met two bikers who were biking all across Germany. They were cool. AND AGAIN a bachelorette party got on. Much smaller and tame though. They were selling beer, lollipops, kisses, hugs, etc to help pay for the wedding. They got off pretty quickly and we mainly talked to the biker guys. They were pretty cool and were into a lot of good bands like NOFX, Less than Jake, Reel Big Fish, etc. I was getting pretty drunk as I had brought a bottle of Jager for myself. A group of four older women who were touring got on the train. We helped them load their bikes. We just talked about our individual tours. Exchanged candy, drinks, etc. They gave us a sandwich as they left. Score.

Ok... so the next transfer is where it gets interesting. I went and got a sandwich first. I got back and sat next to our bikes and stuff while Greg went and got some food. A guy with a shaved head came up to me and started drunkenly screaming German shit at me. I stayed calm and just asked if he spoke English in German. He got irritated, and in English, told me that if I was in fuckin Deutschland I should speak Deutsch. Oh great. I shrugged not knowing how to communicate with this irate guy. And then I got it. The Steel Toe Nazi Handshake. Yup, he was a Nazi as evidenced by his 3 prong swastika belt. He kicked me a few times, I was pretty shocked. His friend stopped him and some other German guy stepped in and talked for me. The guy said white power a few times and his friend kept telling him to get on the train. Apparently my hair is not Aryan enough.

Other than that the train ride went without a hitch. The guy who helped me out was a student from Munich. His nephew was getting involved in the Nazi shit so he had to give him a talk over his break. He was real cool and we just talked about ignorance in society and some politics for a while.

Arrival in Dresden
Because we missed a transfer somewhere we were 40 minutes late. Jeff was not waiting for us. We helped all the older folk get their bikes off of the train and then we unloaded our. We went out front the train station. All we had was Jeffs address. I asked some cabbies and none of them spoke English. As karma would have it... one of the people we helped get off the train came over and asked where we were going. We showed him the address. He led us to Jeff's International Guest House and there Jeff and his friend Jess were waiting to greet us.

to be continued....

Vermutung, wer in Deutschland ist?

Guess who is in Germany? Yup, me and Greg are in Darmstadt, Germany! Got here late last night. It seems really cool thus far. Its like 30km south of Frankfurt. We are staying with Laura, a friend from Virginia Tech.

The Ride through the Netherlands

It was quite the amazing. The ride was beautiful. The people were wonderful. Bikes were everywhere. I feel like I am repeating myself, heh. But yeah, the first day we left Amsterdam we went about 110km (68ish miles). Around the end of the day right before we crossed the water I saw a man outside in his yard so we pulled over. Greg asked if she spoke English in Dutch, and he said a little. So we asked if we could camp out and he took us back into his pear/apple orchard. He let us be. Then he came out and took me inside so we could refill our water. He also offered us tea and took it out to us. And then 20 minutes later after food he offered us cherries and talked to us for an hour. He was a real estate agent with a really nice house. It used to be a farm. We got some nice pictures. But yeah, we just camped in his yard and he was awesome. It was like a five-star campground!

Something about the Netherlands... it rains every morning. Me and Greg did the normal biking thing. By the way I am taking the trailer now to take on the weight burden so we can go faster. But yeah after 40 miles and a thunderstorm forecast for the next few days... and the desire to be in Frankfurt for the weekend... we decided to check out trains...

The Train Ride into Germany
Despite missing the first train (on a scheduled ticket.. meaning you cant change it apparently) due to my making a phone call... we got on the one that came exactly an hour later. These trains come in the station and leave within 2 minutes... on the dot. Its crazy. So when the second one came we ran down the platform and loaded our bikes into the bike train. We had a transfer pretty quickly, and then another one. Thats where it got exciting. Dusseldorf to Frankfurt was the long ride (about 3 hours) and I knew it would be good immediately. As we rain down the platform to get on I saw the guys in the train cab jump to the door and help us lift them in. They were all in military fatigues. As soon as we got on David offered us some of his rum and coke. And more... and more... When the ticket guy came in they all sang at him in German. We found out they are all ex-German military and mostlz just bike ride/tour and drink. We exchanged information in case they ever come to the states or we go back to Germany. They saw us eating apples with peanut butter and nutella and they found that particularly odd. They kept giving us rum and I would say I got pretty tipsy. It definitelz made the train ride neat.

I noticed we got to Frankfurt real late. There were no more trains to Darmstadt. So we took a taxi again. We got to Lauras and went to bed.

So, Damn, We are in Germany
We got showers. We are walkign around the town/sightseeing. And this means we will be seeing Jeff very soon. And possibly going on an adventure to Prague with him!


P.S. Sorry about lack of pics... its hard to get them up and what not. I guess we will update in Dresden using Jeff's internet. And then again much later after that.


Love Frank

Man this place is crazy...

So so crazy. Bikes everywhere. Bikers get the right away. "Coffeeshops" that sell marijuana, shrooms, and other drugs. People buying them and doing them openly. No one caring. Haven't seen any crime. I don't really even know what to type in this blog... It'll take some time to absorb and find out what I want to put.

We met four Finnish guys last night and hung out with them. They really dislike America. And Russia. And the European Union. And the Italians. AND MOSTLY THE SWEDES. They were funny... really chill. We played cards for a while. I had some Heineken (of course), some Bavaria 86, and some Tuborg. Then we left the campgrounds and went into downtown Amsterdam. We spent forever finding an ATM. And then wandered into The Redlight District... its pretty absurd... you think it would be cool but then you realize how messed up the whole thing is. Like you want to save them but then the slag will probably go back because its good money "entertaining" old men with too much money to throw around. Oh well, to each his own, right? We went back around midnight-ish and just talked by the bar. Theres a lot I am leaving out but don't feel like blogging it. Dan this does not mean you need to fill in the gaps via comment, thanks babe :p

Me and Greg have been walking around the city a lot. That is, once it stopped raining. It is weird... it will rain for 20 minutes and then the sun will come out. A few hours later rain for 20 more minutes real hard... and then sun... and so on. During one of the rain breaks we left the camp. Lots of cool little shops and eateries. I had a shoarma pita today. First time I have ever had lamb. Wasn't too bad. Greg got what he thought was dog... but it was actually mashed potatoes or something. Language barriers... they get cha everytime. McDonalds has 35 euro cent ice cream cones so everyone is always walking around with them so we got some Mackers ice cream. If you have never looked up the city's map... do it. It is awesome with all the canals in a ring around the city. Makes for a lot of gorgeous walking routes. Also all the narrow walkways and what not.

I don't know when we are leaving Amsterdam to head to Frankfurt. But it might be tomorrow, maybe in 2 days, maybe in 3 days.... who knows! BUT Today we are going to the Roots festival I think... should be some cool music.

And Dan, you forget we also covered London to Newcastle... we are at a total of like 470 miles now. From Amsterdam to Dresden is about 480 miles :p It won't be too bad... and we are stopping halfway in Frankfurt I believe... to visit another friend! Hope you are having fun Bored in America!


Frank :)

Hallo van Amsterdam!

So...

Surprise!
After a crazy night out with Newcastle United's football fan club... I awoke on a football hooligan ferry. I asked the crazy guy with one eye where we were going and he shouted "To play Amsterdam in the football game!" Oh god, what did I get myself into... :/

Ok well actually after a night in Hadrians Lodge in Newcastle, Greg was not enjoying his trip to the maximum. We discussed it and in the end this was our solution. We would skip Scotland and Ireland (at least for now) and head straight to Amsterdam. So we took a ferry @ 50 pounds each (ouch) and got on board.

The Ferry Ride
It was long. About 17 hours long because of the strong winds. But it wasn't so bad. I actually learned a lot about myself:

1. I will not do that thing where you work for a freight company as a seaman (laugh) for free travel because I can't handle the water
2. If you want to get me drunk cheaply put me on a boat and I'll go from sober to having the spins SANS alcohol
3. Give me 1.5Liters of wine when I am on a boat and I will get amazing

So other than the wine, what did I do on the ferry? Well I saw a slot machine so for the love of my mother and father I had to play. I didn't understand the game too well. I think I spent like 2 Euros or something. I won once... I think... but then I doubled down and some card game came up and I just hit random buttons and lost. Then I saw on the ship schematic "Casino" and of course had to go. I wound up spending 20 Euros at the blackjack table. By the way, the conversion is something like 1 Euro = 70 US cents or so... I think. Dunno. Fuck it. After that I just finished some wine with Greg and watched the water. And then we headed off to bed. By the way... the toilet was in the shower, weird huh? (Maybe not for people who have been on boats before, dunno)

The Arrival in Our First Non-Native English Speaking Country
We were supposed to arrive by 10am but instead we arrived by 2pm today and got off the boat. The first shock was that they have a lot of wind turbines for alternate power generation. I think I like it already. The next thing was that I saw more bikes within 2 minutes than I have in all of England, it seems. The bike trails were clearly marked and had their own sign postings with routes and the kilometerage was different than the signs on the road... which means the trails differ. Yay! We have made it to the land of bicycle highways! They also have their own traffic lights. I love it... already... after like 20 miles :) We stopped for food and got some frites and frite sauce (french fries and mayo) and sausage w/ mayo. A ferry came from across the river with a BOATLOAD of bikers. Not kidding. A BOATLOAD... swarms of people on bicycles came off and then another swarm got on. Apparently one of the major bike trails has a river in the middle of it so they have a ferry system to get them across. Awesome. By the way, it really is flat. I was like averaging 20mph from the ferry to Amsterdam. :) My front wheel is badly out of true, I need to fix that ugh. And clean the drivetrain. Fun fun fun.

What this means for all my loyal readers
Nothing, really. Except Jeff. Your wish to make all our readers dreams come true and rush through the wasteland of Europe and get to Dresden quickly is coming true. We are in Amsterdam which is very close to you, Jeff. We will be there shortly :) Be ready to show us a good time buddy! Also, anyone else in the Netherlands or Germany... let me know cause we could visit you too! o0o0o00o0o

Love
Frank

Onward to Edinburgh (Scotland)!

We have arrived in Newcastle Upon Tyne! We stayed in Middlesbrough an extra day cause Greg's knee was messed up. Got some meds for him. Beef and Ness were great! Will update more. But its been raining for the past two days, which is crap. Camping in the rain wasn't fun, biking not as bad.

We are at a library in Newcastle... I felt like a hobo as I used the hand dryers to dry off my socks and shoes... go me!

We are planning our route to Edinburgh now... so will write more later... eventually.

ALSO the pictures link on the right hand side is updated up until Alton Towers. It has like 170 pictures or so I think... so check them out.

Love,
Frank

On to Newcastle Upon Tyne!

Bye Sheffield!
The last day in Sheffield was fun. Johnny and Sally went for a walk around the city. ME AND GREG (that's for you Ann mwahah) went for a bike ride through the cemetery. It was nice, historic, pleasant, and all that schnazz. It was built as a main cemetery because all of the others were overflowing ages ago. If you read the tombstones you can see a lot of the peoples stories, such as the lady who had 12 kids but all but 3 of them died before the age of 7. After the cemetery we looked for the boulder park that I saw the previous day. We found it which I think made Greg's week. He got to unpack his mountain climbing shoes and boulder for a little. There were three people climbing at the time: Lee, Haleigh, and Rob. All interesting characters. Rob, in particular, was really cool. He was older and came from America. Lived in Savannah GA for a long time, Seattle WA for 12 years before he left the US, Bermuda, and now in Sheffield EN. He was very proud that he missed all of Bush's presidency :) This of course led to a discussion between the five of us about how much Blair sucks as well. But yeah Rob is getting his masters in something about the Environment and Sustainability. So he was real interesting to talk to. Apparently since the 1960's England has cut their rail system by almost 50% BUT its still 10x better than the American railway system. Then the bus system is of course better. It's funny though, all the locals think their mass transit system sucks yet me and Greg are amazed at it. Different living though. I mean they DO pay 98 pence per litre of gas (about $7.50 a gallon)... the mass transit system has to be better. After that we went to a bike store so Greg could replace his seat, get some spares, and a new bike pump. Went to Tesco and got some bananas, chips, and a store brand 2 liter bottle of cider. Got back to Sally's and no one was home so me and Greg did what we thought best... drank on the front porch. We felt like real city-dwellers :p Sally made us some amazing tortellini and we all went to the Devonshire Cat. Let me tell you... this was an AMAZING bar. They had like over 300 different beers from a bunch of different countries as well as locals. They were delicious. Greg had some good ones, too, so I got to try a lot of beers. Had some interesting workplace convo with Katie and Jim. APPARENTLY they get 1 month holiday and after a month of working they can get 6 months paid sick leave and a further 6 months half-paid sick leave. Their work weeks are still 38 hours/week... but quite different than the US, eh? Seems much more geared towards happiness of the people. I am jealous because I know upon getting a job I will get, what? 1 week vacation, 1 week sick days, and during all of that my blackberry will make sure to keep me tied to the job? YAY. We headed on to a place called the 777 where I had some neat white German beer. The club played 60's American music all night it seems. They REALLY like old American music, apparently it's the Bees Knees. :p We finished up at a British House Party where I mainly focused on the fondue. Yum. Also talked to some guy a lot about traveling and he really peaked my interest towards Japan. Maybe one day I will get out there, I hope.

Night in the Caravan Park
We left on Friday but with a late start since we were out so late the night before. Since Sheffield was built in the valley and our ride in was all downhill we knew the way out would be uphill. But after a few days of rest it actually wasn't too bad. We got out to a good start. We have stayed on pretty main roads, even though we meant to use the National Cycle Route. We forgot to look, though, and didn't have enough time in the morning to find the maps and what not cause Sally and Johnny were waiting to go on a walk around the Peak District :) (yes, remember we were in the city built upon the seven hills or whatever they saY...!). The mileage to Middlesbrough was about 110 miles so our goal was to do half and half, which would put us around York for the night. Other than the scenery being beautiful the day was uneventful. We probably had the same ol' lunch of bananas. We stopped at a school a little later and cooked some soup and ate it with pita bread and peanut butter. You guys take for granted cupboard space. You don't understand how AMAZING peanut butter really is. It is so versatile, hence our widespread use of it. For dinner I went into some store and got a cooked chicken and Maryland cookies for dessert. The day was really just biking We got really close and finished up right outside of Tadcaster in Oxton (3 miles outside of York). We stayed on some farmers land for £5. I made rice, threw in some spicy mint sauce, and ate it with the chicken. By the way, the "Maryland" cookies which they pronounce Mary-land are made in England and just taste like Chips Ahoy! cookies. We set up camp and hoped for the best, because as always the forecast was 50/50 for rain/good weather.

Visit to York and Arrival in Middlesbrough
Woke up early yesterday and set up our tent. The farmer came out and congratulated us on our good luck as it looked the sky was completely clear. He also told us that ONCE AGAIN we were on a piece of history. What we thought was his driveway was an old Roman road. It ran from his farm STRAIGHT (literally) to Tadcaster. You could look straight down the road into town. It also used to go STRAIGHT to York but isn't straight anymore due to the newer roads and what not. We got a picture again as this was our second farm that had links to Roman times. Awesome. Our directions originally had us taking the belt around York but I figured what idiots would we be if we just PASSED York?! So we rode in and just... wow. We knew we were entering when we went through a stone gate called the Micklegate Bar. According to the plaques... when York was under seige it was surrendered with only a few conditions, one of which was to keep the gates and wall intact. So to this day the city is still built in complete harmony with its historical surroundings. In fact, we were able to get up on the city walls and walk around. My two favorite buildings were the Clifford Tower and the York Minster. The Clifford Tower is a defensive structure built upon a manmade hill. Climbing up the stairs gave me an idea of how hard it would have been for an enemy to scale the hill sans stairs loaded down with armour. One guy could of probably taken out 20 men. It was real cool that it was still there and in great condition. The York Minster was an amazingly huge church. It was just... beautiful. Its construction was amazing, the amount of detail was amazing, just wow. What I liked most about York was just the fact that even though there were obviously a lot of tourists... it wasn't a tourist trap per se. The town/city really did seem to just be normal but had a flavor of a lot of history to it. I can't think of any other city I have been to that is much like that. After a little we headed out of the Bootham Bar onto the A19. We stopped at a Sainsburys and these two guys heard me talking to Greg and asked "Is that a Canadian accent I hear?" I of course said yes and they went on to say "Ah we like them... not slaves to the US like that there Mexico." The guy had a mullet and cut jean shorts mid-thigh high. An English redneck? I think so. But they heard we were going to Middlesbrough and warned us to move our wallets into our front pockets and to avoid the A19 and opt for a bike route and to get ready for hills. We moved the wallets, took the A19, and the hills never came (at least not enough to pose warning). It sucks, my backs been hurting. Don't know why... hopefully it'll get better with time, eh? My legs feel fine, though. We got to Middlesbrough, met up with Beef and her friends Sally, Amy, and Vanessa. I had bought a pepper so I made me and Greg rice, tikka masala sauce, sausage and peppers. was good. Other than that we just watched some talent show that was essentially American Idol complete with Simon and all. We ate some more food, got offered lots of tea, and eventually watched Hostel. Heh :P My mom mentioned that movie 50x trying to persuade me not to come here :p That was the end of the night.

Day in Middlesbrough
Today we just really lounged around. Went to a bar to get some internet access. Ate some sausage, eggs, bacon, and chips. Me and Greg plan to leave for Newcastle Upon Tyne tomorrow. Well, phew, there was another long update with more details than you cared for!
Will update when more happens, I hear Newcastle is beautiful!

Frank

First Trek Complete & Day at Alton Towers

Well to this point me and Greg have now biked about 220 miles! 75 of those miles were around London while we were staying there... the other 145 happened in the past three days :)

Sunday, Leaving London
Me and Greg woke up early again... around 715. We repositioned the weight and what not. Just to give you all an idea of what we are carrying on our tour:

Me, rack: Tent, Sleeping pad, Comfort shoes
Me, panniers: Pots, Stove, Gas Cannisters, Health Kit, 3 Sets of Biking Clothes, 1 Set of "Decent" Clothes, Bath Stuff, Matches, Extra Tire, 3 Extra Tubes, Bike Pump, Can of Soup, Can of Beans, Peanut Butter, Tortillas, 2 Bags of Pasta, 1 Kg of Rice, Random Bike Tools
Me, backpack: 5 Liters of Water (3 in Camel Back, 2 in Bottle), Bike Maintenance Guide, Journal, Anthem, Things To Say To Be Obnoxious, Bike Lock, Glasses, Passport, Wallet

Greg can make a list of what he is carrying on his blog if he wants :P I just wanted to give you guys an idea of what the bike is carrying. So we didn't really encounter much as we left London... maybe a few hills. BUT it did take forever to get out of the borders of London. Almost 15 miles or so. What a HUGE city. It just never ended and I can't really compare it to another city I have seen. But interestingly enough it was densely populated throughout without randomness (as Jeff would call suburbs). This was Greg's first real long distance ride in forever and he overpacked some... so we stopped a bit. As we neared 55 miles for the day it started to rain so we pulled over after 2 miles as it started pissing down. We saw a great field to camp at and threw our bikes over the railing and ran through the shag grass... Wound up being a golf course. Crap. There was also a ped walk right there too. Well, we wound up camping off to the side anyways since it was raining. Our meal for the night was just some pasta we cooked up as it was pissing down, so wasn't too fun. Went to bed rather early, I reckon around 930pm? Yeap, but overall not an eventful day.

Monday, Our Day of Meeting People
We woke up from our campsite at around 630am to the sound of rain. We decided to neglect our obligation to biking and sleep more. Eventually... around 930am it stopped raining. So we packed up camp and started getting ready to leave. We decided to fix Greg's real deraileUr (thats for you DAN) before leaving so his chain would stop popping off. Got it into place but it didn't help ALOT... but it did help some. By the time camp was cleaned up and we fixed the bike and decided where we were going it was about 1115am. We got on the road. We went through a lot of really quaint towns and took a lot of pictures of pretty sights. However, we were on some pretty main roads, too (like the A5). The A5 is like... Rt 1... or York Rd... without speed traps because the cops have to warn you with posted signs of upcoming speed traps or cameras. So needless to say people drive crazy in England. However, as crazy as they drive they are pretty careful of bikers if I can say so myself. For lunch we stopped around Towcester on the side of a farmers driveway. His house looked amazing. We were eating and his wife drove by and asked what we were doing so we told her just eating lunch trying to get off the road. She said it was OK as long as we didn't camp out. However, her husband, the farmer, came by a minute later and started talking to us. Apparently he owned 2000 acres (as far as the skyline), grew wheat and corn cause dairy cows aren't profitable, and has had the land in his family since the 1500s. His awesome house is actually part of an ancient Roman monastery. AWESOME. We took a picture. We continued on the A5. Around 6pm we stopped at a truck driver pit stop just outside of Hinkley to fill up on water. We have been drinking like 7 liters a day... so we usually refill once or twice a day to be safe. On the way out an old avid biker named Glen, nicknamed Tex, directed us towards some side country roads to avoid some of the A5 and some of the larger hills. He talked to us for about 45 minutes and offered us his map but we already had one. Me and Greg started biking and when we did the first of the two turns he drove by to check and make sure we were doing the directions OK. As we got to the second turn he was parked waiting and waved to us as we continued on to the A5. At this point I was sketched out... but it wound up he was just a really nice guy who missed biking. Second awesome guy we met. He also told us many local establishments in the towns would let us camp out behind their pubs or stores and leave them open so we could use the facilities. Would of been awesome if we were done for the day at that point. We kept biking and stopped at a place called "Cod King" and got some special burgers, battered sausage, chips, and chips and cheese. Packed it up and started to look for a camp site. Wounds up we camped in a bean farm. It was pretty cool, it was beautiful out and we were off the main road. We were dead tired and the food was amazing.

Tuesday, the Final Trek to Sheffield
This day was by far the worst. It started well, we woke up at 630am and started by 715am. We covered a lot of miles quickly and stopped and got bread, cheese, and meat for lunch. Soon after, though, we hit hill after hill and really didn't have mileage written down. We were guesstimating using the map scale BUT the windiness changes the mileage a lot. By the end of the day we thought we were 10 miles from Sheffield but we were 22. We actually wound up taking a taxi for about 17 of the miles to the edge of the city. By the way, Sheffield is built upon the seven hills... its in a valley. So to get there you go over HUGE hills. The sites are beautiful, though. As we drove through Chesterfield we saw a church with a twisted steeple and he told us the wisetale. Apparently it will straighten out if a female virgin ever gets married there. BUT as everyone knows there are no virgins in Chesterfield, ha! And later on in the day when we told Sally and friends about the wise tale and the virgins thing... they were like "In Chesterfield, ha!" What a rep to have for a city. Anyways, the 22 miles would have taken us forever especially since we had already ridden 50 miles for the day. Where the cabby dropped us off was the downhill portion of the drive. He was nice and discounted our fare cause he could tell we didn't have much money, he also didn't accept a tip (and apparently its not customary outside of London!). Once we got into Sheffield we called Sally and she met up with us after a few calls. She took us back to our house where she had Cottage Pie cooked up for us, and me and Greg got to take showers. Yayyy. She also is letting us stay in an empty room for a few nights. So we got a good night of rest and time to clean up, much needed. Went to bed kind of early cause I was dead!

Wednesday, Alton Towers
Today we went to Alton Towers... a castle with a theme park built around it. Got up around 8am and we all left for the park around 9am. Was about an hour drive. Sally gave us all buy one get one free tickets so me and Greg paid £16 each to get in... wasn't bad at all! It is cool... they don't pat you down or put you through security. People can bring as much food or drinks in as they want. The food stands charge normal prices (not gouging!). The line queues even make more sense and help to avoid congestion. The park is more aesthetic. There is less clutter and trash and concrete. It seems they did well at blending it in with its natural surroundings and keeping it clean. There was actually a neat "ride" that let us go into part of the castle and learn some of the history. Me and Greg had some PB&J sandwiches courtesy of Sally. Sally, her b/f Johnny, Anna, Ben, Katie, and Jim went. We all had fun. They gave us some candy things that were cool. They like to blend orange and chocolate in candy bars but it tastes brilliant! :P As far as the rides... they had the normal feet hanging down/laying down/sit down roller coasters. A neat roller coaster one that spun in circles as you went. The rapids ride. The flume. Pirate ship. Etc... It was way cooler than most theme parks, although it closed early around 5pm. Afterwards we all went to another fish and chip shop. Then rushed home to watch the British version of the Apprentice. I like it. I'm gonna have to download them when I get home! Tomorrow we are planning on going to a bike shop, going bouldering, mapping out our next journey, and then going out for some drinks!


I am alive loves! :)

Frank

Almost Ready to Leave London

Remember, I will mention pounds (£) and that means roughly twice as much in dollars ($).

Wednesday

Well me and Greg actually have started getting pretty good at navigating through this mess. On our first night we just stayed at a place called Hostel 639. We met four people from Canada (Josephine, Andrea, Caroline, Gen) and a girl from Poland (Eva). We mainly played drinking games with the Canadians like Egyptian Ratscrew and Bullshit. Then we played some hackey in the lounge til like 3am. We realized this was a bad idea if we wanted to get up early and not get charged £5 for checking out late. We went to bed after writing in the journals... completely exhausted.



Thursday

Thursday we made our way to another hostel called the London Globetrotters Inn because Hostel 639 was booked up. After waking up at noon (still adjusting to the time and going to bed at 3am :/) it took us about three hours or so to get 6 miles down the road to the new hostel. We checked in and it was a pretty nice place but the social atmosphere was 'meh'. Me and Greg were starving so we went to Tesco, a grocery store, and got some bread and cheese and orangina. Great dinner! We also picked up some pasta, rice, sauce, chili dip, beans, and soup. Around this time we decided to head to "Hyde Park" cause it was on the map, it was huge, a park sounded fun, we had plans to play some Hackey and Frisbee with the Canadian girls. We also had to teach ourselves to use a payphone and call one of their cellphones... not as easy as one would imagine ya know... It took both of us many tries to use. But we did it eventually and met up with them. We played hackey and frisbee til around 8 and ate some grapes and drank some wine (amazingly it was still semi-light out). The park was real nice. A really large park with free chairs stacked all around for use. Lots of people playing football and like games. As it darkened me and Greg realized we had to go back to the hostel in the dark with one set of lights. We had a hard enough time getting there. Well everything went without a problem and amazingly we got home real quick. We also got some cool night shots of a memorial and the Hammersmith bridge. My stupid ass, in excitement, saw the hostel and ran into a curb, resulting in my first flat of the trip. Patched it up, booted the tire... s'all good. The night ended with me and Greg making some pasta, meeting some guy from Montana, drinking some beer, and going to bed.

Friday

Surprisingly yesterday I did good and woke up at 630am (kind of like back home before the trip, eh?). We got our free breakfast, got our bike stuff together, and rode back to Hostel 639. We got there real quick (getting better at navigating through city!) and arrived before 11am. We checked in, checked our bags, and departed to touristy stuff on our bikes. We really got to see a lot, and seeing the city by bike is real cool. I have heard its a nightmare to bike here... but it isnt too bad if you know where to go. The left lane is usually a "Bus/Taxi/Bike" lane... and the right lane is for cars. If the bus lane isn't there a small bike lane usually exists. If neither exist well just like any other city the cars know you are there and yield to you. I haven't really felt in danger at all other than when a 18 meter bus starts merging into the lane cause they can't see me from 50 miles ahead :p Greg is also getting more comfortable with city riding. We took a lot of pictures and I hope to get them up. The day was really nice. We found a park right next to the Tower Bridge and got some sandwiches and just chilled there. I took a little nap. I do like the citys feel... there are tons of parks to just relax everywhere you go. We pretty much crossed over every bridge in London, took pictures of the famous buildings, etc. As a tourist I suck cause I am cheap. £30 to see inside the building? Pft... I will take a picture of the outside cause it looks awesome as it is... and just have more fun looking at the city itself. I think I enjoy that stuff a lot more. When we got back Eva, Caroline, and Gen invited us to a Polish meat and cheese meal. We went and got 4 bottles of wine and some beer. It was good times. Also in the middle of it some girl from the University of Maryland who knows Gregs sister came in (it was a staff room) and is apparently working there for free accomodations. Small world eh? Oh yeah... after midnight it is impossible to find a store open that sells alcohol, though. So I wound up going into a bar to quench the thirst... one drink was £3. Man... went to bed eventually. Or passed out shall I say... was a real fun night, though!

Today

Woke up in the morning with plans to leave today to Sheffield. We went and got breakfast where we met three guys who just graduated from the University of Maryland. Small world... again. Well my idiot ass misplaced my wallet. Worried for like 4 hours and then the lady at the front desk said the cleaner "turned it in." I guess what this means is he swiped all my cash and gave me back the credit card and ID. Cause she couldn't remember which cleaner it was, when he turned it in, or where he found it. Hmmmm? Well... at least I don't need to get a new credit card. Thoughtful of him/her. So I guess the only problems thus far are money ones. Oh well, I can always grow more. I mean earn more. Well, don't know what we are doing today... but there is my update. Like I said, pictures to come soon (Greg is uploading as we speak).


Frank

OK I put a few pics up but Greg didnt add any of the cooler ones... We will get them all on the Flickr account linked to the right and I will add more to the blog. There are much much cooler ones (with us actually in them :P)

I Am Here!

So... after a much nervously anticipated trip... I am sitting in the hostel about to go to the bar. So thats pretty awesome.

The Flight

The flight went really well with Virgin Atlantic. I online checked-in but didn't realize thats what the "DIY Line" was. So I wasted 30 minutes oh well. By the way, these keyboards swith the " and @ symbols. Funny. Once I got into the terminal I recognized a guy from the passport agency. He actually got a work visa and is just moving to England for the summer. Doesn't have a job yet or a place to live. That is balls ladies and gents. Also met his friend David who is doing the normal 2 week backpacking trip. By this time I wasn't nervous because I had settled myself. Psyche... Moms gave me a Xanex to take cause I was freaking out all day. Haha.

Once we boarded all things went off as planned. After fifteen minute I got an Orange Juice and a small bag of pretzels. My ticket said no meal so I was psyched! I went to sleep at this point. I woke up an hour later cause of some noise and low and behold... they served a full meal. I got Beef, mashed potatoes, carrots, peppers, a side salad with ranch dressing, bread and butter, cheese and crackers, a water, and... a heineken. Like five minutes later they were offering everyone tea and coffee. Another five after that they were offering refills. So this was pretty good for a "no meal" ticket. Went back to sleep for like 4 hours. Woke up around 10am local time and they were serving breakfast. Got some more OJ, water, and a breakfast bar. They pampered us lower economy class flyers. I can't imagine what the upper class got :p

The Arrival

Got off the plane and went through that passport check thing. The guy asked my permanent UK address, I said the road, he laughed, and let me through. Good thing they like Americans. So now time for baggage check. First thing I see is my bike. Assholes ripped my seat and ripped the handle bar tape on my handle bars (if these two cause irritation in either two of those areas they affect... angry Frank!). Ok whatever whatever whatever I can deal with it... it made it... it was shifting ok... thats what matters most. Wait. Where's my box? You know... the thing that has my panniers, tent, and sleeping bag mat. Hm. Not here. Go to baggage claims. "Oh we found it!" They say as a guy comes carrying a box that can be barely called a box anymore. Completely destroyed. One of the panniers had a small rip. But I hooked it all up. Done.

The Initial Bike Ride

Went outside and started riding towards where my directions said to. Luckily 2 miles down the road I stopped cause I wanted to adjust some stuff and needed my keys to get in my bag. Where are my keys? Crap. I left them on the counter at baggage claims. Biked back. Got them. Back onto the road. It was funny. I would up on a road us Americans would look @ as Interstate 95. Which is probably why I was the only bike. And why all the trucks honked. But whatever. It was only for like 9 miles. And I kept a good speed @ 20-25mph. And there was a big shoulder. Luckily that was the bulk of the ride. Because once I got into the city I got lost immediately. I figured this 14 mile trip would take 3 hours :p When all was said and done I turned the 14 mile 1 hour trip into a 22 mile 3 hour trip full of asking people for directions and getting sent back and forth.

The Hostel and the Search for $ -> £

Got to the hostel and even though I put my deposit with a credit card... now I needed cash. Fine, cash machine (ATM) down at the petro station right down the road. Jump on my bike to go get some. Starts raining. A heavy rain. But not a heavy thick rain. A heavy soft rain. It was actually pleasant :) But the petro stations cash machine would not give me cash. Nor would the grocery stores. Or the post offices. I eventually found a bank after wandering and they were able to do a cash advance on my credit card by calling the bank. So now I got some £ (pounds you silly Americans!). Took an hour nap, wrote in the awesome journal someone gave me, and now here I am letting people know I am alive!

I look forward to Greg getting here tomorrow. Hopefully he can do better than 3 hours :P And then we will also have a camera!

Hope this alleviates a bunch of your peoples stress to see I am alive! Will be thinking of you all :)

Frank

Going Away Bash

Being as I am leaving soon... I had some family over last night for a BBQ. Invited Greg and his parents. Dan and his parents, as well. Some friends. I had a great time... thanks to all of you. Needless to say, I think there was a healthy amount of consumption of alcoholic beverages.

I would like to especially thank:

• My parents, for being awesome and letting a bunch of people come over, eat, drink, and be merry.
• Uncle Andy and Aunt Joyce, your gift is going to go a long way in my trip prep buying me a good pannier setup! Or bailing me out of jail in Europe :p
• Melanie and Mike, the backpack was going to be purchased by me as my messenger bag wasn't sufficient, so this was a pleasant surprise!
• Catherine, the $ will be buying my biker shorts and breathing shirts... which I need very much.
• Jennie, me and Greg had discussed getting two way radios so we could communicate when we get a small distance apart. But like everything else we wanted the money was adding up and we weren't sure... so this should give you some peace of mind that we have these :)
• Last, but NOT least :p, Sarah, for the awesome journal and book of obnoxious things to say. I needed a journal cause I want to keep a hardcopy one aside from this with some other things I do not want to share with my lovely audience. The journal is awesome. And well, like you said... the book is perfect... cause I WOULD say some of those things :p

Well, here we go. Final stretch. 5 days. Still gotta buy some stuff. Pack all my stuff. Greg's going away thing on Sunday. Plane Monday night. Gotta use my time wisely saying bye to some of you awesome people. Who wants to go to the bar? Lets do itttttt!

Frank



Addendum: Winds up Uncle Andy and Aunt Joyce paid for the passport. Thanks guys :P Thats all because Matt Kelley and Alex are lending me and Greg their pannier setup and trailer. You guys rock. We owe you big time!

Guess Who Finally Got Tickets?

Yup, it is official. Got the tickets this morning with Greg. Still have to get my passport... haha. Leave it to me to postpone something so easy yet so important for this journey of a lifetime. My appointment with the Passport Agency is the 25th at 9am. I leave the 28th at 11pm. Thank for expedited service. As you see, flyin' with good ol' Virgin Atlantic non-stop. I am thinking it shouldn't be too hard to readjust as I will be getting on the plane at 11pm, sleeping, and then waking up after 6 hours or so, at which point it will be 11am there. So it will hopefully just feel like I had a short night of sleep and my body should adjust, right?

Think I am gonna book the hostel now for the first night since Greg will not be around... should prolly make sure I have a place to sleep, eh? Although I recall one of our English pals we met in Canada supposedly being in London for the first week we are there. Then she goes back up to Sheffield... I think. So we might have a place to stay. Should prob work on that.

To do today:

1. Sell textbooks back to get cash for bike stuff,
   
2. Move a bunch of my stuff to my parents for storage so I can sublet,
   
3. Bike shop with Greg to get pannier setups,
   
4. Some trip preparation with Greg

zOMG so close!


Frank

Recurring Nightmare

Its 6 am and I just woke up and ran upstairs to see if it was real. Haha.

I keep having this recurring nightmare of my bike being lost. And yes, it is a nightmare. For some reason I come home and my bike is not in my living room. So I check to see if it is outside (which it wouldn't be... it is NOT an outside bike :P). And it's not. So I ask Vik if he knows where it is. And he doesn't.

I grab Drew's road bike to ride around College Park looking for it. I get hungry and go into Chipotle. I come out and the lock is on the ground with the bike nowhere to be seen. Fuck, I just lost another bike.

Then I get home and grab my old mountain bike to ride around looking for both of the lost road bikes. The mountain bike is squeaky and insufficient to the task at hand. Vik and Pra come along to help. For some reason College Park has turned into a mountain town and we are faced with impassable hills in front of us. Man... if only I had my road bike.

There is probably some meaning behind all of this.

What a head case I am. Back to bed...

Me and Jeff's North County Bike "Tour"

Yesterday, Friday (May 11th) Jeff and I decided to go on a bike ride. The circumstances were special: Jeff is leaving for Dresden tomorrow, I am leaving for Europe in 2 weeks, and the next time I see him will be when I reach Dresden with Greg via our bicycles. So we thought this was a fitting adventure. Plus we had a lot of time to kill before Amanda's 21st birthday celebration.


We started out on the NCR trail, which is a trail that extends from Hunt Valley all the way up to York PA. It used to be a railroad track. If you click that link we started at the beginning in Ashland and went until we reached Parkton. It was only about 15 miles to Parkton. We stopped in Parkton because I recalled going to a bar there when I rode my bike on the trail last summer.



This is me outside of the bar. Upon walking in, like in any local bar worth the concrete its built
upon, all of the regulars stopped and stared at us. Was it that we reeked of sweat? That I had
bright red gym shorts on and Jeff had a bright orange shirt on? Or that they just hadn't seen a new person enter in months? Don't know, but they locked in on us. We ordered our Natty Bo's for $2.50 a piece, because apparently the only happy hour in this bar was when the owner cashes out the register at 2am. The funny thing about this bar was that they were all drinking Natural Light because as the lady put it "We drink in Quantity not Quality!" She chastised her son for drinking a Budweiser cause that was the fancy stuff. Twas funny. Jeff decided to tell the blue collar folk that Natty Light is what we drink in college. Good work Jeff, now they have reason to stare us out of the bar. We paid and left after a little.


We started heading back towards Ashland on the NCR trail. There was

a cool waterfall and a be careful of the poisonous snakes sign. Me and Jeff were walking, or riding should I say, on the wild side (obviously). The trail is actually quite pleasant. And there are some cool scenic views. The trail follows some river, and goes through a lot of small quaint towns. But when we got back to Monkton we mutually decided to leave the confines of the trail and take the back roads home. I also felt this would be a good ice breaker for the first leg of the tour d'europe, as we were looking at mainly rolling country roads. Being that Jeff was a pizza delivery driver in the area, he knew the roads well. As luck would have it the first thing we ran into was a monstrous hill. Like I said, ice breaker... S'all good. Ride hard, right? We kept going. It's actually really funny how many times we have been on those roads and missed so many of the scenic views. It reminded me of the book Fahrenheit 451. In the book they start making billboards like 1,000 feet long (I forget the actual footage, but its asinine) because people drive so fast the only way they can see the advertisement is if its that big. And such is the case here... people drive so fast that they miss the scenic views between the openings in the tree line. Well, me and Jeff didn't miss them :p!


I guess the views are not even that amazing. I mean its not a mountainous region. There is nothing spectacular about Northern Baltimore County. Its just very peaceful... but every time you look at someone driving through the area they look angry. They are in a rush to get home from work, they are in a rush to get Billy from school, they are in a rush to get Samantha to soccer practice, rush rush rush RUSH. But when you slow yourself down to 20 miles per hour and take yourself out of a soundproofed pod... things get a lot less rushed, a lot more peaceful, and it really does calm you a good bit. And maybe thats why I have really taken a huge liking to biking. It slows life down and lets you enjoy your surroundings more. As kids, this is how we all were. And then something changes and you get into the habit of living a rushed lifestyle. This little excursion with Jeff didn't ease my nervous apprehension towards my tour with Greg, but it did reinforce why I am excited. Me and Greg are going to live life in the slow lane for 3 months. We will go where we want, when we want, and take our time doing it.


I am still just as nervous, but now even more excited.


Frank

T-3 Weeks

We are pretty much at exactly T-3 weeks... at least we will be in one hour.

So I hope that all of you will add this blog to your favorites and check back in on me and Greg.

Originally I was intending to just write a hard copy journal on my travels. However, after thinking about it... even though I can't wait to leave everything behind for 3 months, I guess it wouldn't hurt to let my friends and family aware of my well-being. Also, the fact that Greg intends to bring a laptop with him helped the decision. If he doesn't... theres always internet cafes.

Me and Greg are in the process of outfitting our bikes and getting in shape for the trip. We plan on doing on average 60 miles a day (4-5 hours of riding on a bike thats loaded down). However we will definitely push that average up on a few days and sometimes go around 100 miles a day in nice riding countries (Like the Netherlands!).

Once me and him have "cemented" (as much as we can really cement a broad overview itinerary when its all dependent on how well we bike, the weather, and how much we love where we are at the moment) our plans... I will post them here.

Look forward to posting some more blogs, and posting some pictures as well. Also hope some of you keep us updated on whatever you have planned for the summer whether its a kick ass internship with a firm in Manhattan or chilling at your parents pool drinking margaritas.

3 Weeks... 3 Weeks.

Frank