"There are some things we shall never speak of again..."

ok, so wow, I have not been good about updating, but in my defence I am kind of busy.  Let me just say France has the most difficult keyboards to work with yet, I think they are just being spiteful.  That being said, time for an update...

Venice seems years ago, the adventures continue though in Venice on Wednesday, we actually did some site seeing, outside of being captivated by the place.  That day we did St. Marks square type thingy where there were a bagillion pidgeons everywhere, waiting to poop on you or eat from your hands, but i think more so the poop. We then went to Palazza Ducale, which was basically the palace of their "king" in Venice.  It was pretty rad and we got to walk over the Bridge of Sighs, to go into the dungeon.  Me with my keen sense of direction got totally lost down there, and Kara ended up having to wait for me to find me way out.  Venice's mixture of Christianinty and old world relgion was fascinating, in alot of the art you would see Christian heroes combined with Greek gods, I think it was cool to see how early Venice dealt with the religious influences around them.  That night we hopped on an over night train to Munich.

OK quick sidebar story on the train ride.  How these trains would work is there are 6 rather uncomfortable seats facing eachotherm 3 on either side per cabin, but you can slip them down to make 3 "beds" though.  So here's where it gets weird, it's me, kara, a young peruvian [wahoo peruvians!], and 2 older/drunk british women.  So the peruvian proposes that we make 2 beds out of the seats and the 3 younger people share them so there I was sandwiched [head to feet of course] between Kara and a complete stranger trying to sleep = good times/ slightly awkward, welp i never saw her again.

Thursday morning it became more apparent that God was watching over these travels.  We arrived at in Munich at 6:30 am our job was to find our hostel and hopefully meet up with the other 4 people to go to Oktoberfest the following day.  We had a room reserved at our hostel, for 2 nights in a room for all 6 of us.  Well when we get off the train, Kara says she needs to go to the bathroom, and on our way to the bathroom, I look over and see our other friends we were hoping to find later on that day, we all "happened" to arrive at the same time and just "happen" to bump into eachother inside a massive train station.  From there we eat breaky and head to the hostel, which address was 102, can you say uh-mazing??  Ok, heres more God coolness for yam but first let me say that we are idiots.  We arrived on Thursday thinking Oktoberfest began on Friday, it turns out it didnt start until Saturday, the day we were all leaving Munich.  This turned out to work in our favor because we showed up a day too early.  Our hostel wasnt done being built yet, it was brand new. So because we got there a day early we got rooms, alot of people who had reservations didnt get there rooms becuase they were actually built yet when they showed on Friday.  We all got an extra day of site seeing in as well, and more time together.  On with that day...we checked in, and headed off to see the Glockenspielm, a huge German looking clock, so rad, i love Germany by the way.  Then we took a tour to Dachau concentration camp.  Let me just say that was pretty sombering.  It was really cool just to see it and imagine.  Not much i can put in words to describe it really.  That night we went to one of the German beer houses that are all over the place.  We went to most famous one, the Hofbrau haus.  It was straight out of a movie or something, people in sweet outfits, huge litre sized stines of beer being clinked often, funky german music playing, large sausages, and a generally old looking building.  TONS of character, I loved it!!!

Friday came and went that morning to the English Gardens, it had lots of pretty flowers, and we took naps in the soft grass, which reminded me of home.  We came to a river where there were actually surfers surfing the river, it was totally crazy.  That afternoon we went to the Deutsches museum which was basically a science museum, but not as cool as some that i have been to [granted they wouldnt let me enter the kids section].  They had a whole section on Ships though, i'd like to think they were all Pirate ships.  That night we went to the Augustiner house, not as cool, no music, and rude waiters, but we still had fun together.  By the way, here's the crew i was with: americans-Kara, Jim, Melissa, me  Aussie- Dana  Irish-Colm.

Then the infamous Saturday!  Oktoberfest, well we planned on leaving at 8:30am to get there, but of course we didnt leave until 10am.  When i first imagined the festival i pictured a bunch of carnival tents with benches of drunk people.  It's so much better...Its like an acutal carnival with booths and rollercoasters and apple studdle thingys!  When they say beer tent, it's actually a huge building with a tent like roof to it, but it's a real building by all means.  Each tent holds 5-15 thousand people in it, but if you dont get there by 9 am forget about getting seat anytime. Then in each tent also has a band that plays quality German tunes.  We got lucky and actually got a place using the girls femine charm and some people moved around and we were able to all sit together!  They day was amazing! We met a ton of cool people and it was just alot of laughing and dancing, lots of fun, but it was crazy in there for sure.  Germans LOVE my beard, i need to move there just so i can meet women.  That night we wondered back to the train station and all of us caught overnight trains, I ate Euro Burger King. 

Holland- I dont have much to say for holland, it was boring and uncultural.  It's hard to follow up all the character of Germany i guess.  We [Colm, Jim, and me] did go see 2 movies in English, Willy Wonka and Batman, I got Dr.Pepper, saw Anne Franks house, and was disappointed by the Van Gogh Museum.

We arrived in Paris on Tuesday and found our hostel and had a good nights rest.  Wednesday morning we went to du Per Lachaise [a cementary] and saw Jim Morrisons grave and Oscar Wildes grave, hat was pretty cool, then we walked around Notre Dame, and Jim and I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, way cool.  That night they left for London, and I am now on my own in Paris for awhile. 

The next day/yesterday I spent the day at the Louvre, I saw works by Donatello, Rafael, Rembrant, Da Vinci, to name a few, and of course I saw the Mona Lisa.  I took a few pictures, but then they threatened to kick me out so I didnt get very many before i put my camera away.  The Louvre is HUGE! I spent the entire day there, and still saw less than half of it.  The french painting wing was entirely closed even, it was really cool though.

So now it's thursday morning and I plan on seeing Notre Dame again, this time go up it, the Arch De Triumph, and maybe a few other museums if i have tim, we shall see.

I hope you are all doing well, please remember me in your prayers as I am starting the solo portion of my journey and I am a little nervous about it.  The plan is Paris for a week or so, then Berlin, then Prague, then Austria for now, but who knows.  take care and God bless.

ciao