Electronic Internets Bloggings

Back Home...

2007-09-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

Got back to Seattle today and it feels good to be back. I have four days to download to catch up on all of my DVR shows and rest up before starting work on Monday.

One loyal reader who also happened to be in an awesome rock band in college told me that I needed to publicize my blog. I was thinking about it, but luckily I was just walking across the beach in Greece and saw it written in the sand. Weird. I guess since I'm already famous throughout Europe, it's only downhill from here. Oh well, it's been a good ride. Hope you enjoyed it. See you on the various electronic internet friends sites.

Hey, Look Someone from Law School

2007-09-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

Athens, Greece -

After I posted my "last" entry, I was walking down the street to get some food and ran randomly into everyone's favorite mad scientist Rhys. Had a lovely drink at a fancy hotel where we were very underdressed with Rhys and Brooke and then called it a trip. A nice to end to see some familiar faces at the end of the trip.

And no, the back of my hand is not stuck inside Brooke's head. I don't know where it is. At least I'm wearing a backpack like every single other picture.

Funny Signs

2007-09-11T03:42:00.000-07:00

1: Yield to headless workers with stick thingys...

2: Gross.

3: Sign from the ferry in Greece. Look closely.

4: Not sure if this is what to do with your baby in an emergency or just if they won't stop crying. Seems a little cruel. From the flight to Croatia.

5: No matter what you do, don't you DARE hold your kid's hand. Don't even think about it. Either that, or it's a no-family zone period.

6: This is apparently the area to balance little people on top of your tennis racket or huge thing you blow bubbles out of.

It's Fun to Stay at the...

2007-09-11T03:21:00.000-07:00

Mykonos, Greece - After a few days on Santorini, Hedge and I headed to Mykonos to meet up with Jeff. Mykonos has a reputation for being THE island for gay tourists. I would have to say I agree. While eating lunch on our first day, Hedge and I were sitting at a litle cafe. Some other dude comes to sit down one table over. I didn't really pay attention, but a minute later I see Hedge staring at the ground with a funny look on his face. Turns out the minute this guy sat down, his packet of condoms (unused, importantly) fell onto the ground. The guy didn't notice and eventually a waiter came over, wrapped them in a napkin and threw them away. We had been on the island less than an hour. Wow.

A few guys wer walking around in basically just hanes tighty whiteys. And walking around that night, the first song we heard was "Y.M.C.A." No lie.

We again decided to see if the police could catch us riding dirty. And once again, Hedge had to hop on the back of my ATV. Jeff was cruising in his own, but Jeff and I both got awesome helmets. They were even better than Santorini because they had face-shields. Jeff's looked like a transformer or g.i. joe mask. Every now and then I'd turn around and he'd have put the facemask on to scare me. Look at the picture. Don't tell me that's not scary.

Two of the main beaches clubs are called Paradise and Super Paradise. Many banana hammocks to be found. Helmet pictures were again definitely in order.

And no, I have no idea what pose Jeff and I were doing on the ATVs. Don't act like you're not impressed.

That night, we went to dinner at a cafe in the middle of the old town part of Mykonos. People were snapping off a bunch of pictures and it turns out that there are a few Pelicans that just hang out in town and by the restaurants. Eventually, one decided to run at me and try to kill me. Hence the blurry photos trying to capture my own impending doom. Turns out he was just coming to get some fish from the owner. Who knew?

I'm nearing the end of my trip and I'm pretty exhausted. I'm excited to get back and watch some football and DVR'd shows. On to Athens then Seattle.

Update: Operation Bronzing

2007-09-11T03:15:00.001-07:00

After the scooter ride in Santorini, Operation Bronzing officially turned into Operation Awesome Watch Tan. Impressive, isn't it?

And yes, that is a banana hammock in the background for good effect.

Trying to Catch Me Ridin Dirty...

2007-09-10T04:37:00.000-07:00

Santorini, Greece - Hedgeberg (you know the chant...) from high school decided on the spur of the moment to fly to Greece and meet up with me after first spending a few days in Rome. Unfortunately, he got pickpocketed at the train station in Rome so by the time he met me in Greece, he was without a driver's license. We had planned on renting mopeds on the island to cruise around in, but without a license, he couldn't rent one. But luckily I now had someone on the back part of the scooter to whisper sweet nothings in my ear. Bonus.

We decided to go with the very manly ATV and some awesome helmets. The helmets quickly became part of our picture taking regimen and garnered quite a few strange looks. Apparently those people have never heard of "safety first." When the helmet was combined with the flip shades, I'm pretty sure it made for the most awesome pictures ever. Unfortunately, while riding around on the scooter, we were unable to find the road to Aspen. We did get big gulps though.

Santorini is awesome to cruise around the islands on a scooter. The night life (at least at this part of the year) was a little quiet. There were signs plastered all around town for the Full Moon Bar which was having a "Western Party" on Friday night (our last night in Santorini). Not only was "DJ Sexy Back" working the 1s and 2s, but the bouncer was named "DJ Sexy Front." Couldn't make that up. They also were giving away free cowboy hats. After hearing all of this, how could we NOT go to the Western Party?

Well, the Western party consisted of them playing the techno remix of "Cotton Eyed Joe" at 1:30am, handing out a few cowboy hats, and then rocking the techno and hip hop jams the rest of the night. I was VERY disappointed to not hear "Friends in Low Places." But they did have glow sticks that people were breaking open and smearing all over other people (apparently I smeared some on some dude's face that I didn't like...maybe he was from that bachelor party. I emerged unscathed though somehow).

After Santorini, we were off to Mykonos to meet up with law school Jeff. Another post about that to come.

Even Hungarians Love the Vikings (and other random pics)

2007-09-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

1st pic - This woman now loves in Hungary, but previously lived both in Seattle and the Minneapolis suburbs. Weird.

2nd pic - Our hot rides for the bike tour in Budapest. This is me practicing my sweet guy post that I would perfect when hanging with the rich bachelor party dudes. What.

3rd pic - My foot after some parasite probably bit it at the Hungarian bath. Still haven't figure out what happened (likely a bug bite that I itched the hell out of). We started calling it the Gorbachev foot though. So that was fun.

4th pic - A real beer bong. A 2.5 liter beer tube that you can order with its own little spout. We saw a table of four dudes drinking one of these in Budapest, so we had to as well. We sat down and pounded two of those tubes (with only three guys) before they finished their one. We win, even though they didn't know we were competing. Silly them. Of course we were competing. U.S.A.! (and yes, I don't know how to rotate the pic...you can do that yourself).

Funyons and Famous Stuff Pictures

2007-09-03T10:52:00.001-07:00

Split, Croatia -

Tomorrow is the travel day from hell, flying from Split to Vienna, and then back to Athens (arriving in Athens at 2:30am - just late enough to hop the all night bus with my bags and get mugged). I have a little downtime tonight after returning to Split so I thought it was time for a bloggings entry.

After partying with bachelor parties and Russian billionaires, the King Brothers and I headed to Dubrovnik to continue our bronzing. Operation bronzing is going pretty well, considering I've been working in sterile office buildings every summer for the last 7 years. My last sweet tan was probably my return to varsity tennis senior year, having been demoted from varsity to j.v. the previous year. Yes, I'm an awesome athlete.

When the three of us laid out on the beach, we extended our legs and arms as far as we can into an X position to make a winning hand of tic tac toe (and a porno I guess). Actually we didn't, but I've always told everyone that's how I bronze so there you go. We were definitely white enough that passing helicopters probably mistook us for some sort of landing signal. I now have a slight semblance of a tan though. Now all I need to go with the tan is a bunch of wristbands from Senor Frogs and all of the other sweet clubs that I went to on spring break and I will continue wearing them when I get back to the states. (you know who you are--but I was probably playing chess anyway).

Anyway, I finally found a computer that my camera doesn't make explode, so I thought I would post a few pictures of some famous stuff (Rome, Budapest, Rome, Rome).

I will try to post some more Croatia pictures soon. Also keep a lookout for a post about all of the awesome signs we have seen over here so far (see...gotta build the suspense for the future posts for my 5 readers).

One (kind of) scary story, on the bus ride from Split to Dubrovnik, the bus goes through Bosnia and stops at a little convenience store. I was inside buying some awesome Bosnian version of Funyons ("Bobi!") and the bus started to pull away without me. I ran out and waved at the driver who, instead of stopping, just opened the rear door so I could hop on while he was starting to drive away. Luckily I'm extremely agile (or not) and made it. By the way the Funyons/Bobi were terrible.

Also, apparently 15 year old girls in Croatia think it's totally normal to listen to songs on their cell phones at full blast and sing along as loud as they can.

A sampling of their jams: "Stand By Me," "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," Random Croatian Songs, and "Umbrella." Seriously, any bar or club just blows up when "Umbrella" comes on over here. They especially seem to love to yell the ella, ella, ella part. But it's a hot jam though so I don't mind. They also love Ne-Yo "Because of You." I think only J Lee rocks that one, but I've heard it hear approximately 17 times.

See you in Greece. Hedgeberg will be making a guest appearance. No word yet on whether they have a Roy Orbison karaoke bar.

Random Hvar Pics

2007-08-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

The computer is very slow, so here are only two pics for now.

The bottom pic is post-flaming Sambuca.

The other is the Hvar harbor. Please note the size of the yacht. There was a bigger yacht yesterday that left. Big pimpin indeed.

Dont Talk to Me

2007-08-31T06:53:00.001-07:00

Hvar, Croatia -

So every computer that I attach my camera to here seems to explode, so here goes another text entry. I'm sure I will forget stuff and the Kings will remind me and I will put it up later.

After four days in Budapest, we flew into Split, Croatia for one night. Split is the second largest city in Croatia and is very pretty, but everyone pretty much just stops there before hopping a ferry to the islands. The highlight of Split was when we were eating lunch at some cafe and I had my awesome flip shades on the table. The waiter came by to move stuff around on our table and saw the flips. I asked him what he thought of the shades and he said (and I quote) "It is like nerds attacking." I don't know where the attacking part came from but he was definitely awesome.

Awkward tourist moment in Split: we got a cab to our hotel from the airport. We were all sitting in back kind of spacing out and looking at the countryside. The cab driver is listening to a mix cd of Tina Turner - " Simply the Best," Toni Braxton - "Unbreak My Heart," and Berlin - "Take My Breath Away." We were sitting there enjoying the elevator music and then the driver said something. I wasnt really paying attention, but neither of the King Brothers answered him so after about a 10 second pause I said "What's That?" Turns out he was talking on his cell phone and not talking to us. Then I sat awkwardly quiet for the rest of the trip. I dont think he liked me.

The next day we hopped a ferry to Hvar, an island about an hour away from Split and we have been here for the last three days, leaving tomorrow for Dubrovnik.

I don't even know where to begin with Hvar. It's an amazingly beautiful island where young people come to party alongside millionaires with huge yachts. It literally looks like a JayZ video. BK (one of the King brothers) knew some friends from college that happened to be here at the same time as us for a bachelor party. We met up with those guys and have been kind of tagging along with the bachelor party the last day and a half. A couple of the guys are really cool but the rest are sweet dudes that define the word tchotch. They are spending money like it's going out of style. It's about 15 dudes who either work on wall street or are doctors. I thought this was illegal, but they actually hired Croatian models to come hang out with them for the week. Last night these guys threw a private party in their hotel bar and they told us to drink whatever we wanted. BK proceeded to drink about 19 red bull vodkas in seven minutes.

The bachelor come over to us and said he wanted to do a Sambuca shot and he told me that I "didnt have a fucking choice." He was slightly aggressive. After drinking about 5 million dollars worth of free booze, we headed over to carpe diem (the hottest club in the adriatic) where the night before BK bought shots and I'll let him describe it:

carpe diem was pretty sweet...and pretty damn expensive. i ordered jager bombs (3) and it cost $40. but well worth it because the guy lit the bar ON FIRE!!!! I shit you not...he squirted lighter fluid everywhere while bobbing his head to the techno beat and then gave a menacing look as he started the conflagration... it almost made my head explode. i started screaming and high fiving...they had no idea i was american.

so anyway, we are back at carpe diem the next night with this ridiculous bachelor party with amazing hired models draped all over them head to the main v.i.p. section that is roped off. one of the dudes (who is a d-bag) told us that we couldnt get into the v.i.p. section unless we bring about 12 girls in there. so Pat (BK's younger brother and my third travel companion) went up to a random girl and had the following exchange:

Pat - "want to come into the v.i.p. section?"

Girl - "Dont talk to me."

It was awesome. So basically we ended up in the v.i.p. section partying next to a Russian billionaire who had a security detail with him that is packing heat. Not even making an attempt to hide the gun bulges. then when carpe diem closes at 2, everyone goes to this castle on the hill that we called the fortress until about 5 or 6am. im pretty sure we were there, but i cant tell you much about it.

The night ended about 6am, getting back to our room when other tourists were leaving to hop the ferry back to Split to catch their plane. This is already the longest post ever, but I am leaving out a ton of stuff because this internet cafe is approximately 200 degrees and I slept about 3.5 hours and havent showered. Basically, Croatia is amazing and the bachelor party dudes are ridiculous. It was the most awesome free night ever though.

More later. Hopefully some pics.

Round One With the King Brothers

2007-08-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

Budapest, Hungary - I arrived in Budapest on Friday after 3 days in Rome. The King Brothers (one of my Seattle law school roomies and his brother) met up with me on Saturday and we leave Tuesday morning for about a week in Croatia. After Croatia, I head to Greece which hopefully will not have burned to the ground totally.

The King Brothers (capitalized obviously) have been in drinking training for the last two weeks starting in Munich and now heading to Budapest. I, on the other hand, have averaged about 1.2 beers a day. I was not ready for the full assault they attempted to lay on me the very first night.

We had dinner in a scary looking basement called the Beef Club, which we went to only because it has the most awesome name ever for a restaurant. We were the only people down there and for a second I thought that they were going to lock the doors above us and send the Blair Witch down to kill us. We were going to start the night nice and easy with a half liter of a local brew. Our waiter pretty much called us out and informed us that they also had liters on the menu. For the tremendous drinking tandem known as the King Brothers, this was not a problem. I of course had to follow suit.

To make a long story short, the night ended at a club called Cha Cha Cha, where BK met a Hungarian national boxer named Zolta (who had a friend named Bob...awesome contrast in names) who proceeded to buy him two shots of jager and our first round of beers. I must admit my heart swilled with pride a little bit when the club played "California Love" and the crowd just blew up. They love the Tupac apparently (much like a DJ in Rome who had a shaved head around the sides and a flat top and a Tupac shirt and jean shorts (the jorts). I would have taken his picture but he was quite menacing).

On the way home we made two separate food stops (which saved my life in the morning). Delicious.

I would love to post pictures but the computer Im using pretty much blew up when I tried to hook up my camera to it. This isnt surprising since we are using the internet in the basement of a sketchy strip mall and the mousepad for this computer is a Canon printer user guide (seriously).

We also went on a bike tour and went to a Hungarian bathhouse, which I like to imagine was like what Tubs on 50th Ave. in the U-District was like.

We are off to Croatia tomorrow and hopefully I can find a computer there that wont blow up when I attach my camera. I have a sneaking suspicion that the King Brothers have been biding their time to really try to drink me under the table like Tara Reid does to those guys at the end of American Pie 2 (or so I have heard).

I will try to post pics and some more posts from Croatia. Peace out.

Strict Rules at the Vatican

2007-08-23T08:52:00.004-07:00

Rome, Italy - So I've been in Rome for about 48 hours now and have seen pretty much all of the famous sites. It's been a whirlwind couple of days and I'm looking forward to meeting up with the King brothers in two days to drink our faces off.

I was warned ahead of time that to get into St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican there was a dress code saying that men had to be wearing long pants. There were signs all along the entrance depicting the entrance requirements. I was fine wearing long pants. I'm just glad I don't only have one leg. I can't believe they would have denied me entrance.

Are You a Member of the Pen 15 Club?

2007-08-23T08:52:00.003-07:00

Rome, Italy - In my short time here, I've discovered that a lot of the statues are not members of the Pen 15 club. Back in elementary school, it was the coolest club around. Too bad for them.

Beard Update

2007-08-23T08:52:00.001-07:00

Flip shades? Check.

Famous thing in the background? Check.

Beard? Ch...Kind of.

Scary looking picture? Check. (The guy in the blue in the top pic is obviously feeling my beard. I can't say I blame him.)

Banana Hammocks - Pics from the Cinque Terre Hike

2007-08-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

Finally, here are some pics from my hike between the five towns of the Cinque Terre. I told you they wore banana hammocks.

Photos be down...

2007-08-22T09:57:00.001-07:00

I have a string of witty and insightful blog posts to put up, but my picture uploading isnt working for some reason right now. Just be on the lookout for the Pen 15 club post.

"Best College Sports Town in the Country"

2007-08-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

This goes out to all of the Madison peeps. If you have a little time, give it a listen.

http://espn-mp3-od.andomedia.com/espnpod2/espnradio/insider/patrick/patrick_07122007_1.mp3

(just double click it and copy it into a browser. It should work even though the whole thing doesnt show up here)

Random blog thoughts while wearing ridiculous light blue swimtrunks...

2007-08-20T07:01:00.000-07:00

Vernazza, Italy - Today was supposed to be my beach day, but the sun refuses to come out for more than 5 minutes at a time. So here are a few random things I forgot to put in earlier posts. Off to Rome tomorrow and will hopefully get more pics up then. I will try to find local Roman women who know Bonnesen. It shouldnt be too hard.

Most stereotypical Canadien: Joe, a hiker I met on the trail yesterday. In about 10 minutes of conversation, he dropped about 15-20 "eh"s in there. I tried to figure out a way to steer the conversation to having him say "boat" or "about" but I failed.

Coolest grocery store: Casino petit in Chamonix. I was only in there for about 5 minutes but heard Mims "This is Why Im Hot (or JPs blog is hot)" followed by J.Timberlake with "Rock Your Body." It felt like a Fatboy Slim/ Spike Jonze video where everyone might just bust into some hot moves at any moment.

Strangest grocery story moment: In the Mims/JT grocery store - buying milk and then ditching the carton about halfway through because I couldnt figure out if I had actually purchased straight cream instead. It was kind of good but kind of disgusting. I couldn't decide which.

Coolest Italian beach gear: This was a close race between the Italian men in their extra-medium banana hammocks that all of them rock and the bikinis that all women rock regardless (and I mean ALL men and women rock these...no self-consciousness whatsoever. It's great. Or frightening.), but Im going to go with my "beach" outfit today. Outdated light blue tropical swim trunks that I bought for puerto rico and my blue Math Masters shirt. Pair this with my tan that is about as deep as a piece of notebook paper and I fit right in. Seriously, everyone here will probably die of skin cancer within 10 days. It's ridiculous. I think I am blinding everyone with my whiteness ( which doesn't mean my dance moves).

More later. Chow. Kidding. Ciao.

Take Money Money, Take Money Money

2007-08-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Vernazza, Italy - Hello from my new home base of Vernazza, one of the five towns of Italy's Cinque Terre. After over 12 hours of travel, I checked into my hotel and attempted to get into my room. Too bad it is the most confusing hotel ever run by not the nicest people you've ever met. They gave me a key ring that said 31 on it, and they pointed up the stairs and in broken English said something about 31. Silly me tried to use the keys to open room 31, but after about 5 minutes of this not working, I had to walk all the way back down the million steps to the front and ask them again. Turns out I am staying in building 41 and then room 31 in that building. Of course. Back up a million steps to my room. At this point I'm tired, cranky, sweaty, a little hungry...etc (Billy Madison fans can finish the rest). But all is made right when I get into my room and step out onto my little balcony. The bottom picture is of my view out of my room. Amazing. I slept with the shutters open all night and heard the sound of the Ligurian sea lapping against the beach.

Today I hiked between all five towns end to end. The other two pictures above are pictures of the town I'm staying in (Vernazza). It's pretty amazing. I will post more pictures of the hike later.

Most easily identified Americans of the day: when hiking today, there was a group of three dudes coming towards me right on the outskirts of one of the towns. One turns to the other and yells "Mom, the meatloaf!" We immediately bond when I yell in response "Now!" I decided not to drop the f-bomb, but one of the three dudes immediately followed it up with his own f-bomb. Wherever you go, it seems American males can't stop quoting movies. Love it.

Guess the Olympics in Torino Didn't Make That Much Money...

2007-08-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

Torino (Turino), Italy - On my way from France to the Cinque Terre in Italy, I had to take two buses and four trains. My favorite part of the trip was when our train stopped in Torino and before changing trains, I headed to the bathroom only to be greeted by what looked to be an airport security station (picture on the right). Turns out that you had to be .70 Euros to take a tinkle in Torino. I actually thought it was kind of awesome. You put your money in and the doors slide back to let in only the V.I.P.s. The bathroom was actually just 7 numbered stalls that each looked like a terrible danceclub with only one name. They all literally were only lit up by a blacklight (picture on left). People thought it quite strange that I was taking a picture of the toilet, but it didn't make much sense when I tried to explain that it looked like the Escape Ultra Lounge in Minneapolis (or what I imagine it looks like since I've never been there) or some trendy club in Belltown that certain people from law school like to go and hunt for men. Regardless, it was awesome. Also, some girl on the train came into my cabin and tried to solicit for money, but my lack of Italian got me out of it. Inglese was all I had to say and she was out of there. Score.

Random funny note from my trip to Italy: on one of the buses I had to take, the driver was rocking some Italian radio station. Tina Turner came on and he immediately changed the station (this was the only time he changed the radio during the whole trip). I almost started chanting USA! USA! but decided against it.

Brett Favre sucks

2007-08-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

Chamonix, France - Just had to throw that headline out there for all of the Minnesota fans. There you go Curdy. On my second day in Chamonix, it finally turned nice and I went up to the top of the Auguille du Midi (probably spelling it wrong) which takes you to the top of a huge mountain over town and looks out over the Alps. You go above the clouds and it literally looks like you're on top of the world. I asked one guy to take my picture and he must've liked me, because he did the extreme closeup. So I had to take matters into my own hands...not only to buy some flip sunglasses and continue the tradition from wearing them on my big awesome trips (i.e., road trip with the driving vest with curdy, jimmy and huck), but to take my own picture. My eyes are closed, but what can you do? Two more feet over the edge and I would have fallen off the planet I think. Kind of scary. But very awesome. Anyway, hopefully you'll be seeing the awesome flip sunglasses (that are HUGE by the way...don't know if you can tell by the photo) in future pics. Hopefully I can wear them out to the bars with the King brothers and have them rock the shades like only they can.

Still Cloudy...

2007-08-19T11:19:00.001-07:00

Chamonix, France - A few more pics from the cloudy day in France. It's nice to see that you can travel thousands of miles and that you can still go into an arcade and shoot some fake deer with a fake shotgun. Made me miss Minnesota. The town also had a big chessboard in its square. They had pieces out on there, but they had to clear them off after a tall american swept through town and had to dominate.

2007-08-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

Some random pics I have taken so far. I cant figure out a better way to do this yet, but I will work on it. As Drew would say: Late.

Under my Umbrella (remix with Chris Brown of course)

2007-08-16T05:20:00.000-07:00

Chamonix, France - I leave Seattle to come to Europe and obviously in my first full day it's been raining all day. So here I am, doing an entry for my many many readers (i.e., my parents).

I'm staying in a little hotel outside of the main town of Chamonix. Besides the walls being paper-thin and my neighbors playing "let's keep the American up all night by talking very loudly," the hotel is pretty cool. Here's the view from outside my window. Ok, looks like they put the picture at the top. I cant really figure it out since the whole website is in French. I think I'll just do another post right after this one and post some pics, maybe that will work. But yeah, that's the view outside my room.

One funny thing I've noticed walking around: the cafes and bars play what seems like the french version of that venga boys song " boom boom boom boom" and then it will be followed by a few American pop songs. The hot American jams I've heard so far:

Black Eyed Peas - "Let's Get it Started" ( even though it is in English they didn't play the other re#arded version)

Sean Paul - "Give it Up to Me" - I wish I knew people who loved the Step Up movie...oh wait, I do.

And last but not least, a little Akon - " I Just Wanna Love You" - of course.

Since it's still raining and gray here, it's perfect napping weather. I'll try to do one more post of just pics.

U + Me = Us (Calculus)

2007-08-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

LONDON - Fresh off the plane in London, I stumbled bleary-eyed to an ATM before catching my plane to Geneva. I attempted to follow the instructions but somehow brilliantly ended up with 200 pounds instead of euros. Won't do me much good since I was leaving London in an hour. I can't wait to see what I screw up in a non-English speaking country.

On a brighter note, I managed to snag an exit row seat from Seattle to London which was good for my go go gadget legs. However, about halfway through the flight the empty seat next to me was taken over by someone from the old show Jake and the fat man and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Jake. Definitely invading my personal space. Awesome.

Walking around the airport, I kept wanting someone to say: "I get it, I have bad teeth," but sadly no one did. That's an Austin Powers reference mom.

Ok, I will try to post some pics this afternoon. Maybe I will post a beard update.

Step 1 (We can have lots of fun)

2007-08-13T00:29:00.001-07:00

Hi internet. That's me with a manly beard (look closely). I'm off to a big scary place called Europe and will attempt to document my next round of beard-growing from abroad. Not sure if and how this is going to work. I think they have the internet in Europe, but I haven't checked my Rick Steves book yet to see if that's true. I'll let you know. If they do, I will attempt to post every now and then with updates on the trip and maybe a digitalized image or two.