THE RHINE & ROTHENBURG- After arriving in Cologne we took a train down to Koblenz and hopped on a ferry there to cruise down the Rhine River. IT was beautiful, with castles and small towns dotting the hills on either side of the river. We got off at Bacharach and took the train into Mainz, where I bid farewell to Brett and Scotty and embarked on my solo mission for the next month, eventually to arrive at home on September 29th. In Mainz it rained the rest of the day so I just stayed at my hostel. The next day as i was leaving for Rothenburg, I noticed a frisbee golf course and played a quick game before heading to the train station.

Rothenburg is a medieval city, complete with a wall all completely encircling it. Although pretty much everybody there is a tourist, it is beautiful and gives you real sense of what those old towns looked like. The wall had a little area on it where you could walk, so I walked around the whole town. I had a pretty good lachmajun (turkish pizza) for dinner and then hung out in the hostel because it was raining again. The next day I headed for Lake Konstanz to meet up with Stephanie Philp.

DENMARK & SWEDEN- We arrived in Denmark in the late afternoon. Brett and scotty took a night train to Stockholm, but I stayed in Copenhagen overnight. I went to a summer fair/ Knott's Berry Farm sort of thing, which was pretty fun. After that I walked around town a bit and then headed off to bed. The next day I was going to try and see Jonathan Winder and Pepperdine play some volleyball in Odense, but it ended up not working out. I left for Stockholm and met up with the guys there as well as Matt again. The next morning, we gave ourselves a walking tour of the town before ending up in Sweden's version of the old Williamsburg town, except this one had a zoo and a smalltime production of Swedish Idol going on. It was a surprisingly cool place. We watched some Sweden league soccer before heading back to our hotel room to watch tv and go to bed. The next day Matt headed north for the Arctic circle, and we went to Copenhagen and then took a night train to Cologne, Germany.

BERLIN- I wasn't sure what to expect heading into Berlin. We stayed three nights there. The second day we took a bike tour and that gave us a good feel for the city. most of the stuff there had all been rebuilt from WWII. The Berlin wall and Checkpoint Charlie were probably some of the highlights because that was something that was happening in my own lifetime! The Reichstag (parliament) building was cool because it has this sweet glass dome that you can go up into and get great views of the city. We stayed in what was part of East Berlin. To eat we had mostly Kebabs, and I also had some Turkish pizza, which is basically the same as Armenian pizza. It was a fun city, but it is so huge it's hard to feel like you've seen it. We also saw where Hitler's bunker was, and also a really cool Holocaust memorial.

AMSTERDAM- We arrived and Amsterdam near noontime and bumped into Wes and Ryan at a restaurant. We said our goodbyes and then Wes headed back to London, and soon, home. Matt had decided to go to the Rhine Valley instead and I fear we may not see him until his trip is over. After we checked in we headed for the Heineken Brewery. It was cool to be doing the same very thing that my Dad did over 30 years ago. We had dinner at a British sports pub of some sort, where we watched some English Football and a Red Sox-Yankees game. That night Brett, Scotty, and I headed to the Red Light district and straight back home to bed.

The next day was Sunday, and seeing how I hadn't been to a church service yet on this trip, I decided to get up early and go to Church. It was a Reformed church in English with a Scottish Pastor. After church, I met up with Ryan at the Anne frank Museum. It was a chilling but good exhibit. On our walk back we stopped for some Dutch pancakes. It had been raining pretty hard the whole morning, so after being repeatedly soaked we decided to just stay in the hostel for a while and watch tv. We did this until dinner, got food, and then came back and did it again until we went to bed.

The next morning we saw Ryan off and then I took a short train to Haarlem to see the "The Hiding Place". Of course it ended up being closed but I still had fun walking around the city. We had more rain, so we didn't do much the rest of the day. Brett had been sick during most of this time as well. The next day we took the train to Berlin.

PRAGUE- When you go into something that has been overhyped, it is often bound to let you down. Prague had been hyped up by so many people that when I got there I felt somewhat unimpressed. I had heard it was beautiful because it didn't really get touched by WWI & II, but every other city that did get bombed had been rebuilt to look like it was before. Instead of griping about it, I decided to remove all expectation and re-enter the city with a clean slate.

I took the bus from Vienna and arrived at night. I found the hostel, Brett, and Scotty, and headed to bed. The other guys were enjoying their last night in Prague and then headed for Berlin. Scotty and Brett were extremely tired from their excursion in Poland and decided that we should sleep in. With out a second thought, I complied. After waking up late, we ate at some local Czech fast food place where we pointed at what looked good. I had something like a schnitzel with potato salad. We then decided to take a stroll around town to no particular place at all. We covered most of the old town area on the east side of the river and then stopped for a beer at a lovely place with a commanding view of the famous Charles Bridge. We figured we'd sampled enough of the local cuisine at lunch and decided on Italian for dinner. We ended up having this great meal for only like 5 bucks. If you avoid the touristy places, Prague can be very cheap. There are MANY tourists however, and therefore many touristy places. Following dinner, we eventually made our way back to the hostel and then off to bed.

The hostel that we stayed in, Sir Toby's, has a German history professor who stays in the dorms there all summer and then gives tours of Prague during the day. He is very much the definition of an oddly humorous, eccentric professor. We decided to take his tour and ended up enjoying it very much. We learned a lot of history that we didn't know, and were able to sneak by most of the herds of touristsas we went. That night we tried to go out and experience Prague's nightlife, but ended up running into long lines, expensive covers, and disagreements about where we should go, and so ended up walking home earlier than we expected.

After checking out we left our bags at the hostel to go explore the castle as well as the cathedral inside its walls. The cathedral was huge and had a big tower that we climbed for great views of the city. The tower climb however was one of the worst experiences on the trip. It was a very narrow, circular staircase with hundreds of stairs to the top, with both the line going up and down at the same time. Needless to say it was a very hot and claustrophobic experience. After the descent, we decided we had seen enough of the city and went and saw Pirates of the Caribbean at the local theatre. It was in English of course, with Czech subtitles. It was a very nice theatre and a good way to get lost in something "American" for a little while. After the movie we grabbed our bags and headed for the station for a night train to Amsterdam.

VIENNA- I went to Vienna alone but luckily met some nice Aussie girls who I ended up hanging out with that night as well as the next morning. We saw a lot of the famous buildings there, including Mozart's apartment and the Opera House, had a good meal of wiener schnitzel, and ended up going salsa dancing at night. The next day I went to the Schonnbrum Palace, which is their version of Versailles, and it was really beautiful. I really enjoyed Vienna more than I thought it would, and now am off on a bus to Prague to meet up with the other guys.

BUDAPEST- We had to take an all day train to Budapest because the night train we wanted was sold out. It was a long ride especially with the teenagers who were smoking and drinking in the aisleways. As we were getting there we discovered there was a huge music festival going on, and I ended up going (by myself, cause no one else wanted to) on the second night and seeing Radiohead for like 30 bucks, which was amazing! We did a lot of sightseeing also our second day. Brett and Scotty left for Krakow and the other three went on to Prague. I stayed an extra night to try and see more of the city. I went to a hungarian bath, which was a beautiful place, but an interesting experience as well.

MÜNICH- We got into munich in the early afternoon and decided to take a Mike's Bike Tour. It was a pretty sweet tour and we learned a lot about the city. The only bad thing is that it was raining half the time. Some highlights are a stop at a beer garden, and also at a standing wave at the river that runs through town. Later on that night, we went to the Hofbrauhaus. The next day we went to Dachau, the Nazi labor camp. IT was a pretty chilling experience seeing some of the things that those people went through, and even standing in the gas chambers. We got some authentic Bavarian food that night as well. The next day, Matt, Scotty and Brett went to see Neuschwanstein (the disneyland castle), while Wes, Ryan and I slept in and walked around town a bit, before being rained out of the Third Reich Tour that we wanted to attend. We played it cool that night in order to prepare for our early train to Budapest.

INTERLAKEN, SWITZERLAND- It was a long but amazing train ride into switzerland. The Alps are truly beautiful. The only bummer was that it was cloudy and rainy the whole time. We stayed in Balmer´s hostel which was a fun one. On the second day we rented scooters and little cars and drove around to a few more towns near Interlaken. The 3rd day we were supposed to go canyoning but it rained too much so it got canceled.

INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA- After Interlaken we headed to Innsbruck in search of better weather. It was a little better but still rainy with the clouds covering up part of the view of the Alps. We went to the Olympic ski jump and got some great views of the city. Besides that, we just ate Bratwurst and hung out.

THERE AND BACK AGAIN- After Cinque Terre the guys headed to FLorence and I went back to Rome to hang with Joe for another night, and also to check out a free concert. It was Bryan Adams (Summer of 69) and Billy Joel. They played a free concert right in front of the Coliseum! It was a pretty awesome experience and we were there with 10s of thousands of others too.

I went back to Florence again for a few days to actually do some sightseeing. We saw the famous David statue among other things. Next stop: Switzerland.