last night

It's our last night in europe, and were soaked to the bone. There's a good reason why ireland is so green, its always raining. After a thoroughly satisfying experience at the guinness brewery, capped off by a pint in their zero gravity, 360 view of Dublin from the 7th floor bar, we found ourselves caught in the rain; and with a 30 minute walk back to the hostel.

After dinner we were going to run out and get some gifts for family and friends and then enjoy one last pint, but by the time we got to the gift store we were soaked through again. Andrew and I went back to pack up, while Adam and Mark went to get their beer. Oh yeah, i forgot to mention that Mark made it safely to us in Dublin this morning, just like we knew he would.

We have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow to start one more long day of travelling. All of us are looking forward to the stars and stripes, but that doesn't take anything away from our experiences in the past month. It has been the experience of a lifetime. The chemistry that the 4 of us have is truely a blessing. To spend every minute together and not have anything close to an argument(while sober) was nice. But we knew that going in.

The trip wasn't without a few minor setbacks and bummers though. We didn't get to see the cliffs of moher in ireland, adam's broken camera, mark's broken videocamera, andrew being sick for two weeks, i left my sunglasses on the night train, having to cut out nice and amsterdam, sitting on trains planes and buses for longer than anyone should ever have to in a month span, the dollar not faring so well over here and of course the john doe episode.

But for every 'bad' thing we experienced in the past month, i feel there were 10 amazing things. Far too many to list right here, right now. And if you asked any of us if we would do it over again, there would be no hesitation; absolutely. I hope that you all have enjoyed the blog, I know that we have enjoyed making it. The blog though doesn't contain everything about the trip. If you want the inside scoop on something, or a host of stories that didn't get up here, just ask one of us! And for those of you that want to keep the memories forever, a DVD will be available shortly for the nominal price of 29.99 euros.

I hope it's a nice day tomorrow because it will be noon for us for about 6 hours as we 'cross the pond'. Ciao!

Some new pics

thats it.

Finding joy in suffering continued...

...sorry i got cut off the internet and couldnt finish what i wanted to say. So it does seem weird to think that that what happened was bad, and on the other hand, that it helped me. What i wanted to say is that even though this was a crappy situation and anyone (even me) would hate to be in this situation, getting a temporary passport, cancelling the credit card, and eventually obtaining a new drivers license coupled with the 'challenge' seemed to help me grow, and so i find joy in that growth, a joy i never want to experience again...haha. That might sound confusing, so simply put-it was a biotch to get all the stuff taken care of, and it is a biotch to figure stuff out when i get back, all in all, it is not so bad, and the experience gives me hope for myself in the future whenever bad things happen again. And thirdly, this will give me one hell of a story to tell, and will give people more amo to tease me with. So, i hope i eased all your worries and i hope that this gives you something to talk about. i am again mark rose.

p.s. i have actually enjoyed brussels, in particular, the waffles and beer. yummy.

cheers,

mark 'john doe no longer' rose

Finding Joy in Suffering

Wow, the experiences i have had the last couple days have been overwhelming and extremely frustrating, but at the same time a well needed experience. Even though i have endured through the long tedious and financially burdening task to recover my identity, i have seen much joy and growth from it. Even though i was unable to retrieve my past belongings, i have obtained a temporary passport. i am coming home. i am no longer john doe any longer, but noneother than mark rose, and that feels really good. what feels even better though is the fact that it gave me a challenge, a challenge i really needed to test my resilience as a traveler and as a human being. thank u for your prayers and support and encouragement. i definately did not like all the hassle of obtaining what i needed, but in a weird way, i felt its what i needed personally.

3/4 in Dublin and one man down in Belgium

Just to let everyone know what's happening Ben, Andrew, and myself made it to Dublin this afternoon after another early morning (we woke up at 5:30 so 4:30 in Dublin and it is now 1:30) to make it out to the airport in time to catch our flight out of Brussels. We said goodbye to Mark who at this time should be in the American Embassy getting a temporary Visa so he can get to Dublin tomorrow around this time and leave with us Wednesday morning back to Chicago. We're hoping that he e-mails us or leaves a message with us at the hostel on what's going on with him back in Belgium.

So with one man down we are going to lay low today, I'll probably go to the Hard Rock so my Dad can have a pilsner glass, and who knows what else we'll do. Guiness brewery is tomorrow which should be fun, the Guiness over here is very delicious. Thanks Greg for the last comment, but due to circumstances we really didn't get to try much Belgian beer which is a shame, the shops on the streets had 350 different kinds to try. We are all looking forward to coming home in a few days. We'll update about Zippy when we know, or he will if he feels the need or finds the time.

Paris, Brussels and One Lost Passport

So we are in Brussels, which to those of you who don´t know where that is it is in Belgium. We are facing a small crisis as Mark has misplaced some things, most importantly his passport. But to you moms out there who are worried we have everything under control. We have contacted the US Embassy and the Belgian Police. We believe a train station in Amiens France most likely has it we just face the problem of getting back there since Mark is a temporary John Doe.

Crisis aside, Paris was awesome. We had bad weather our first day and were limited to what we could do but we had decent weather that evening and saw the Arc de Triumph, walked down the Champs Elysess, saw our first glimpses of the Eiffel Tower and had a nice french picnic in the park with wine and all, you can drink where ever you want. The next day was our D Day beaches excursion which we wrote about, very powerful.

We then had to squeeze everything else into Friday and Saturday morning. We saw the Palace of Versailles, the Sacre Cour, Notre Dame and the Louvre on Friday. Saturday on another gloomy day we went to the top of the Tower, very high.

It then took us approx six hours to get here to Brussels. First impressions are good, the town seems very modern but I kind of like my so far limited view of it. Today will be spent figuring out the passport situation, taking the edge off with THE BEST BEER IN THE WORLD, and shopping for Belgian chocolates for all of you back at home.

We are all looking forward to seeing you all soon.

Peace, Love
The Boys

Omaha Beach

yesterday we made it to omaha beach. this is the one where the majority of americans died on dday, ie saving private ryan, that should give you a visual. although the actual beach looks nothing like that now. all of the german defences have been removed. there is the american cemetary on top of the hill where all of the americans who were killed while fighting in normandy(the particular region of france) are buried. there are of course several memorials. The whole thing was very surreal and left us kind of speechless. on the trip i had read a book full of accounts of men who were there that day and ... well im not sure what else there is to say. its things like this and auschwitz that remind us how much bigger life is than our day to day worries.

Today we are doing the eiffel tower and notre dame etc and then in the rest of the days we will be in brussels, amsterdam and finally dublin. take care

Bon Jour!
we are right now in paris. barcelona was very interesting. when we got there 24hrs of train later, they were out of hostels...we had cancelled our reservations a day before because we thought we werent gonna get there, but then we decided cause we had heard a lot about it...anyways we ended up having to get two rooms at a hotel for 50 bucks a person...ouch but better than on the street. we got some good spanish food, tapas, basically potatoes, but they were good, plus some other food. then we had about 24 hrs to blitzkrieg the city, like with ,any other cities before getting on our last night train to paris. barcelona was nice but like many places, i feel we didnt spend enough time to fully appreciate it.

so now we are in paris, back on schedule, and it is raining very hard. hopefully the weather will get better. tomorrow we are hopefully going to the dday beaches. this euro,keyboqrd is annoying me noz so im done typing;

goodbye;

quick update

just a quick update to let you all know that we are still alive and our current plans.

we blitzkrieged rome, doing just about everything i could think of in not quite two days. it was very good to be back after two years, so many great memories. We can tell you all about it later but here are some highlights; in addition to all of the normal tourist sights we had some great italian food, wine and gelato, I saw a friend from when i studied there(Flavio), and we found an irish pub where we watched the brewers one night.

Then we went to florence and stayed at camping michelangelo...thats another post in itself.

Yesterday we hiked cinque terre...again like the castle google it and look at the pictures...amazing!

Now we have to change our plans a bit. we found out that what we originally wanted to do is not quite feasable so we have to cut nice out in order to salvage barcelona. so today and tomorrow we will be on trains from about noon till 2pm...5 different trains in all and then spend the better part of 2 days in barcelona before heading to paris. we will try to blog more soon.

Our hearts and prayers are with the victims of the bridge collapse and their families!
Ciao!

20 hours of train riding, 1 hour of hiking, and one broken camera landed us in Roma!

As you can tell by the title we have been on a train for basically all of yesterday. We got on the wrong train in the morning which turned out to be a 3 hour delay in our Alps hiking adventure. By the time we finally made it to Zurich we had 10 minutes to make reservations for the night train and get on a train to go to Goschenen to hike. Its a good thing the Alps were amazing! The cities and villages were built into the mountains and the trains went through tunnel after tunnel right through the mountains. The lakes looked like blue toothpaste and there were green trees everywhere. You can also tell by the title that I broke my camera which makes me pretty upset. I dropped it on a rock and now it won't close so i don't know if i can post more pictures, I do know i can't take anymore pictures so it is up to Swan to capture our trip from here on out.

We are now in Rome at a laundromat picking up our dirty clothes and checking into our hostel. We had some pizza already and will be heading out into the heat of the day to see all that is Rome. We have our own personal tour guide in Ben so it should be great. Talk to you all later.

Many thanks to the Stoetzel family!

To Emma, Vincent, and Daniel, Merci Merci! To the rest of you the Stoetzel family made our time in Strasbourg very comfortable as well as fun and relaxing. We got into Strasbourg around 6 oclock i believe and we had no clue who we were looking for, but thanks to this blog site Emma and Vincent were able to flag us down. We got back to Daniel's home which was very beautiful and had happy hour filled with conversation about the family as well as differences in our cultures. Everyone spoke very good English and it was fairly easy for us to communicate with one another. We tried some desperado beer, which is similar to Tequiza here, beer with tequila. After happy hour, we (minus Daniel) went to a French Restaraunt which Swan labeled as a French Applebees. We tried traditional french food and our marvelous hosts paid for our meal which was entirely unnecessary. After dinner Andrew needed to go home due to still feeling under the weather. Mark, Ben, Vincent and myself went to a bar for a beer........sorry i don't remember the names! Emma came back to get us and bring us home to sleep.

Our next day was filled with relaxation, sitting around the pool and playing pingpong for almost the whole day. It was exactly what we needed, as 2 of us had been sick and I was feeling a bit run down as well. Emma's friend Lollita (sorry if i mispelled that) came over as well. At 8 it was time for a home cooked french meal which lasted 3 hours and took 4 bottles of wine, i'm not much of a wino but these were delicious. The meal consisted of: tabouli, a tomato and cucumber salad, and sausages. Then we had french fries (pommes), and steak. Then the red wine came out with the traditional french cheeses and bagettes. Ben is obsessed with bagettes and has already eaten about 3 whole loaves. The meal ended with cantelope, and needless to say I was stuffed. But more than the food, the conversation was very fun and we really got a taste of French culture and in my opinion one of the best days of our trip thus far. After dinner we went to a karaokee bar (minus Andrew) where Mark sang Beat it, and Ben bellted out It's my life. We stayed out until 3 am drinking and dancing. That would have been fine but we were to be up at 7:30 to head out of town.

Once again we thank you Stoetzel's, you are more than welcome to come visit us in Wisconsin!!

Prague and Neuschwanstein Castle amazingly beautiful, night trains not so much

Before i get into the beauty of the city of prague and the neuschwanstein castle, i must discuss the long and interesting night trains. The first night train from krakow to prague consisted of the four of us stuffed in a compartment, where we schemed for any potention pickpocketing threats-basically locking all of our bags, and adam acting all tough, guarding the door-and how we were going to get some sleep. These non-reclining seats were very uncomfortable and it gave us some trouble sleeping-even me, rip vanwinkel. There was even supposed to be room for four more people in this compartment, but we contended on grabbing the first compartment available, closing the blinds, and pretending to fall asleep which pretty much told people ``we dont want you hear`` in a friendly, non-threatening way. The second night train, which was from Prague to Munich, was almost as uncomfortable-but there were reclining seats, so it helped to sleep a little more. There was some old German lady who yelled at us for being too loud at 8pm and we werent even being loud, and we also got moved once as well. So, night trains, not number 1 on our list right now, but power naps and our ambitious hearts help keep us going.

Along with Krakow, Prague is another very lively, beautiful city-in my opinion, the most beautiful city we have been to-with its beautiful buildings, facades, and bridges, it is hard to beat the city scenary of Prague. The first night, we hung out at the old towne square-like Krakow-and just chilled, drank some beers, and enjoyed the great atmosphere of the square. Following that, we headed to the Prague Castle-which i believe is the biggest castle in middle europe?-and got an awesome night view from the top, in which you can see the whole city. breathtaking. The next day, we had a free, 4 hour Prague tour-woohoo-which was nice because of the buildings we saw and the cost of the tour. You will hopefully get to see pictures of St. Charles Bridge-arguably the most famous bridge of europe-and hundreds of beautiful building, churches, paintings, facades-gorgeous. Next, following our nighttrain from prague to munich, we decided to head to neuschwanstein castle right away.

Neuschwanstein, which is replicated in disney world and i believe the castle in cinderella, was made for the view it displayed-which was freaking breathtaking. In the background were the northern part of the alps, and i a lot of beautiful trees and lakes. We also got tours of that castle and another older castle which definately made more gruling train travel time worth it.

We are in Munich right now, tired and possibly sick, but that wont stop us. We are heading to the Hofbrauhaus tonight for some german beers and awesome huge pretzels, and then tomorrow, make our way to strausbourg, france, which we will visit some of my relatives-that will be a nice visit. Until then, hope these blogs are a good and interesting read and we look forward to all your comments. aufwiedersehen.

mark

Anna, Remembering Aushwitz, and Our First Night Train Experience

Hello Hello- First of all, the speedo is black and it is very tight-kind of uncomfortable, but definately worth the purchase. But most importantly, Krakow in my opinion, has been quite wonderful-more particuarly because of the great atmosphere and beautiful women. I met this girl named Anna who gave us great service, some nice activities to attend to, but most importantly, set a spark in the ´flame´.

Moving on to Aushwitz, this place set a different tone, a different mood within all of us. Although the history of this death/concentration camp-the biggest camp in the war-was interesting and intriguing, it definately gave us a chance to contemplate what those people went through in such a magnifying way. You could just feel the difference in the air you breathed, the steps you walked on, the death cells you saw, the gas chambers and the exhibits you experienced. It is hard to put into words what you felt and how to rate the experience you had because it was so surreal and yet so impacting. We definately appreciate what we saw and it will always be a trigger to come back to whenever we feel alone, or complaining, or we feel like we lost out, because we will not be as down as those people were in the camps.

We next hit the night train to Prague, which was a long and interesting experience, but yet a great adventure nonetheless. This, and our tour of Prague which we will have today, will be told when we reach Munich tomorrow. Cheers to all those who are finding excitement and joy and hope in our adventure. thanks

Mark Who?
The Flame

Thanks, some thoughts and a quick funny story

So I know its been a while since i've blogged, but thats cause the freedom from technology has been so relaxing...

..anyways, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for all of your birthday wishes and prayers, they are truely apprecaited and i feel so blessed to have som many amazing people in my life who truely care for me like you all do. On trips like this i find that it reall opens your eyes to the rest of the world. in the US we live in such a bubble and our society is so self centered it soemtimes sickens me, but that is for another blog.

my birthday was uneventful. we spent from noon til midnight travelling. the bus out of london was stop and go traffic for over an hour, just to get out of the city. and then waiting in lines at the airport for 3 hrs due to a delay. and then the flight and trying to figure out where our hostel in krakow was and how to get there at 11 at night when we can't even pronounce, let alone understand, any polish...but thats really fine with me. i dont know why but ive come to not like the attention and expectations that come with birthdays. it seems like our society places so much pressure on 'having a good day' and 'getting what you want' on your birthday. but i think that is only setting ourselves up for dissapointment because its really no different than any other day, and on any given day we could get what we want or not get what we want; we could have a 'good' day, we could have a 'bad' day. but again i digress as this is not what this blog is for.

that said, we are headed to auschwitz soon. but before the mood gets quite sullen i'd like to share a quick funny story.

monday when we were going through security at the airport in london, the buzzer went off on the items that mark had on him which he had placed in the bucket and then on the conveyor belt. well if you remember from earlier, mark bought a speedo. what you may not know is that he has been carrying it around with him in the pocket of his jacket since he bought it. so when i saw that the security woman was going to go through all of his stuff in front of him cause they thought he had a sharp object, i grabbed adam and we watched from a distance...watching...waiting...hoping...sure enough she strated checking the pockets on his jacket and when she came to the one with the speedo in it...oh man, priceless. i only wish i knew what she was thinking...haha

Pictures Round 2 (DWA)

Heres a few more pictures for you to check out, we'd post more but it takes forever to transfer them on these computers for whatever reason. Enjoy!

Wow, I could really come back here...for a while

Krakow is a gorgeous, old city city. Not to be cliche but you can "feel" the history in it's stones and buildings. We took a walking tour of the city today, it cost us 42 zoltys which is approximately 17 dollars for a three hour tour with our own guide, well there were 3 other people on it but close enough. Our tour guide Lukas, who looked just like Adam and Andrew's friend Timmy Smith, was very knowledgeable and shared a lot of very interesting information with us. The city has a center square which is a great place to sit and have a few Zywiec and Warka, Polish beers, and watch the world go by. We all really wish we had similar places in the states to enjoy but I guess thats what makes Europe so special to us Yankees. Poland has been the most friendly place we have been, at least in my opinion, the people are willing to share their language with you and more than willing to give you their opinions. I really wish we could stay here more than two days the city is gorgeous and it feels like we have stepped back into time. Tomorrow we are going to Auschwitz for a 6 hour tour, which cost us 80 zolty. And despite our American jokes about Polish people, they are very intelligent, politics, history, language its amazing. We appreciate all your comments, keep them coming, we love reading them. Peace out.

-The Fab Four

Wake up in London, 18 hours later being followed in a grocery store by some Polish police guy

Hello everyone from Krakow Poland, where we are no longer on the pound and we can no longer speak the native language. Even our blog site is in weird letters like.......Zamieszczanie postow??????? Anyways we made it finally to Poland after a long day of travel that started out in London and a 2 hour bus ride to Stansted a 3 hour wait to get on the plane, 2 hours plane ride, an hour waiting for a bus in the middle of Poland and a 15 minute walk to the Hostel. We went to a grocery store where I couldn't tell you anything name wise, and we were followed like hawks by a police man. Then when we checked out the loaf of bread didn't register so the guy just gave us a different one, not nearly as tasty looking. But its now a 7 hour time difference making this post at 1:15 in the morning, thank goodness we don't have to be up early.

But i bet you want to hear about London. In a nutshell we saw: the London Bridge, Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Trafalgar's Square, Piccadily Circus, rode around on the tube, Big Ben and Parliament at night, The London eye and Millennium Bridge at night, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, The changing of the guard, walked down the Mall, St. James Park. I think thats it, all in less than 24 hours. Needless to say we are tired and excited for our next adventure. Talk to you soon!

Did Mark put on his Speedo and swim with Nessie?????

The answer to the question above is no, but we were traveling around the Scotish Highlands today, which was absolutely amazing. Although it was a tad chilly.......around 50 degrees we were all in awe with the beauty of the highlands. Our tour bus left Edinburgh at 8 am and we made a few quite a few stops along the 375 mile tour. We saw Hemish, the mascot of a tiny village of Glencoe, which is a Highland cow with huge horns and really long hair.

After our visit with the cow we went up into the highlands which is a small mountain range with brilliant green countryside and hundreds of rushing waterfalls. Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Scotland, all of the UK acctually, was clouded over which added to its awe in my opinion. We had some lunch in Fort Williams and headed up to Loch Ness which is the place we have all heard of. It was awesome being there and seeing just how beautiful it is, rather than thinking of Nessies and watching for the monster.

After the Loch, Andrew and Zippy took the boat tour for an hour, and no zippy did not put on the speedo or swim with Nessie. We stopped for dinner in a tiny little city, i can't remember the name at this time but we had some fish and chips which were tasty. We got back to Edinburgh around 8:30 pm our time so 2 :30 back home where we snuck some wine into the hostel.........shhhhh its illegal and would have gotton confiscated. Now we are in the commons area enjoying a Carling beer before we take showers and pack up so we will be ready for our train ride to London in the morning. Hopefully it won't rain, although it has been raining alot down south of us.....we have been as far West (Dingle), and now North (Inverness/Loch Ness) as we will be. That's all from us for now, much love and we'll talk to you as soon as we can.

Pictures!!!

Here's some pics of our travels thus far.......tell us what you think

Edinburgh...yeah

Wow my feet are really tired...we had to have walked like 10 miles today. We just got back from touring the city of Edinburgh, its amazing. The focal point is Edinburgh Castle which has loomed, good word, over the city for nearly 1000 years. While it is not all original it offered the 'fab four', our nickname from our free Ireland tour great views of the city. The tour of the castle took about 2 hours and then we made our way down the Royal Mile. Filled with tourist shops, kilt stores and shops galore it is the center of the Old Town and tourism in Edinburgh. We then made our way tour Hollyrood Park. Now this is no Park like we have in the states. Its the remains of a prehistoric volcano with a peak close to 750 feet tall, with breathtaking views of Edinburgh, its suburbs, the North Sea and the countryside beyond the city. It was kind of a hike to get there, well at least for me, the others seemed to have no problem. But the end was worth all that work and we were treated to the astounding view. We took the normal shots, including the 'cheesy lets all look away from the camera' pose, which I do have to say always look cool. After our descent we were nearly eaten alive by a mob of Swans and Geese but were saved by Adam bravely charging through the middle of them to our rescue. We are now getting ready to enjoy our tasty lasagna from Lidl and relax as it has been a very long day and we have an even longer one tomorrow as we are heading to the home of Nessie and Braveheart, The Highlands. Thanks for all your comments its nice to have a little bit of home. Talk to you all later.

Lidl you ask?

Two posts in one day, whats up with that. Anyway we made it to Edinbugh, which is sweet.....the streets have really tall buildings that are all connected. We will be sightseeing tomorrow. The only bummer is now we're on the flipping (like that mom) pound which sucks. Our hostel is in an old church, with some dry walls thrown up in the middle like little cubicles and we stare up into the top of an old church, pretty wild acctually. We were pretty hungry....imagine that......so we went to this little grocery store called Lidl's.....mom you would have loved it. It was a german Aldi, haha. We made tacos, bought ice cream, and breakfast for tomorrow for £4 a piece which isn't bad.

Its pretty cold around here though, my baldness does not do good in the wind, i may need a stocking cap. It was sad to say goodbye to Ireland which was awesome, thats right brooke i'm Irish :) Hey chad, you'll have to tell the guys at work there were these little concrete trucks everywhere but they were funny looking, i took a picture. Well we are wishing everyone well, there is a USB port on this computer so next time I log in i will post a couple of the pictures we have taken if thats possible. It's like 10 oclock now so i think we're going to run around the city a little bit.........Adios

We Did Start the Fire

So it's been a few days sice we were able to find the internet, but right now adam and i are sitting in the public library in limerick. Let us catch you up to speed a bit.

The first day nothing too exciting happenned, we just kinda spent the evening exploring cork and eating some authentic irish food till the jetlag caught up to us and we crashed. The next morning is when the fun began. We took a bus out to blarney to see the castle and so that adam could accomplish his #1 goal of kissing the stone. Andrew wasn't gonna do it but we talked him into it. Then we were set to take a bus to the dingle penninsula and the randy leprechaun, but before we got on the bus mark had to make a quick pitstop to buy a speedo! Andrew kept complaining that he hated carrying all this change and we found out he had about $40 in coins in his pocket.

Anyways, we had another long bus ride to the small town of annascaul or something like that where we stayed at 'the randy leprechaun' hostel. And yes, like the name implies it was quite the adventure. In our room with us there was some horny, 40 year old french couple. Everytime we came into the room they were pretty much making out. We cooked some pasta then went to the bar attached to the hostel. It was karaoke night!!! It only took andrew 5 pints of guinness to work up the courage to sing 'we didn't start the fire'. Andrew and i sang 'sweet home alabama'. The Flame(mark) was somewhat of a dissapointment, he sat next to some australian girl all night and didnt talk to her, but he says it wont happen again ;)

Andrew's performance led to a conversation with phil, a tour guide who happenned to be stopped there for the night with his travelers. Phil said he had extra room and invited us to come along in the morning. So we hopped on with the random people from, pennsylvania, australia, new zealand, south africa and others and went on an amazing tour of the dingle penninsula, for free! All because of Andrew's bertiful singing.

Then we caught another bus back to limerick where we got some awesome chinese food at 'shamrock chinese restaurant'. Today we were going to try to get to the cliffs of moher, but it just didnt work out with the timing. We fly to edinburgh, scotland in a few hours. Also adam told me to add that we shaved his head bald last night and not to worry brooke cause he's still just as sexy. Mark also shaved his mohawk, but i think im gonna keep mine a few more days. Cheers!

The Eagle has Landed

So 24hrs after leaving madison we have arrived safely in Cork Ireland. It started with a 3 hr bus ride to chicago, sitting at the airport for a few hours, then a 2 hr flight to Newark, followed by a 6 hr flight to dublin and finally a 4 hr bus ride to cork...of which Mark slept for about 20 hrs. It seemed like everytime we turned our back he was out cold. Anyways, it's time for a Guinness!

We're Off!

Hey Everybody, we are sitting in Memorial Union at UW waiting for our bus to pick us up and take us to Chicago O'Hare where we will get on our flight this afternoon at 5pm and head to Newark, New Jersey before we skip over the big puddle and land in Dublin at what will be 3:30 am here. Zippy definitely didn't start packing until 9:45 this morning complete with two pieces of leapord print. It's going to be a long day with about 16 hours of traveling in front of us. We'll keep you all posted! Take care.

Shout out to our fans...

Now that we are about to embark on our international tour we would just like to take this opportunity to thank all of our fans out there. We certainly couldn't do this without all of your love and support. We are very excited to get into some random European adventures, and also excited to be able to tell you about it! So sit back, relax and enjoy!

less than 10 days!!!

holy crap, we have less than 10 days!!!! are you boys gettin pumped??? I almost got everything ready, just need my mohawk and a speedo, which are probably the least of my worries, but they are essential. Is there anything else we need to setup? When you boys getting down here? Ready to be rocked...

Specifics

Okay so I was reading and I guess at a lot of places you can preorder tickets...for example the Louvre in Paris. With preordered tickets you do not have to wait in line. Does anyone else want to go there? Would this be of interest to us? Also I found the night train route from Krakow to Prague,it leaves Poland at 10 and gets into Prague at like 7 in the morning and its non stop, we cannot purchase the tickets online, at least I haven't found a place to do that yet. I also looked into Edinburgh to London going to cost us around 80 bucks a head. Getting jacked up here in La Crosse!!!

1 Month From Today

According to my calendar it is June 15th which means we'll be in Chicago in exactly one month. WOO HOO. What else do we have to plan before we get over there?? a couple train tickets from Edinburgh to London and from Krakow to Prague, right? anyways just thought i'd point out we're a month out. Talk to you guys later.

that thing we do...

i think it would be cool if we did something, always the same thing, in every country, or maybe city, that we visit. this could be anything from eat at mcdonalds or help mark get some local girl's number/e-mail or get our picture taken in front a sign with the name of the place. just something consistant to say that we did such and such in x number of countries, ya know. what do you think?

galaxy backpack

Just got the new backpack from REI!!! It rocks and I can't wait to hike the swiss alps with this bad boy. Definately the pocket for the water resovoir (or flask) and the 'whistle' are key essentials that make the backpack a sweet deal. thanks wert.

relatives in Strasbourg

Yes! I talked to my cousin, Emmanuelle, and she says that we could possibly stay with them and she is excited for us to come. So, we need to plan for Strasbourg then.

unnecessary items to bring

lets list some of the unnecessary items we are bringing:

-i've got the video camera and a speedo (preferably leopard print) so far

I think this is an awesome idea. It should be easy enough for us to keep it updated for all of those interested because most of the hostels now have free internet access. 8 weeks from yesterday!

sounds like a wiener

this sounds good, i like the idea. people will learn to fall in love with us. europe is going to rock and i can't wait for my mohawk.

Our way to communicate this summer

Hey Swan, Zippy, Ben I thought I'd create a blog site we can all use while we're overseas to communicate with friends/family/whoever is bored and wants to read about me and zippy spooning underneath the stars in some random country. So yeah I figure we can also get used to it before we leave and post some planning instructions and make it an easy way to get this trip solidified up, considering we have two months to get it all figured out. Aight homies, let me know if you like this or not.