The Past Five Weeks

I've been all over Europe during over the past five weeks or so. I've already written about Paris and Innsbruck. Here's a quick run-down of the rest.

Droste Eurotrip '08

What do you get when a family from Kansas with no one over five-and-a-half feet tall comes to Europe? Good times, that's what. My mom, dad, and sisters all made it over to Europe for a little vacation/sight-seeing/family-visiting excursion.

We started off in Rome, of course. We didn't waste any time. While Mom and Jess were sleeping of their jet lag, Dad, Erin, Tereza, and I walked halfway around Rome, took half a million pictures, and climbed to the top of the tallest church in the world (again...see my photos from "Rome, Italy - Dome of St. Peter's"). Afterwards, Tereza and I formally welcomed them all to Rome with a nice home-cooked Italian dinner in their cozy little apartment. Over the next few days we logged more miles than any of us had in quite some time as we explored Vatican City(including St. Peter's and the Vatican Museums), the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Forums, Sant' Andrea delle Valle, all the major piazzas, and everywhere in between. On Friday, Dad and the girls took a day trip to Assisi and hung with St. Francis while Mom and I stayed in Rome to recharge for a day.

After squeezing la Vita Bella out of Rome, we all flew over to Bad Westerkotten, Germany, to visit the original Drostes. We were greeted by Heinz Droste and his son Ulf, both of whom were big and jolly fellows who spoke broken English. Ulf proceeded to drive my sisters and me across the Autobahn at 220 kph (136.7 mph) in his black Mercedes. Great times. We spent most of our 3-1/2 day stint eating the heartiest meals and drinking the strongest drinks imaginable (Heinz loves Brandy and his 84-year-old relatives love shots of liquor in the afternoon). Heinz took us all around where he lives; we walked around downtown, we explored a park, we visited his cabin in the woods--all beautiful. We even got to visit with some of our other relatives, all of whom stuffed us with cookies and sausage until we thought we would die. Gotta love the Germans...

We all had a great time together in Italy and Germany. My family (myself included) was much more fond of clean, neat, orderly, efficient small-town German life than dirty, noisy, busy, less-than-efficient big-city Roman life. I guess that's just the way things go when you've lived most of your life in rural Kansas with a bunch of descendants of German immigrants. We did, however, have a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I can't wait to go home to be with the rest of my family and friends again.

Dublin, Ireland

I hopped over from Germany to spend a couple days in Dublin, Ireland, to complete my wish list of big European cities to see. It was everything I expected. I unwound at the hostel the first night and woke up the next morning to be surprised by Andrew and Heidi, two fellow arkies who happened to be staying just down the hall. We walked through Trinity College together and saw the Book of Kells, one of the oldest and most beautifully-written Latin copies of the New Testament. I met up with Tereza, Theresa, Ben, Jimmy, and Melia later that day for some more exploration. We toured the Old Jameson Whiskey Distillery and the Guinness Storehouse, both of which were really fascinating. The weather was dreary and blustery, but we managed to explore all around town through various churches, gardens, squares, and pubs. Hanging out with Oscar Wilde in the park was a joy, even if it was miserably wet. We had some great meals and discussion-arguments over dinners, including one where a random Irishman gave one of my fellow travellers some much-needed advice about guessing women's weights. You can imagine your own details. Anyways, I left Dublin full, happy, and certified as a Jameson whiskey taste-tester. Not a bad trip.

Naples & Sicily

Because our three-week Spring Break just wasn't long enough, we went on a ten-day class field trip through Naples and Sicily.

Naples, if you don't already know, is having a little garbage crisis. More specifically, they've run out of room in their landfills and have resorted to piling their garbage in the streets. It stunk. Most of the architecture was pretty interesting and the view of Mount Vesuvius was great, but otherwise, it was pretty much the manifestation of all the things that I don't like about Italy - dirtiness, rude people, horrible drivers, etc.

Sicily, on the other hand, was beautiful. This would be a whole region, not just one city, so it took up the other 8.5 days or so. We visited eleven different cities. Highlights include chilling on a beach and hiking to the top of a mountaintop castle in Cefalu, running through ancient temples in Selinunte, Agrigento, and Segesta, seeing the stars above the ocean in Ragusa, walking through the clouds in the hilltown of Erice, hearing our professor speak Greek at a Greek theatre in Siracusa, and walking by men who were probably in the mafia down at the port in Catania. I took over 1,600 pictures, only 60 of which (5 from each city) made it online for your viewing pleasure. Still, I picked some of the best ones and they tell far more than I'll take the time to write here. Enjoy! (click under "view all my photos" at the right).

New Stuff

New photos (click under "view all my photos")

- Paris, France
- Innsbruck, Austria--Ski Trip
- Droste Eurotrip
- Dublin, Ireland
- Sicily Field Trip

New videos (click under "view all my videos")

- Skiing Above the Clouds 1
...more coming soon...