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