TravelStream™ news feed for member natedawg on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/natedawg en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:33:33 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1158015960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1158015960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1158015960/tpod.html Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:33:33 -0400 Europe, through the blurry eyes of Nate Dawg

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Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona!!

This city is one the most amazing cities i've ever been to. Which is why i didnt stay here.

Just kidding. Where to start with this son bithc. o Yes.. So, im sure most people have heard things about spain, some things it shares in common with Vancouver and a city in Amsterdam. I hope everyone is getting what im throwing down.

So we arrive in Barcelona sometime after 1am, we manage to get a cab which only scams us by 12 euro.. not bad. We check into our hostel, wake up whoever was trying to be inconsiderate and sleep.. and then head out for a little stroll. Time in City, 30min, "hashish".. whats that? What did I say earlier about absorbing local traditions? Now what to do with this hardened piece of hamster shit? This is where our good friend Neslon comes into play.. Those americans know everything! ANyways, our first night was pretty uneventful, we kinda just walked around and got a feel for what the next 5 nights would have in store for us.

Day 1. Chris and I get up and some undisclosed time and proceed to do a lot of nothing. Oya, breakfast.. haha this was a common theme. So usually places offered us free breakfast, catch here is that its only offered until the ungodly time of 10 30am. Ahh.. i think we made it never.

Debbie informed us of this bus tour that was offered in barcelona which appealed to chris and I greatly. Basically it takes u to all the big stops and you can a) either get off, or b) stay on. It was 18 euro for 1 day, 22 for 2 days.. we opted for the 2 day pass..


First stop, La Familia Sangria, or in the other order.. its the only cathedral still under construction, and its absolutely insane! I think i've lost these pcitures! o my god i just realized this.. motherfaque. WOW, thats disappointing. Ok..

Ya this church, really only pictures can describe it. Its done by Gaudi, this payote smoking genius managed to create some of the most ridiculous buildings you will ever see. He's got works all over the city and they are all just mind boggling. Window covers that look like sharks teeth.. just .. just Guadi. hopefully i can manage to get these photos back and post them.. but this church has fruit cups on the top of its spires, and gothic looking jesus, and just.. just nuts. We spend a few hours here, go to the top of the church, and walk down this spire on this most insane spiral staircase. We exit the church, next stop.. the Gaudi Park. He designed this park too.. Imagine Stanley Park, only on Acid. Ya, there you go.. once again words dont do this place justice, so im going to wait and hopefully add photos soon. We spent a couple more hours here, i tried to figure out what to do with the hamster shit i bought, but was still coming up blank.

WE finally get back to the bus stop, and im looking for the ticket that i so thoughtfully placed in an unloseable spot. Turns out unloseable is the anti-christ, as i managed to lose my fuckign ticket. sweet, 22 euro down the train. What made me even more sour was the fact that i was having some bad luck with holding onto things. I managed to lose 20 euro in a apple basket in Ios, and another further 10 euro doing absolutely nothing in rome or florence, i forget. But i lost soemthing like 40 euros in 2 days. 20 of which belonged to chris, who by the way managed to work up a commendable debt to me on these travels. I believe at one time he owed me his left leg, his right arm, his liver, and one of his kidneys. He managed to pay off this debt by killing 34000 trolls while conquering the prague castle.

I was bitter at thsi moment, so we began to walk to the underground to make our way home. It began to rain. I killed children.

We got home, as always, we are invincable, and can never ever get lost!

siesta time, did i mention how fond i am towards the siesta? It is by far the spaniards greatest gift to civilization. So we woke up, bought a 5.95Euro bottle of vodka. 1L of vodka!!! and began to booze.. we met some french boys who would punish eachother by making one person wear this hideous vest, and then refer to them as peter crouch. the really tall lanky english soccer player. Pretty funny guys, but we didnt partake in too much partying with them. Im trying to rack my brain here.. I think this night we went out with o yes! WE met these two dope americans in our room.. Cousins from washington, DC. Nelson and Sergio.

Nelson showed me what to do with clumps of hamster shit purchased off random men in random cities. He was my saviour.

So we heard talk of a party complex situated by the port in this mall type structure, i definitely didnt lead us there, but sure enough we emerged and started walking through this mall. imagine the roof of eatons center downtown housing about 5 or 6 bars and 3 disco's. Its just that cool.. ALL FREE!!! We began to booze, Nelson bought me red absinthe, so my memories were therefor cut short. we partied with some Brit's too, and pretty much had a good night, from what i remember.. which inst too much.. O ya, everywhere we went they played this fucking song.. that "OOO o o o o o ooooo" somehow it became italia's football song, so everyclub we went too everywhre the italians would start singing it, regardless as to whether the dj was actually playing the song or not.

In this instance, the dj was, and for somereason decided he'd bring out the extended virgin, for what my memory serves me, it lasted about 3 days. On the walk home i bought a hotdog and put fried onions on it.. it was amazing.. went home. passed out, and proceeded to do it all over again.. part 2 to follow.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1158014880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1158014880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1158014880/tpod.html Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:05:31 -0400 Europe, through the blurry eyes of Nate Dawg

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Como, Italy

Details of our Adventure to the wonderful world of COMO, Italia.

Part 1: Train from Moenterosso to La SPezia, get off change trains.

Part 2: Train From La spezia to Genoa, get off change trains.

Part 3: Train from Genoa (which is delayed, and Debbie somehow manages to buy three tickets, but retain only one of them.) to Milano; get off change trains.

Part 4: Debbie and Chris run off to buy another ticket to COMO!!

Part 5: Get on train, train from Milano to where??? COMO bitches.

Part 6: Get off train, look around.. ok there are more then just us getting off... Now time to find out where the fuck we are.

Turns out we end up in this awesome little moutain/lake town on the boarder Of Switzerland. There are a few americans around, and looks like this place is afterall a little touristy place. Not so many backpackers, although we did ask two Finish girls where they were planning to stay, since we had no clue. turns out they're camping their way around italy. weird. So bid them good ridence and went to sitting outside the train station reflecting on life, and what could've been. Chris managed to bottle a colourless liquid remeniscent of water, but gave off poisonous gas fumes. He also managed to trick himself into drinking from this bottle. He later died.

Racking our brains, we decided our best way at it was to bus into the town, well where we thought the town lay, and scope out for a room to stay. Still no idea what laid in store for us, our hearts were bumping wildy. Except debbie, i think she was a little cranky/tired at thsi point. so after waiting and waiting for our bus, it arrives.. hurray. We get taken into town, and wouldn't you know it.. a fucking irish pub. These things infect the world like AIDS, they are everywhre. Turns out its in our best interest, as we decide this will be the best place to ask for accomodation. SO i stroll in, and proceed to inquire in perfect italian as to where we might best look for "affordable" accomodation. Turns out we're basically there, we mosy on over to where the nice man pointed us and find our destination. We find some family run pension type place to spend our night. Really, it was extreamly nice.. if you're ever in Como, walkt ot the bus station by the lake, and look for a red door. i think it was red, oo no red builiding!

Anyways. we freshened up a little, and the set off for a romantic walk along the lake. This little town quickly grew on me, from now on.. im picking destinations by pointing at pages in my eurail book. Never fails! We ended up settling for the 3rd restaurant we passed, and sat down. I enjoyed one of the best pieces of lasagana i've ever sampled.. Amazing! I think we followed this by a little stroll, then chris and I went out on the town to indulge in some local night life. WE found this little spot that seemed to only hosue locals. We had a few pints and had a pretty good nights. That little town has some first round talent..

Anyways, the next morning, thats right, morning.. like 10am morning.. i think this was the earliest we ever got anything accomplished. We set out for the Tram, or whatever they call it, i forget, to go to the top of one of the local hills and scope out COMO from a view similar to that of a bird. Nice city, got some pictures, which o no.. those are gone... Anyways this took us to some time, in which we needed to head back to Milano, then Bergamo to catch our flight. We decided we'd arrive a little more the 30 min before our flight, try 3 and a half hours ahead.

Now this has got to be the worst organised airport I have ever been to. Id wager that its the worst organised airport ever constructed at all periods in time.. They have their check in gates oraganized so they face eachother, so that lines kinda build up into one another, but to solve this.. they dont incorporate lines. You just kinda party in the middle and fight ur way to the one of 3 ladies working the counters. To make things even speedier, the workers have to write out boarding cards by hand. Its also suitable for every worker to abandon their stations all together for an undetermined amount of time for apparently no reason. Needles to say our flight was not going to be on time. One would expect maybe a 30 min delay from all this hoop la, try 18 hours.. or maybe not that much, but we left for barcelona aroudn the same time we were supposed to be arriving.

Next stop Barcelona!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157662500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157662500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157662500/tpod.html Mon, 11 Sep 2006 18:48:22 -0400 Europe, through the blurry eyes of Nate Dawg

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Cinque Terra, Italy

Bornjourno!

Ciao.. we've arrived, and how! i dont know if any of you have heard of cinque terra, buts it a dope little spot. Its on the north west cost of italy, kinda on that little bit of land that leads to france. Its these 5 tiny towns that are linked by one son of a bitch hiking path, or trains. The population of Monterosso, the capital is 400 during the winter, and 10000 during the summer.. cool little place.. Its like a neopolitan icecream box on a mountain. Cutest little houses, and crazy ass access to water. Anyways, our place of accomodation was in monterosso, me being the expert i am decided on this because; a) it would be the easiest place, and b) it would be cheaper. I think i was wrong on both accounts.. We arrive and decide that we will go in search of our future home without our bags incase we have to walk a great distance in the scorching heat. We find the travel office wehre they rent out rooms, and theres a nice italian man chatting on the phone, ok we'll be polite and just wait a bit for him to help us. ya, apparenlty not, i think he found out the life story of everyone of his anscestors before he tended to us, not to mention his office was a balmy 800 degrees, i dont know how the dude could just sit there, but he did. So we ask him if he has any places for 3 poeple with a kitchen.. He does a little let me think face, adn says.. hmm i might have one. ya might. Ok, so we follow him to this nice little place, all these streets are similar to those of greek islands, but they're not all white. So we enter this appartment, adn its quite nice.. got a laundry machine, all that jazz.. he says 110 euro a night, ouch! Thats steep, see, good thing i was on the ball with this place being the cheapest, i try in vain to reason with the man, saying i was here two years ago and we only paid this much.. truth is i think we paid more.. but whatever, we got him down to 100 euro a night. Success.. now we just gotta march back and grab debbo, who looks like she died. She had 3 backpacks surrounding her, and ofcourse, smoking a cigarette, and disgustingly sweaty. She's so cute. I on the other hand no longer had a stock of clean clothes, i was sexy. We settle in and dont remember what we did, o ya went swimming. Finally! that was a nice swim.. except the water has a hard tiem remaining cold when the ambiant temperture is in the 9 millions. We made ourselves a pasta bake.. chris' favourite, apparently pizza hut makes the best pasta.. in the world! hmm. Yes, and we bought a ripe bottle of 4 euro wine, 1.5L! Should've noticed the little word, frizente on the label.. means, " this bottle will taste like juice with bubbles, not wine" Although.. it was extreamly easy to drink. Debbie and i went for a coffee and a smoke after dinner, the drinking of the wine happened after this, there we had some smokes.. see, debbie and smokes go hand in hand.. i single handidly blame her for my smoking.. it just looked like so much fun when she did it, and you know what.. it was! haha.. i dont know how. o yes, she asked us for a smoke.. see debbie just maeks people smoke, she could be the advertisment for cigarette compaines, just put a picture of her on the front and they'll sell. So we began talking to her.. nice girls, half cut.. we invited her to come drink our wine with us. Apparently her friend likes to be in bed by 10 everynight, and they never party.. this had debbie and I aww struck.. what do u do then?

Ya so the night, we drank our wine, debbie and her friend went off. chris and decided a good tactic to attracting attention was slap our white thighs.. we eventually got picked up by some extreamly annoying american guys, who thought that when we said, "alright, were gonna go have a drink" ment, "yes, please, we'd love to hear you talk. come sit" So after finishing our booze, and hearing them ramble about, i really dont know what, doesnt matter.. we left them. THe next day we did the hike. ha.. haha fuck, thats rough, so hot, so many stairs.. so .. just so.. We did 2 of the 4 trails, the two longest ones of course before we called it quits.. just hit up the other terra's.. swam, all that jazz.. o ya and had some gelato. We trained it back and i think i passed out at 9.. i ment to take a nap, but when i woke up at 2 am i thought, mm maybe i over slept a little.. needless to say, we didnt go out. THe next day, debbie and I went to this other town.. i wanted to jump off this cliff i jumped off last time. We foudn it, and I had at her. Just as good as i remember, debbie took a video... that cd is gone. fuck! no one knows my anger.. fuck everything is gone.. After i had my fill, we got a gelato and went to the last terra..
here situated in the center of this lagoon, was another little cliff to jump off.. Debbie was determined.. so we jumped into the water, swam to our destination, clambered our way to the top.. i jump.

Debbie wants some time to reflect on life... As it turns out, a little too much time. haha Rock 1, Debbie 0. Ok, dont worry about it, we go sit, have a smoke.. debbie is dwelling over the rock that could. she wants back at it..

Rock 2, debbie 0. haha, poor debbie. The last night here.. ahh we drank whisky and went somewhere.. i dont know though.. maybe someday u'll find out.

NOw we had one day before we had to be in milano for our flight to barcelona, sorry one night, two days. Where should we go? Lets consult our Eurail book. Ok. so we can go to three places.. Milano, Genoa, and Como.. lets go to como.

It seemed like a reasonable choice.. i mean, i've never heard of it, chris hasnt heard of it, and surely neither has debbie.. what bad could come of this.. as we always say, "Nothing bad can ever happen to us, it just wont ever happen!" So we set off for como.. i'll let you know what its like, and where it is when we get there..
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1152981660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1152981660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1152981660/tpod.html Thu, 07 Sep 2006 18:44:37 -0400 Europe, through the blurry eyes of Nate Dawg

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Santorini, Greece

I really should start reading where I last left off before i start a new entry, but..

We've successfully ferried over from Mykanos to Santorini.. first impression, wow we're gonna be living with moutain goats. You're travelling along nicely oustide on the ferry's deck, hating life because its really hot out and you're extremely uncomfortable, and then bang you look infront of you and just see sheer cliffs emerging from the haze. you get a little closer and begin to make out houses built on the cliffs edge. One begins to think, who would ever think of building a house in such a strange place. But as previously outlined, the greeks aren't the most predictive "race". haha.. this will explain itself. So we get off the ferry, and there are 7 or 8 of us. Cant really remember.. 8 i think. Debbie and her friend, ya.. dont remember his name, he was from toronto, and really quiet, didnt like to swear either, fuck shit fuck fuck. Those were his 4 most commonly used words.. In that order too. It could mean anything from hey, whats up.. to Fuck shit fuck fuck.. Fun! Debbie and her buddy were staying away from us agian, on parous beach.. something along those lines, and we were on the other side of the island. I forget all names.. So we needed to split our forces to get to where we needed to be, chris and I hope in some cab with no knowledge of where were going, and one persons name. Also cant remember that, shit.. This is key to the storey! Let's call him...Markos. We're in the cab with two elderly people, turns out their from Montreal, so we parles some francais avec them. They get dropped off at some hotel, and chris and I continue on to our unknown destination. upon arrival we pay our cabbie and begin to wonder what to do next. Only one logical thing jumps out at you.. Yell for Markos. So we begin yelling his name, and ofcourse.. some guy pops out from a door and points at us. Sure, why wouldn't that of worked. We found our man.. Next stop.. wait for arrival of other family members. This takes some time because we've been split into about 4 different cabs. taxi's like taking different groups of people so they can make more money, you each pay for your ride. So if the people in the cab with us go 10 euro, they pay 10 euro, and if we went 5 euro further, we pay 15 euro. Smart people these cabbies are. So our friend Markos gives us a little speel about the island, apparently were going to be living in the mountain, and the house was built a few hundred years ago with the use of donkey's. Crazy shit. We begin walking, now nothing in words can describe this view. All you see is fences, and then the island and the volcano in the middle of the island, Picture a gian banana floating in the water, and your on the edge of it looking out. You can see both ends, and then theres a middle little island in the concave center of the banana. you're about 400 feet above sea level. The house. Wow, or should i say vila, nothing like it ever. just insance. 4 different levels, built right into the rock face, and the view. wow. If i ever get my photos back you'll see. Amazing. i wont even bother describing it, cuz it wont do it justice. Just sufice it to say it is the most amazing view ive ever seen. Alright, so now we're settled. First order of business.. rent scooters! Never rent a scooter from an eygptian. you'll end up with one scooter with randomly locking front breaks, a scooter that has a throttle grip thats kinda attached to the throttle, resulting in random speeds being obtained at random times. And a scar on your chin. Pretty much the best thing one could ask for. Santorini consists or red, black and white beaches. These arent you're everyday picture book beaches. The black beach is just that, its black. Its also fucking hot. If you seriously put an egg on the rocks.. it would cook. Laying down on the rocks with a towel is out of the question, so is walking on the beach. Leaves u with little options. But the water was nice. haha. Anyways, each day we hit up different beaches. Night times were good, not as big of a party island and mykanos, but the downtown had some cool spots. We frequented one such spot on the fabulous day debbie was born. We started off with some mandatory pre drinking at our vila... followed by our 20 min walk along the cliffs edge into town. We were told by Markos, thats not even close to his name, that this place called the tajma hall was tight.. in those exact words. Debbie is hammered, infact i think we're all pretty much gooned, but debbie is hammered. Lets just say she shared some interesting info with me, as well as my sister. haha Good ol debbo. Debbie has one request, no tequilla.. Sure thats easy enough to follow. We get to the Tajma Hall.. it is indeed tight, Its hard to describe, imagine a movie of some random nomads tent in the desert, with big cushions to sit on, people smoking the hootka, belly dancers all that jazz.. pretty cool place. We find a table, and Khaleel and I go to get soem drinks. 3 tequilla please. haaha, Bring debbie her present. whoops.. i forgot.. So we do the shots, and haha i can see why debbie made that one request. Lets just say she didnt take that shot down to well... dont worry, the following four jag's made up for the tequilla. Now we're just all shittered.. Debbis is hammered. we drunkenly stumble aroudn teh bar for a while.. im partying with the cushions.. debbie likes going into boys bathrooms.. and falling down onto a table with drinks on it. haha, she was on fire. We decide were gonna leave to see what else this place has to offer.. so we head out down some street probably 3, maybe 4 feet wide with bars on everyside. Pretty cool. We end up going into this other club.. I'm pretty sure it was empty on the veranda, if you can call it that.. but that didnt stop us from climing as high as possible and dancing for all to see. The inside was decorated with toilet paper that randomly falls from the ceiling. This is when debbie declares she no longer fit to continue, we get her a cab and she's off. Chris and I are left to ponder our descions.. we're wrecked, and we have an uphill climb to our vila. Lets run! Now im wearing my sandals and a nice shirt, ok.. First things first. Lets take off our clothes. Now we're off. Bloody fucking hard run, the passer by's had a sight. what the hell is going on. We made the run in probably just 0ver 10 minutes. Sweaty as shit. but feeling great. Our feet are a little dirty, but thats ok. One other key thing was discovered that night, shots are cheeper then drinks..uh oh. From this point on, when going out, wed only buy shots at the bar.. an economical descion of course. Just trying to budget. haha.. led to just being stupid drunk everynight.

Someone made a point to me about how my blog is just one big paragraph.. well here.

on a lighter note, one day on our travels to the black beach, chris and I arrived quite some time a head of everyone else. We finally ran into the parents who informed us that Scotts scooter's front brakes has seized up and sent him flying over his handle bars onto his chin. Makes you feel reassured with the egyptians promises. That was the end of his, as well as my sisters and markus' scooter adventures.

Look, more paragraphs, actually, i just read this entry... im sorry, it is confusing when i dont put any breaks in it.. but o well. i also mispelled a lot of words and so on and so forth, but its really tiring writing all this stuff out. So im not going to fix anything.

I just wanted to ammend one mistake, i mentioned earlier about chris' comment about the greek race.. WEll heres the story.

ONe night, instead of going downtown, we agreed to meet debbie over in her neck of the woods. She managed to scam a room off these two 18 year old english boys, she's sneaky like that.. So we're in the cab towards parous beach to meet up with debbie. We were having convo in the back of the cab, chris, markus, khaleel and I. I forget the exact dialouge, but i'll give it a go:

CHris: " Greeks arent the smartest race i've ever encountered."
Markus: "Nice one mate"
Chris; "What? (confused look), are you greek."

FInally it dawns on him what country he's in. hahahaha, smooth move.

Now onto one of my only wise monetary decisions.

Being as the only previous time i've scuba'd was in -30 degree waters off the coast of squamish, i figured a little dip in the mediterreanen, that word is impossible to spell, would suit me nicely. Markus, our long time german ally from Cyprus, happens to be an avid scubaer too.. so one day we planned not to drink and to go scubain.. one dive was 50euro, 2 for 80.. i said id do one.. budget. So we get picked up nice and early, some time around 830, figure we need an early start. Eventually make it to the Scuba club at aorund 10. It takes 15 minutes to get from one side of the island to the other. We sign our lives away and sit for another hour. Very efficient. We finally head out to the boat at around 1130 or so. Now i've only dived in van, about a year before this dive. ANd i've been on two ocean dives. well 4 i guess, but 2/day. I figure im the rook. We suit up and then head out on this zodiac. Wow.. you'd think waves would detour someone enough to ease up on the throttle, especially when ur the tour guide/dive instructors... nope.. lets gun it. I was actually rather enjoying the ride, except for the occasional fear of dying. YOu're basically holding on the ropes hoping the boat doesnt flip, or fly away. Now were soaked. Get to our spot, we get helped into our gear, and begin to get into the water. we gotta do that cool little back flip thing off the boat. This little asian boy who probably weighs 14 pounds wants to be weighted with 8 kilos, so he hops in the water and sinks right to the bottom and dies! Alright im exaggerating, but hes hopeless in the water. gets taken away. and killed. ok.. not too much else happened, we dove it was sick... i could see infront of me. After the dive, we head back for our lunch, which consisted of some chocolate filled croissant. One piece of advice gained from our ubc instructors.. dont smoke and dive.. whats the first thing our good greeks do when we stop for lunch? Light up a smoke. Ok.. i figure im in greece, must do as the greeks do. I also enjoyed the dive, and wanted to do the next one.. a cave dive.. so i inform our good friends of my descion and we head off to our next location.. THis was sick.. we were diving through caves as wide as my shoulders, had to cross arms and wiggle through these cracks.. really fucking cool.. we also surfaced in some cave.. so u pop up out of the water, and you're still in the cave. That went well.. i scammed them, i only paid 50 bucks for both dives.. im sneaky like that.. and voila! Ate the most amazing food there.. soo good soo good, deep friend tomato's.. wow! End Santorini.. Next stop IOS.. stands for.. stupid drunk
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157662380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157662380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157662380/tpod.html Thu, 07 Sep 2006 16:55:14 -0400 Europe, through the blurry eyes of Nate Dawg

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Florence, Italy

I got nothing to say here... We were only there for a day, we checked out the sights ate some food, i bought some really really cheap sunglasses that didnt last very long.. and we ate some food.

I just wanted to get this pin on my map

now were off to cinque terra
thats 5 towns
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157660700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157660700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157660700/tpod.html Thu, 07 Sep 2006 16:53:26 -0400 Europe, through the blurry eyes of Nate Dawg

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Roma, Italy

Ciao Totti!

Ah ha.. so last i left you was upon arrival in Italia.. more specifically Ancona, you dont know where that it? Doesnt matter. Feeling fresh as ever after travelling for 22 some odd hours, you can imagine our vigor, and excitment at the prospect of walking around this unknown city in search of a means of travel to Rome. To make things even more exciting, it was about 35 degrees out! So we begin our random adventure by following a hord of Spanish girls to wherever they seem fit. This turns out to be a good move as we end up a Train station, well sorta, I think they saw our confusion as one of them kindly advised us that this train will take us to the main station. Fabulous, i say grazie, they correct me.. no no gracias! Ok sorry Spaniards. We're sitting talking, im sure debbie is having a smoke.. pretty much anytime any sort of waiting occurs.. debbie has a smoke in hand, and as it turns out so did i. Finally a state of the art commuter train hobbles towards us.. NOw i mean state of the art, fully equipped with bathrooms, electric doors, air conditioning, all the necessaties. The spaniards open the door and we are all instantly melted.. fucking hell was just unleashed, this thing, if made of wood, and in somewhat pleasant condition, would've served well as a sauna, as it turns out.. it was our cabin.. I cant even begin to describe the insane heat this train carried with it.. WE all instantly started sweating. Anyways, it was a relatively short ride to the train station where we eventually got all things under control. We finally got into rome around 8 o clock or actually, no probably later.. maybe closer to 10pm. That night we were all content with sleeping. O yes, one minor note, i think chris had 200 euro to last him a week and a half, including accomodation. Basically he was hoping he'd get a decent price for his kidney, but that was unlikely. The next day debbie and I did a tour of Rome, pretty decent, I had been there once before and managed to scam a free tour that, i now realise, was amazing. Anyways, we got the basic picture of this incredible city.. it really is just an amazing city, ot walk aroudn this place just thinking of all the shit thats happened, all the slaves that were murdered, the good work they did building hte coloseum and everyother incredible land mark.. well done slaves! It was 40 degrees out, and i sweated a lot.. That night debbie and I planned to do a pub crawl, you know. see the sights by night. be cultural, all that jazz. The deal was u get free unlimited booze at this one place for an hour, then go to other bars, pretty much like a pub crawl.. which is why they call it a pub crawl.

For some reason, the pub crawl crew wasnt as large as usual, so we had a closer group.. it was a pleasant evening, we all had the same idea in mind, drink as much as humanly possible for free, resulting in less expenditures for the rest of the night. My did we do good, i think these Argentinian girls had the best drinking game ever.. you each hold up a hand with a certain number of fingers, you then count back and forth between the two of you to see who ends up with the last number, sorta like 3, u go you me you.. you drink! ya.. also playing categories where if u fuck up, you chug ur entire drink. They also thought it would be beneficial to our festivities to bring a megaphone out with them.. hahaha ya they were probably the craziest people ive seen party. Great times though.. all over the place, eventually the pub crawl captains took away their battery so they were left with no voice projection, i think this ruined one of the girls night, but the other one.. no way. THey got kicked out of one of these bars for crawling all over eachother on the floor in a bar.. hahaha debbie had a picture.. we may or may not have them. then they came back in and informed all of us of the bouncers sexualitly.. it was not so straight. I think we ended up down by the water, and wow.. i was hammered, i actually woke up in the morning thinking, wow.. we must of been close we walked home.. haha not the case, im kinda blurry on waht happened next, but im pretty sure we got off a bus, debbie, myself, this bloke rory.. good guy from london, and two americans, rory and I knew the way home so we took off, debbie and said boys went the other way.. we tried to tell them they were making a mistake, and finally did so 40 minutes later when we finally met them back at hte hostel. We managed to find a pizza palce though on our little detour, although i remember it tasting like foccacia and nothing more.

THe next day we hit up the vatican bright and early.. around 3pm.. this left us no time to go to the museum, id seen this jazz before.. so im not gonan write anything about it, but its utterly amazing to think people built this shit hundreds of years ago.. Once again the magic of slaves. That night, we kinda took it easy, well not so much me, chris was broke so he was staying sober for hte most part, im sure by choice, debbie and I decided we should get a bottle of wine.. o shit whoops.. one important story, so the entire trip i was raving about this restaurant i went to last time i was in rome, it was the best. I kinda remembered where it was, so we decided we try to go find it.. anyways we bussed to the general area, walked around for about 25 min or so, chris was getting cranky cuz he hadnt eaten in a while, but the point of it is i found the mother fucker.. Turns out it wasnt the best food in italy, just the best bruchetta... but whatever, i still found teh place after 2 years... then we went for booze

Fuck, i just deleted a bunch, o well. ok so we have our wine, chris bought a beer, which i opened for him with my sandals! We worked our way to the spanish steps, which is a pretty dope spot, last time i was in twon it was under restoration, so i didnt get to see it.. Its actually, suprise suprise, really nice.. everyone kinda just chills on these steps and drinks and some hippies play the guitar. WE chilled for some time, saw some russians taking pictures of themselves the way only russians can. then we left. Weird, im drunk again. haha i think i ahd about 80% of the bottle of wine.. so i was the only one drunk. we got back to our place, i showed chris and debbie the only street in rome with trees, fuck them! assholes. We got back to our hostel and i saw my good buddy rory, o whats this u found some ash...with an h infront of it.. dope.. good night! I dont remember the next night, i think we left that day.. ya we went to firenze (florence), for a night.. nothin too exciting, just a stop over before we got to cinque terra.. SO next stop.. cinque terra.

Ciao!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157478480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157478480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1157478480/tpod.html Tue, 05 Sep 2006 14:12:17 -0400 Europe, through the blurry eyes of Nate Dawg

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Athens, Greece

Travel to athens.. only one way to do it.. First class baby!

When arranging our travels from Ios to athens.. we had a brief stay with Markus planned before heading over to Italy. O yes.. travel arrangments.. its a good idea to buy your tickets as soon as you know when you want to leave. Otherwise it may cost you. The fast ferry from Ios to Athens, 3 hrs.. 49.60 euro, the slow ferry, 9 hrs, 27euro.. No decision, the fast ferry is to be taken. Ok, now that we know this, lets wait a few days more to see if we can pay more then we need to to get to where we want to be. We succeeded. We went back to the travel agent and asked for 3 tickets to athens... NO questions nothing, ok were doing alright.. he says, 89.60. Wow, thats cheeper then i thought, not bad for 3 tickets.. Each! what the fuck, i thought they were 49. yes, but economy, no more seats, business class, no seats.. only first class.. what teh fuck, theres first class on a ferry? After some discussion we deside getting off this island is needed. The next day we head to the ferry terminal for our 2pm departure.. ya.. we can expect that to happen. We get to the ferry, our driver says, no ferry delayed one hour. O, one hour? thats not soo bad, in greek times. So we set to sleeping on the pavement.. An hour passes by, nothing. 30 min, ahhh finally, 3:30pm for our 2pm ferry, not so bad. So we get our stuff together and line up to get on this ferry. They de-board.. and we begin to march on.. the ticket guy looks at my ticket.. "no no, we go to mykanos, then we come back" Huh, apparently we're running just a little behind.. they still have to maek the hour journey to mykanos, and then another hour back before were ready to depart to athens. Sweet.. this is greek time. So Chris and I decide to treat ourselves to milkshakes.. hahaha 99cent. Frozen icecream, mixed, sorry, not mixed.. topped up with milk = milkshake. Actually they were really good. haha, so after another couple hours the ferry is back, we get on.. walk to our first class seats.. and boom. they're fucking pimp. marble floors big leather seats.. all that jazz, but id rather of had my 40 fucking euro. The ferry ride is smooth.. by smooth i mean terrible, fucking 400 ton speed boat, the thing just fly's but u bounce around, and some of the sounds you hear arent soo soothing. We arrive in athens safely, we navigate our way to markus' without too much fuss, and are all thinking of a nice sober sleep.

Markus greets us with, " We need to buy some beers" ahaha.. just what i wanted to hear. We buy some beers from the corner stand and get to his flat.. he's got some sick turntables which i instinctively master.. hahaha who doesnt mix the streets with house music? Debbie is done, and smartly desides to stay in, i have no choice in the matter, as im told by markus, and chris si a trooper. we head down to soem nice spot lined with bars, buy a couple of beers and deside this is bull shit paying 5.50 a beer.. we can get them at a kiosk for a euro. We scope out a nice closed restaurant on the port, or whatever they call the palce where people keep their boats.. and begin boozin.. We drank until the sun came up.. used the port as our personal urinal and had good talk. Chris slept on a cement block. haha. I also bough rollin tabacco.. im classy. I think we finally slept that night at around 7am. nice way to ease out of 5 nights in ios. The next day we hit up the acropolis, pretty impressive stuff..

The street of pillars is a must see.. it consists of one pillar, about 4 feet high, and rubble and dirt. The "Temple of Thesis(?)" is also amazing. hahaha, that is the name that appears on its marker. Not quite sure if its actually a temple, well thats beacus its looks like my moms garden. There is nothing to make you think that it could be a temple, but i guess naming it that gives the idea that something once stood on this pile of dirt. You gotta admire the greeks imagination.

It was really hot, we sweat, we went home, went for a nice dinner with markus, stayed another night.. then took off for patras the next day. This was a four hour bus ride. We were going to the port to take our 18hour ferry ride to Ancona in intaly. 18 hours! The best thing to do before hand.. This is debbie and I, chris i think was broke or didnt want anything to do wiht us. Debbie and I decide that getting drunk will make the ferry ride most enjoyable. We also picked up sandwich meet, cheese, nutella, peanut butter.. i dont think u'll ever meet anyone who loves peanut butter as much as debbie.. it is a basic food group for her. So we embark on our outdoor adventure to italy.

We're expecting typical greek ferry travel, rough seas, shitty outdoor benches to sleep on, and overall hatrid for the experience. NOt so.. This was a fucking cruise ship, we had nice recliners, bars, disco's internet.. chris.. wont buy booze, but spend 4 euro for 30 min on internet.. a pool outsdie.. and showers! fantastic. Ferry ride started off nicely, leaving on time at 830, and hopefully getting to italy ath the appropriate time of 430pm the next day. Debbie and I hit the booze early, i poured rought 2/3 of the vodka into my soda water bottle and began, debbie followed suite with the remaining vodka and some cokes.. we played cards till about 1am, when we were both just shittered, and began our adventures.. we foudn chris in the internet place..alon.. chris if ur reading.. ur love of internet amazes me.. then we headed ot the disco.. got a good picture of me rippin it up on teh dance floor.. by myself. but those photos are M.I.A. eventually we ended up back on deck searchin for a good sleeping location. we figured the landing of the stairs would do well. the constant vibrations made me want to puke.. so i settled for a plastic bench.. passed right hte fuck out. We planned for the morning sun.. planning and drinking dont work.. i was awoken by the scoarching blaze of our worst enemy. After strugglin to fight its power for 10 min i jumped ship and ran to the other side of the boat where shade and the yelling of the crew workers made my sleep easy. I love hearing greek men yelling at each other and washing the deck whilst u try to rest. My degree of hungoverness overcame these obstacles and I fell back asleep.. slept till about 12 30 the next day.. managed to sleep about 10 hours on that ferry.. amazing! the next day wast soo bad, sat aroudn teh pool reading and playing cards, took a shower.. pretty fucking nice. Ancona, not so.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1153071120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1153071120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/natedawg/europa06/1153071120/tpod.html Tue, 05 Sep 2006 13:46:51 -0400 Europe, through the blurry eyes of Nate Dawg

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Ios, Greece

Never plan to stay here for more then four days.. regardless of what you hear about the wet t-shirt contest.

Ios. well.. where to start. My brothers friend Graham informs us of this amazing wet t-shirt contest that happens every friday at paradise beach? wow i really cant remember any names. Ok.. lets stay one more night, that was our first mistake.

Ios is just ridiculous. I just dont know what to say.. its this tiny island thats been transformed into an island of bars and debauchery. it is absolutely dead during the day, the town is tiny and just consists of 4 foot wide streets wide enough for 10 drunk people to try to squeeze through. Francesco's, the hostel, serves breakfast till 2pm. There is a drink on the menu called the hangover cure. After eating like kings for the past two weeks, we decided to take it down a notch.. this ment eating nothing but gyros for the 5 days.. sometimes up to 4 a day. ok, so i'll go about this island by giving an example of one of our exactly same 5 days. Wake up when ur head hurts too much to sleep anymore.. usually between 11-4. If its before 2pm, go downstairs and try and eat something.. sit. If its after 2pm walk 5 min to an all day breakfast joint.. eat something.. sit. Now, if possible go to the beach. This is a 15min walk downhill... find a chair on the beach, if your really hurting, get an umbrella. FOr me, on day 3,4, and 5.. i required about 3 asprin, 2 tylenol, a vitamin.. some crazy asian drugs, and an orange juice. Sit on the beach for a couple to a few hours.. head back around 6ish.. go to the internet place, get a gyro, or on one or two occasions, a cheese burger. They put french friens in teh gyros' adn its sooooo good. Once back at the hostel, sleep till 930 - 10.. get up get ready, start boozing in the room, head down to the restaurant around 11.. everyone from the hostel sits here till 12 1230 drinking and playing drinking games.. then we head out in single file to francesco's fabulous bar.. blue note. we are treated to two drinks for 5 euro.. its seems when drinks are cheepr u spend more. On several occasions drinking would be in such surplus that chris would no longer accept booze from me. WE would be treated to, hips dont lie, jealousy, world hold on.. and repeat. Maybe some old dr. dre or someother fabulous hits.. o yes.. greece sountrack is huge there.. brian adams.. everynight, same thing.. You would leave blue note eventually and head on a wild walk. The maze of streets led you to different bars and clubs. Everywhre u went, just bars.. clubs and drunk masses. Insane.. i dont know what to compare it to because there is nothing like it.. only ayia napa, but thats in cyprus and most dont know what its like. drunk people line everystreet. and bars.. just walk into where ever u want, and drink. 5 shots 5 eura.. that was my favourite.. Do the math, 5 shots 5 eure, or 2 drinks 5 euro.. we can see which one is greater. By the 3 day, i was feeling a little rough, the 4th day i was officially sick.. throat hurt, nose was running.. feever all that jazz.. but u just had to go out.. when we left i was seriously ill.. its weird how i got better after leaving the island. I cant remember anything specific from the partying, o yes.. one night absinthe joined us.. wow.. ever danced with ur eyes closed?
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Mykanos, Greece

Feristo.. thats not how its spelt, shut up!

Alright so i think i left off with our arrival in mykanos and our rendevouz avec mon parents, brother, sister and brother and law.. big happy family and all.. plus a christoph. Lets see, how can i summarize this island, well i cant. You see, its all blurred into one big day where lots of things happened.. so im just gonna give you the highlights. Alright, so Space club, the biggest club on the island. WoW! Now know one thing, the greeks are really strict with their narcotics, for the most part you get offered some sort of drug in every city you visit, not the case in greece. Keep this in mind. So we all go out for dinner, then back to our hotel for some pre drinking before going to rip it up in space. Everythings going great, nothing too crazy happenening, a nice night out..I feel everyone in the bar was thinking the same thing.. everyone except for one lucky bastard. I dont know what he did, or if he did anything but wow.. he was having the time of his life. let me draw u a little picture, there are four or five little stages where girls dance, u know, nothing special.. just some girls who get paid to dance, well i guess our pretty boy over here was a little jealous and wanted to be part of the show.. well he was the show. This boy could move.. hahahaha, and by move i mean barely get up on the stage. His first attempt ended up with him holding onto a steel pole with both arms and trying to climb up the box to the platform.. kinda like holding on to a rope swing, and just like a rope swing, he let go.. but not into water, onto the floor.. u think this would faze our little tarzan, nope.. kids got determination. he goes at it again, and success!! good on ya! And it begins, the most amazing display of dance moves and effects of drugs ever. Pictures will follow, but suffice it to say he could bend in miraculous ways, nothing was beyond his reach. full on jumping to sitting cross legged with arched back, and the facial expressions to match.. wow.. And as expected, one would get a little hot doing these dance moves for 3 hours straight, so as his moves got more and more complicated, his dress did the opposite. Slowly but surely his clothes began to vacate his body. I guess he had more then one admirer, because all his hard work earned him a nice kiss from another boy.. haha yes mykanos is the gay island. Anyway, he managed to entertain me till 5 30 6 in the morning.. then bed time.

Now, to keep this somewhat short, im only gonna describe the best thing that has ever happened to chris, debbie and I. OOO asian boys. hahaha, jeff, youd of been in heaven mate. O ya, im aussie, i'll explain in a month or so. As mentioned before, debbie had herself a nice little shed on paradise beach, this is hte party beach, beach bars and all that jazz, and from 5pm until 10.. its just stupid.. and i mean stupid, like em... haha just kidding.. shes going to hte HK, i knew in advance. So Chris and I take our little transit boat from our beach to debbos paradise. Were sitting in a bench on the beach just having a mythos, wow i miss those.. The party beginning to get going a little, and the drinks are beginning to get emptied.. basically a good combo. Most people have been in the vacinity of a party at one time or another in the course of their lives, and have a good clue what to expect. haha throw that shit out the window.. As im people watching, we spot a nice friendly looking little asiam man, now speedos are common place in europe, so i pay no nevermind to his choice of swimwear, thats until he turns around.. hahahah our little chubby asian boy has decided hes gonna rock a nice purple and red thong! ya, why not right.. hahaha. He looks like hes having the time of his life, just looking around taking in the sights.. little girls dancing on tables and all that jazz.. two lesbos and boys eating eachother out. ya u know the good stuff. I guess said boy wants some fun too.. so why not hope on stage with two 18 year olds italians. this guy has got to be 30 or so. hahah. I dont think hes ever heard music before. that wont fase him, just do what anyother sane man would do at this point, copy everyone around you. haha.. so this dude is up on a table with two young girls who have no clue what to do, smilling his ass off, not really dancing but kinda throwing up a hand here and there and spinning around showing off his ass to everyone. now people are gathering aroudn with cameras in hand capturing this spectacle. Great shit friends.. were dying laughing as is everyone else.. things only get better. Eventually the girls vacate the stage leaving poor young wang alone. ALright, too bad.. he gets off, but what happens next couldnt of been written in a movie. He goes the the table containing the loving females.. hahaha.. they are trashed so begin to grind with him.. NOw what do u think would happen to a 13 year old boy in this instance.. ya.. he pops a rocket.. hahahaha everyone notices this shit and the cameras begin to go again.. wow.. fucking great! Eventually the girls hes grinding with eiether feels or notices, i dont know which one.. the asian stereotype was upheld in this instance.. hahahha but my god.. hahah i think he was the only one who didnt realise it.. anyways, that went on for another 15 min or so.. thank god.. as everyone had the time of their lives including mr wang himself.. O fuck!..

good stuff. dont worry i got photos!
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Budapest, Hungary

Hello all,

Long time no talk.. ya, i got kinda lazy, in case you`re wondering im not actually in hungary anymore, but you cant really tell can you.

So i just finished reading where i last left off.. hahaha o wow, that was an AMAZING bath.. it cost me just over 200 bucks american.. well not the bath, the bath was about 10 bucks, the fucking dude who scammed me for 200 bucks cost me 200 bucks. So as the story goes, i left the internet cafe anticipating a nice relaxing steam in teh 500 year old baths. I left chris and headed on my mary way, as i come up to the brige needed to cross from pest to buda i notice a nice little statue on the mountain side. Sure i got some time, why not stroll up there and work up a little sweat before heading to cool off. So i walk and walk until i reach what i thought was the end of the road, nice little place, a statue of some once popular man, i take some photos.. o whats this i can keep on walking.. great idea, so i climb up the path and see some man sitting down on a little wooden box with a couple of people around him. Whats all the comotion i wonder.. if ur wondering i havent been pissed in a couple days so i can somewhat think. haha, theres a little man playing that game where he puts a ball under three boxs and moves them around and you have ot chose which box contains the ball.. kinda like at canucks games on the big screen.. so im standing watching these otehr poeple go at it.. and everytime im picking the right box. These men are idiots i think.. how are they not getting it right, finally they are all out of money, and the man starts telling me.. "any amount, any currency.. u bet 50 i give u a 100" Sorry mate, i only got 100 dollar bills yall.. im a high roller, what the fuck.. finally somehow he gets me to commit.. what the shit eh.. an easy 200, so i pick the box.. nothing.. fuck me eh.. before i know it i do it again and am 200 bucks poorer. Im in shock. Then i watch him one more time, and notice that as the sucker is reaching into his wallet for his money, the little hungarian prick moves the ball one last time.. son of a bitch i say.. actually i say "hey, what the fuck". His response was a one eyed wink at me.. what a prick. So my bath was much less enjoyable as was the rest of the afternoon as i pondered loosing over 40000 forint.
The end..
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