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