Chillin

Well the summer's pretty much gotten boring by now. It's very relaxing. I am at the moment kickin it at my buddy Ben's apartment in the 16th, Paris. Today we're gonna go jam with some of his friends. Yesterday we tried to go up top of Notre Dame; we climbed up many stairs and got to the top and were rudely told that we had gone up the exit and had to go down. We're in lazy mode so we can only do about one thing per day. Tonight I'm moving to my friend Alexandre's apartment in Montmarte. As you can see shit is winding down. This will be the last post. It's not really worth reading I suppose, but I wanted closure. I'll try to see Sobel before I fly home on Friday. I also have cousins and uncles to see, blablabla...
Thanks to everyone who's read this. We'll see each other this weekend.
Take it easy,
Danny

Icht bin ein Berliner / I Am sterdam / "This is not my lint"

Ok. Our apologies. We truly have been way too busy reading HP, smoking dope, banging hookers, using drugs intravenously, and "sightseeing" to catch up on the ole blog. It was either that or we couldn't find a computer. But we've just read the tons of comments and they are endearing.
So yes we are alive and well, kickin it in Paris. But let us regress to far far back, to that last day in Berlin after Danny posted late at night.
So our last day in Berlin we split up. Charlie Rob and Dave stayed in bed at the hostel reading Harry Potter until 1:30. I couldn't abide by that so I set out. I walked through the Brandenburg Gate, through the length of the Tiergarten, and emerged where a massive church has had half of its dome blown off by war. It was left that way and it makes for sight. Then I took a bus to Schloss Charlottenburg, a "castle", the palacial residence of the Hohenzollerns (ruling dynasty in Prussia for some time). Then I took the bus back to the Kaiser Wilhelm Church (with the blown off top) to meet the guys who had dragged themselves out. I pointed out the person whom I believe to be the most beautiful woman in Germany. They disagreed but woulda gone for it anyway if given the chance.
On our way to lunch we peeked in your typical German sex shop, with three foot fist sized dildos. We were overwhelmed by these dildos. Anyway we had pizza/pasta and they read Harry Potter. At this point I realized that it was absurd for me to hold out on reading this excellent book cause it was clearly something big, so I borrowed David's copy when he finished it in less than 15 hours. Damn, kid. We walked back through the Tiergarten taking frequent reading stops (every bench) and proceeded to Hauptbahnhof to buy our train tickets for the next day. Then we had a leisurely streetside dinner, andwent to the Reichstag. We didn't burn it down but instead jumped at the opportunity to wait in line for like an hour. At this point we were thinking about everything in terms of reading (even Rob). In side the Reichstag we climbed this vast glass dome that is actually right over the assembly room for the German Parliament, the idea being that the people keep watch down on the government. Twas very, very impressive and informative.
Next stop, AMDAM! We got off the train and bought a fat bag of good but not outstanding chronic. Just kidding. We took the tram way down to our hostel, the Stayokay in Vondelpark. This was rather removed from the center of the city, but at least it wasn't Buttfuck so we got used to it with its quiet alley and sweet aromas. Just kidding. Anyway that night we had dinner and walked around to get our bearings. Amsterdam is a very quaint and picturesque town, with many canals and bridges and boats parked quayside. There are also many many bikers. Each sidewalk has its own bike lane and if you make the presumtuous mistake of walking down you will get rung at. You might even get a dirty look. Trams also abound here. And the preffered architectural style is brown brick. All in all its a very pretty place. Until we got lost and were approached by an old man who thouht we needed directions to the gay area. We did not need these directions or his foul presence. Some of us fled (Robbie was convinced the man was trying to hit on him and still tries to argue this case). He (the old bum) got really pissed at us and started ranting about how we were lying about some dumb shit. I realized I had forgotten my long and thin pocketkife at the hostel so I also fled. Anyway, we wanted to kee^p moving so we wound another street and realized that he was guarding the street crossing like a goddamned toll bridge troll. Crazy fucker. We continued on our evening stroll and found our way to bed safely.
Full day no. 1: On this day we woke up rather early and went to the Rijksmuseum, which featured sweet Dutch paintings and other shits, the Van Gogh Museum, which you can assume about, and the Heinekein Brewery Experience, which was really three free drinks and a sweet bottle opener. The tour was controversial, liked by some and deemed shitty by me. After this packed morning, we had lunch. After that we went to the sex museum, which wasn't all that exciting. We went back to the hostel and napped, building strength for our trek into the Red Light District that evening (ominous music). After the nap we readied our raincoats cause it was raining. We hqd a shitty dinner in the hostel's bar and started walking. Whatever you pictured is probably true; there actually are girls in windows through which you see, from the street, a small room with a bed and a blacklight. It looks like a vending machine. Later on we went to bed.
Full day no. 2: On this day we took it easy waking up and ambled on down to the two block long line outside the Anne Frank House. Rob and I read Harry Potter. By this time Charlie was reading Huck Finn and David Breakfast of Champions. Anyway it felt really unproductive to just stand there on line for hours. It wasn't moving at all. So Charlie and I decided to go the train station to buy our tickets for the ride to Paris. We realized there that another long line was already in place. He and I waited for over an hour (Charlie met and spoke with a girl going to Middlebury) and missed the A.F. House. Rob and David did go and thought it a meaningful experience. Anyway after this, we got a kebab lunch and headed towards Nemo, which I thought was a science museum but turned out to be a fucking kiddies playground. I thought it sucked. The rest enjoyed themselves interacting with experiments and other random shit. They had the time of their lives. In one experiment they kicked the shit out of some kids in a hydroenergy race. "IT WAS AWESOME!!!" After Nemo we split. They went to Stedelijkmuseum and I went to the Koninklijk Palace, which unfortunately I found to be closed. When Charlie Rob and David saw the signs at the museum with Picasso, Kandinsky, and the other big players crossed out, we thought it was a cool artsy poster. Turns out their permanent collection was not on display, so we only saw very contemporary art, that made no sense. It was hard to be impressed by a room filled with TV screens only showing monotone colors.
We met up back at the hostel. Danny and David wrote a postcard to Goldberg. Then we went out and found some dinner on a very quiet and secluded street in a lovely residential area. We sat for at long time kickin back and reflecting. We went back to the hostel and played lots of pool at the bar.
The next day we took our train to Paris. By now the weather has become nice and springy and there is sometime a breeze. It's more pleasant at present.
We arrived at our hostel in Paris, which in actuality is a "no star hotel". At check in, our receptionist informed us in very broken english and french that our four bed room was a room with two double beds. We argued for a while but he claimed that this was clear on hostelworld.com. Bullshit. We went to the room, and saw that it was really on double bed and one single. We argued a lot more with the guy, who was immensely retarted and pugnacious. This man is a lively copy of Mr. Win from Hey Arnold (move it football head). Does anyone get the "this is not my lint" reference now? In the end he agreed to "do us a favor" and gave us an extra mattress for the floor, so we switch off pairing in the double bed.
Anyway our first evening in Paris was quiet. We walked around the Ile de la Cite and the Latin Quarter, where we had dinner. Then we sat and chilled out at a hookah bar.
On our first full day (yesterday), we went on an ambitious walking tour of Paris. Danny led us through the Marais, our neighborhood where we stay, the Palais Royal, the Louvre (but we didn't go in), up the Champs Elysees and up to Arc de Triumph for a dank view. Then down Avenue de la Grande Armee where we walked down Rue des Acacias and Danny showed us his old apartment building, and then down Rue Colonel Mol, where his elementary school still stands. We had images of little Danny walking home and buying his Kinder Egg at the boulangerie. He showed us where his best friends used to live. We had lunch at the Place St. Ferdinand (food here is crazy expensive but good), and walked on to the Trocadero and under the Eiffel Tower. During this we stopped at the churches St. Eustache and the Madeleine. After the Eiffel Tower and the adjacent gardens we split up; Danny went to the Hotel des Invalides to see Napoleon's tomb and the rest went to the Musee D'Orsay for an impressionist exhibition. Danny also read in the Jardin du Luxembourg for some time. Both parties enjoyed very much and met up on the Ile de la Cite. We walked back to the hostel and some dudes showered while I (Danny) finished Harry Potter. It's the ballsack. Later on we had dinner, and went on a long quest for a bar with pool, or billiards. We walked a while to Quigley's Point, an Irish pub, only to find out that their table was broken. Blast! We had a drink and walked on to McBrides, another Irish pub, that had a pool table with the resident pool-playing badass, Mac. Luckily a girl beat him, Charlie beat the girl that beat Mac, Rob beat Charlie who beat the girl, but then got beat himself, by Alex. It was close. We went to bed.
This morning, we've only done this so far, but intend to actually go in the Louvre, St. Chappelle, Angelinas for hot chocolate, then go up to Monmartre, and eventually meet up with Danny's friend Alexandre.
We hope you continue to enjoy whatever you're doing, and we'll be home soon (some of us) to give you the real version of what went down (hint: museum means crack rocks).
Screamin Bob, your comments are dank!!
Tara and Jenny, thanks for the survival kit, it has now come in handy and we have proof.
Last but not least, there are still some of you woh we know are reading but still have not commented. This is probably our last post as the four of us, so make the best of it.
Anyway take it easy and stay in touch however you can
Team America

A Day Later in Berlin

Thus spake I: "It's like a more modern Vienna, or a cleaner Manhattan."
After last night's post we took a look at our choices of bedding: three bunks in the dorm and a double in a single room. Tim, the grandest man in the hostel business, naturally assumed two of us would take the single. We just left it to David, and we started out on a rabid dinner quest. In these phases of hunger we didn't have much curiosity about Berlin's streets as much as its restaurants. We walked by about half a dozen in the first two blocks-chinese, falafel, italian, pubs, kebab and thai- read all the menus and said we liked them. We settled on kebab. Always a good bet. We noticed here that for all the non-German speakers, communication in English is nearly always possible, and a universal common point.
After dinner we compared distances to various places from the comfort of the Oscar Wilde Pub (they've got Kilkenny Ale). They were playing the Beatles. We looked at maps but couldn't decide so we just went outside and walked for a while. Here most of the buildings are gray or steel colored and have been recently rebuilt. As we are in the former East Berlin there is communist architecture. 90% of Berlin was destroyed by 1945. So while there is a nighborhood with grand columns and old structures, all of them have been patched, renovated, and sometimes completely rebuilt (there is a tax break for building anew in the old neo-classical style). Sometimes in the middle of a block is an empty plot of land. These are fenced and overgrown with weeds. Before long we passed an open hallway leading to colors and thumping music and bottles clinking (basically every other door front in Berlin). We entered in and found an large "terrain vague" that had manifested a beach party. Several bars and music entertained a large crowd milling about and sitting in chairs or on wide metal sculptures. We enjoyed this scene for some time and got to talking to Daniel from Sarah Lawrence and his friend Rachel from, ummm, I think it might have been Harvard. Rachel was a German for her first fourteen years and an American for the last four. She spoke great Enlgish and knew tons of people. Eventually we decided to check out the big building that formed the aforementioned hallway. It was tall and had staircases with glass walls. As we got closer and then inside we saw that it was entirely covered with graffiti, There is a lot of this here; I think it isn't considered vandalism but modern expression, The place looked like a level in a videogame. Several floors hosted an art exhibit. On the top floor was the Sky Bar, a balcony overlooking the beach and its waves of traffic.
Here many of the taxis are Mercedes. There are many many cyclers, and many pretty ladies on bikes, though unfortunately none of them have required any fixing (the bikes I mean). The bike riders ride the streets and stop at red lights. Many tram lines run down the middles of the street. If you step on a rail you can sometimes feel it vibrating and you turn your head just in time to see the red cars, connected to wires overhead. They dingle a bell at you. The crosswalks are marked with a red and green soviet guy. On the streets there are many people kissing, especially under the trees; others are talking quietly or just holding hands. Streetlamps, trees, bikes, couples and tables and chairs make walking require attention. When I look down at the pavement it looks like Paris except these stones are smaller and sharper, less worn smooth. It got a bit cooler in the evening and we eagerly jumped at the chance to change up our sweaty paraphanalia,
This morning we got up early, got a ritzy breakfast across the street (Diana Krall is often heard in Europe, as is that other young woman who won all those grammys some years back). Then at 10:25 a person came by our hostel to pick us up, along with some other dudes. We walked and picked up another hostel load and met up with a big group at Brandenburg. This was where our free walking tour of Berlin left off from. We were in a group of about thirty with a 20 something British tourguide (Dave). He knew details and shit on Berlin in dumb amounts. The tour last several hours and ended on Museum's Island at three. Very informative and compelling. We tipped him and walked off into the BerlinDom, a huge Catholic Church with a great dome and two smaller ones on either side. The edifice sits at the tip of the island near both arms of the River Spree, and faces the Lust Gardens, a wide lawn with a fountain at the center and people playing volleyball and the digeridoo. The Dom itself was grand and we climbed up to the coppola balcony for a panoramic view. Then we ambled down the river a bit and into the Pergammon museum, which had dank sculpture and reconstructed structures from Ancient Greece, Babylonia and Turkey. An excellent "talking tour" told the stories of the battle between gods and giants while we followed the stone frieze's visual perspective. We got lost looking around and had to go searching for Rob, we got our backpacks at the free baggage check and bounced. It was officially afternoon now and some of us were in the mood for an afternoon chill sesh. Rob, David and Charlie were gonna stay up until 1 to go buy Harry Potter 7 at a big book store. I'm already reading a book so I'll wait. They decided to nap in a park and I went to do some laundry.
I had run out of clean shit so I was commando and in an old tshirt. This is managable with good reasoning but I need easy decisions. Back at the hostel I gathered the shit and asked a girl where the nearst- fuck it that's really not that interesting. The washing machines tumble and hiss here too. There was a a cafe adjoining the business. Here as you walk down past shops you here a lot of Slavic and other eastern languages, and Arabic and Spanish. All are clean and have clean bathrooms, though some require 5 or 10 cents for use. Children play on the street. Some are dark skinned and others are pale and blond. Many are barefoot. I'm trying to think of Berlin details but I don't know how good a picture I'm painting. I sat outside at the laundromat/cafe's tables and read, listened to music, and dozed.
When I got back to the hostel I found Dvaid Rob and Charlie cooking pasta in the hostel's kitchen. They were counting down the minutes until 1 AM. It was about 8:30. After dinner we cleaned up, invoking the roles of washer, dryer, passer, and putter-awayer. We went and took a walk around Torstrasse and Novalistrasse and talked. We went to sit in Oscar Wilde's to kill time. They didn't have Beatles tonight but a good rugby game on the tube. I say good out of coolness but I still haven't got a clue as to how it goes down, just they wear no pads and re psychos. At around 11 we proceeded to the large book store (akin to Fnac in France or Barnes and Nobles) for what we had heard would be a Harry Potter party. We expected people dressed up but there were only people waiting in line. We wandered the floors of the store trying to suggest a book for Rob but he didn't want to spend more than what he had to to get HP7. David and Charlie got on line (queue) and Rob and I went on a coffe run, in the process of which I inhaled a shwarma. Then I walked back here while the others stood on line.
The streets in our neighboorhood are wide and the sidewalks are wide, too. People ride bikes in suits and women in heels or snazzy dress. There is much snazzy dress. There are also many British people, and people walking in and out of places and to other places. It sort of looks the same as in daylight but it's louder.
At this point I don't know what else I can say. The guys got back with their books and are reading them in the kitchen.
Goodnight, old computer
Danny

Prahahahaha

We are in fucking Berlin. Before we were hot dirty and tired and now we're enraged because our Prague blog post got fucking deleted. AAAAArg. ANYWAY
Remember the Boathouse Hostel? We bounced out of that after a night. Here's what went down. As we said we would in the previous post, we went to meet Charlie's cousin Natalie and her friend Tess at their hostel (Condor Hostel). It was a few blocks from the main square in the Old Quarter, the center of the city. Condor's proximity to the main sights (Charles Bridge, Jewish Quarter, other old shit) instantly stripped us of our loyalty to the far and distant Boathouse. On the spot, we made reservations for our second and third nights in Prague.
The six of us proceeded to find an Italian dinner in the Old Quarter. Then we investigated a club called the Roxy. At this point it was eleven, which is European for early. We left and went to a bar called Harley's, which simulated a Hell's Angels hangout, complete with leatherclad bartenders. Nothing much to report here except that a dude jumped up on the bar and mooned everyone for a full two minutes while he signed the wall with his words: "NO PUSSY IS SAFE!" Rob took a picture. At a later hour we went back to see if the Roxy was hoppin. It was. Rob showed off his crazy techno moves. Later on we went to bed.
Our first full day in Prague, we woke up sweating, and continued to do so until bedtime. This sweltering heat sapped our energies and our will to walk around seeing shit. We pushed ourselves for about half a day before we collapsed. We saw Powder Gate, Tyn Church, Municipal House, St. James Church, and Staromestske Namesti. We also went to an exhibition of Salvator Dali. Having knocked off the essential Old Quarter things we went to the Jewish Quarter and saw four synagugoes, a names museum, and the famous Jewish cemetary. It is a rather small plot of land that the Jews had been reusing as a burial ground for centuries; consequently, it was so densely packed with graves upon graves that the tombstones are falling on each other. Very unique. We had lunch at a kosher New York deli to shut David up. He was happy. It felt rather strange to see tourists from various countries buy tickets and check out a synaguoge. I heard a French guy say it was his first time in one.
We walked back to the hostel, extremely tired, but unable to do more work. We would have liked to do more work, but our bodies simply could not take more F delta R. David, Rob and Charlie went to do laundry while I stayed in our room and said, "I'll just take a half hour nap." I woke up THREE HOUrS LATER when they got back. In that time the four of us sweated out all of our water weight.
That night, we once again met up with the girls, had a shitty "authentic Czech" dinner, and went back to our hostel room. We played cards, then went to bed.
On our second full day we told ourselves, "guys, we need to do mad work." We did, indeed, do dumb work. We took a subway to the main train station (Havni Nadrazi) to get tickets and reservations for our train to Berlin. Then we went back to the Old Quarter and walked across the famous Charles Bridge over the Vltava River. The bridge is the oldest of Prague's bridges; both sides feature elaborate statues every dozen feet of various saints and biblical scenes. Twas dank. Over the bridge, we climbed up through the Little Quarter to the Prague Castle, which is actually a large neighborhood in itself. There we checked out the huge St. Vitus' Church, St. Nicholas' Church, the Royal Palace, the Sahov Monastery, St. George's Convent and a really old and scary prison tower/torture chamber. This was all very very interesting and informative. No but seriously, picturesque cobblestone streets and all that, it was pretty dank.
After all this we declared that we had done work and that we were money. So we set ourselves on the path to the Royal Gardens for our afternoon chill sesh. We walked through some tiny streets and wound down a wooded ravine along a stream. So far, very nice. Then we got lost, and had to retrace our steps by stumbling down the steep side of the hill. No big deal. We continued on and passed the Belvedere, which I think was the king's summer palace or some shit. When we finally made it to a nice big green lawn under a tree in the Royal Garden. We got thrown off the grass by a douchebag guard. No worries. We stabbed his brother with an ice pick, and found some benches and read/napped. Later on we walked back down to the Little Quarter and had dinner at the leisurely European pace of two hours.
Once again we headed back to our hostel, met up with the girls, and killed time until midnight when there is, according to Naomi Cohen, a little mechanical show at the big clock tower in the Old Square. We waited. Nothing happened. We cursed out loud with all the other misled tourists. So we went to a bar. It was called U Sudu and several people had mentioned it in a good tone. It took us a while to get there but it was indeed pretty hoppin, with many different "areas", each with its own music and bar. We played a couple of games of foosball while a screen on the wall played an intensely pornographic music video. We left. Some dudes wanted to go to the Roxy so Danny went to bed. Later on everyone went to bed.
We woke up this morning and sweated our way to Holesovice train station. Waiting for the train, David got a Happy Meal. Two really loudly annoying British girls waited next to us and vied for conversation. All we could tell them was "1776, and 1812 bitches."
On the train, we saw that our reserved seats were in the one car without AC. And people were smoking, too. We sweated a lot more. At Berlin's train station named SudKreuz, Danny prematurely hopped off while the others stayed. Oops. We figured our shit out, met again at the Frederichstrasse subway stop, and walked to the Eastener's Hostel. We're now chillin with Tim, who's the man, with whom we had previously made a reservation with while he was riding his bike. Oh, and it also turns out that Natalie and Tess stayed at this hostel too before us: they signed the guestbook! Weird.
So here we are, about halfway done, and anxiously awaiting the release of HP7. Sam, we think your ideas sound pretty good, and we shall see the answer in mere hours. Also, thank you Sam for posting to us, unlike some other people. We are off to dinner, shoutout to Screamin Bob for his awesome comment and words of wisdom. Catch you all later. Yer.

Team America

Look back at Wien

We are now in the Boathouse Hostel in Prague. Actually, just outside of Prague. Actually, a good half hour tram ride outside of Prague. But let's regress to how we got here.
Vienna was quite action packed. We only had two full days there (not counting Danny's first day), so we were very ambitious in our sightseeing. On the first day, we had breakfast at the hostel and set out into Old Town, which is the heart and center of Vienna. To get there we walked down Mariahilferstrasse, which is the main shopping thoroughfare, all the way to the Ring Road, which circles the Old Town. We went on an architectural ecstasy tour: the Hoffburg Palace, about 7 churches, including Stephandsdom, with a very long trek up the South Tower, from which we saw the Vienna skyline. After a pizza lunch and a streetbreakdancing show at the platz, we went to the park behind the Hoffburg Palace. It was your regular park, with trees, lawns, a lake, and a big circle of potheads with four bongs. Welcome to Wien!! It was hot. We chilled in the shade, talked about Harry Potter, and read. The next stop, in the afternoon, was the uberdank Arms and Armour/Musical Intruments exhibition, inside the Hoffburg Palace. That was very very interesting.
Back at the hostel some bros showered, some napped, and all read, save for Rob, who refuses our books. Well he read one chapter but he only looked at the pictures. Anyway, we had dinner around the corner on Mariahilferstrasse, and spent the evening wandering around Old Town. We talked. Eventually Danny needed his Guinness fix so he dragged us on a quest for an Irish pub. We found one called Bockshorn's Irish something and they had pints of the black stuff. They were playing Tenacious D on the PA. We walked back to the hostel and called it a morning.
On Day 2, we planned an elaborate circle around Old Town that stopped at all the places people had forced us to go to [including Steven Roberts' clock museum (what a geek)]. This included: Museumsquartier, Parliament and City Hall, Clock Museum, and Haus der Musik.
We must brag about City Hall. To the common tourist, it is an outstanding piece of neo-Gothic architecture. To us, it was the meeting ground where we found our own Austrian cheerleaders, named Rika, Daisy, and last but not least, my precious, Allina (Danny). They were beautiful! What was actually going on was the final stretch of an international bike race that went right up to City Hall. While we went "backstage" to check out the columns and stone carvings, we found something waaay better: Euro-honeys. We chatted them up, and they recommended we go to Schonbrunn Palace. Of course, we obediently abided. Rob filmed their dance routine. Check Youtube. Just kidding. But we do have the video we're just not sharing it.
Anyway after we finished our museum tour (the Haus was dumb trippy), we took the metro to the Schonbrunn Palace, a sprawling estate complete with gardens, hedgemazes, a zoo, and lots of asian people. It was still pretty hot, but we got some dank-ass views. We ambled back to our little neighborhood via tram, had a delectable kebab dinner and cleansed ourselves at the hostel.
We decided to check out the night scene at the hostel itself this time. In europe some of the hostels have full-fledged bars/lounges within them. Wombats was no exception. We met up with the Brits Danny had befriended on his first night: Laura and Tom, James and Amy, and Katie (the brave single). That whole night was a cultural exchange between the two parties. We taught them thumper, and they taught us fuzzy duck and chinese takeout. We taught them our versions of kings, which they called ring of fire. Stupid foreigners. After a long night, we woke up.
We all expected to be woken up by Danny's watch's alarm sometime after eight. We had a train at ten. To no avail. Luckily Charlie's inner Steve woke him up and said, "hey guys, don't we have that train at ten?". Oops on the alarm. We bought bread and chease at a supermarket and went to Sudbahnhof, quickly. We got on the train. It was hot. We were quite literally sweating buckets and you know how stifling a train can get without proper American AC. We arrived in Prague, but at a station called Liben (pronounced Ribon), way outside of our destination. The train did not move on from there, because, as we found out, a dude had committed suicide by choosing this day to jump in front of a train. This train would not go any further. We took another train to Prague's oldest station.
Here the reality of hostelworld.com's directions crashed down on us: we didn't really know where the hell our hostel was. All we had to go on was a tram stop. Our tram, No. 3, showed up, and Charlie Dave and Rob got on while Danny asked the conductor if it was stopping at our stop, Cerny Kun. It was not. As Danny exclaimed "get off get off get off!", the three stared dumbly while the doors closed on them. Danny thought, "a smart person would get off at the next stop and take the 3 in the opposite direction. I'll just wait for them here." Well, they're smart, and it went down, and we found ourselves following the Vltava River, further and further from the city center. We got off at Cerny Kun, looked around, and said, "where the fuck are we?" Charlie answered, "Buttfuck, Prague". Then we saw the sign for our hostel. We followed the sign. No wonder we couldn't find our street on the map, it doesn't exist! So here we are at the Boathouse, a large, interesting structure with a sausage barbecue going on in the front, and a freezing cold river in the back. You don't know how freaking sweaty we were at this point. Rob and Danny swam in the river, then we all took turns showering naked in the communal shower, while the others stood guard over the curtain. David shaved (sorry Jon) and went through eleven blades, necessitating a slot for used razor blades. What a wolfman.
We had a sausage snack (except for Dave, obviously) to hold us over until we go into the city to have dinner with Charlie's cousin Natalie from Boston and her two friends.
Danny thinks that if you don't want to comment on the blog you don't have to (free choice!!) but everybody else disagrees. So the dudes that aren't commenting better get in line.
Surprisingly, there is very little time to blog, or little downtime at all. We're just always sightseeing!! So we'll probably catch up again in Berlin.
Take it easy,
Team America

Surviving in Vienna/Where's JON?????

This is Danny. That last post from Galway, I thought at that point that was the end of Ireland proper (as in when you give in to events and end up where you didn't expect). You guys remember that girl from the first post on Dublin, who lent me her laptop.. well two weeks later, when I sat down in my hostel in Galway, was her, right there, Desirae!! Weird...!! Anyway the next day she drove me up to Donegal, which is a really dank town. Then from there, I took the bus to Dublin (instead of from a rather boring Galway), wandered in Temple Bar (again more people at night than at noon), and slept and then flew to Paris where my parents fed me well and housed in a posh hotel. Then the next day they sent off, via TGV, to Vienna (with a stopover in Zurich), and I finally arrived, a day (unecessarily) before the three other guys. No worries, I just got a bed in a room full of curious Brits ("does everybody really use those plastic red cups?") and spent the day meandering the Vinna Old Town. Then in the evening I had the emotional reunion with three guys I've know for about 70 lifetimes. But where's that other guy, the goofy one who we all thought for a while had ADD? Dude we think about you and in that way you're here already. Now on to Charlie->
Yer. Now it's the big guy (Charles). David, Rob and I made it to Venice (in case you weren't sure) and enjoyed about a day and a half there. We arrived at about 6 and hung out for a little as we were rather tired. At 8 however, we met up with the girls I had met in Nice. They were slightly surprised that we showed up in Venice(we were slightly surprised about this too) but we ultimately had a fun time with them. We ended up playing pong with this AMerican guy living in Venice. He was a frequent visitor at a bar we were in and set us up with tables, balls and dip cups. we played a couple of games before walking back to our hostel and just barely making our curfew. We, however, were far more punctual for our psycho hostel employees than we are for our parents. The next day we woke up relatively early to get our train tickets. We had to place our bags in lockers at the train station due to the whacky siestas taken by our hostel employees (the hostel completely shuts down from 12 to 3). We then head to San Marco's and checked the important sights in Venice. We also stopped at Harry's Bar which was fun to see, but slightly disappointing since the bar required pants and the restaurant required an outrageous amount of ducats. We had neither pants nor ducats.
In Vienna we arrived at the Sudbahnhof train station, while Danny waited for us at the Westbahnhof train station. By the time he realized the mistake and searched for us at the Sudbahnhof station, we had arrived at the hostel's room already. Whammy. Anyway, thanks to the magical powers of cell phones, we met up with Danny, hugged and walked off towards a greek dinner swapping stories.
Greeting Danny, we were reminded of how much we miss all of you guys back home. Your comments, messages, wall posts, survival kits, books and gifts have kept us well. We really do think about you often.
Honestly,
Team America
Goodnight

Florence Day 2 (and 3)

Yer to all and to all a good yer,

We woke up early yesterday to get on line for Della Academia. While I was in line , I honestly felt like I was basically paying 10 Euro so that all of you wouldn't call us cultureless jerks for not seeing the David. But the museum really lived up to its reputation and was worth both the money and the wait.
Our next stop was the Ufizzi Galeria, a tremendous art museum with an even longer wait. We passed the time by playing the longest game of fuck marry kill that I have ever been a part of (about an hour and a half). Once inside, the mood changed dramatically as we viewed some of the most impressive paintings and sculptures that we have ever seen including Botticelli's The Birth of Venus and The Annunciation.
We decided to check out an old science museum that was right next door to the Ufizzi, hoping for some awesome hands on Schmidt-esque experiments but the climax of the exhibit was actually Gallileo's middle finger that was preserved in a glass jar.
We ate a quick dinner and then went to the Odeon (with every other American in Florence) to see the Order of the Phoenix in English. On our way back to the hostel after the film, Charlie and David took a break from their ferociously deep Harry Potter conversation (which I opted out of thank god) to realize that Alexander Seife and his camp friend were right in front of us walking the other way. They had just arrived from Rome that day and were looking for something to do, so we invited them back to our hostel to chill in the courtyard for a little bit. After about an hour or so of swapping the few Euor-stories that we had we all decided to call it a night and they split.
Today we woke up a little bit later, checked out of the Ostello Archi Rossi and walked across the city to the Synagogue of Florence. Definitely worth the walk.
For future travelers staying here at Archi Rossi, check above room 54... "GET THERE!"

Passionately,
Rob (Charles and Z. Co)