Shark Tales

Your Euro Based Son Part IV

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:44:00 +0000

This will be my last Euro Based Son post. For those of you that don't know it is a tribute to my mothers blog yourhomebasedmom.com. Check it out if you haven't already. Here are some pictures from my trip through France and Spain and the different foods I tried.

Breakfast in the plaza of Ceberes

Best croissant I've ever had

Bakery in Ceberes - Small town on the southern French coast

Lunch in Madrid - Ham and cheese bocadillo

I love ham

Chocolate caña - Spanish Pastries are amazing!

Churros with dulce de leche

I've resorted to drinking lemon fanta by the half gallon

Best chocolate croissant I've had (and i've eaten lots)

Bakery where I bought the croissant in Port Bou Spain

Crepes in Paris

Paris part II, last days in Cambridge, and the point

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:01:00 +0000

After spending the night in the Barcelona train station we were able to get on a train headed towards France. We got off at the border and went and explored a little town called Ceberes. It was absolutely beautiful and we found a little bakery that made the best croissants ever. I ate four of them. We then made stops in Narbonne and Montpellier on our way to Paris. Once we got to paris we walked along the Seine, ate Crepes, and took pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night that was absolutely beautiful. We then took the metro back to the bus station. On the way I saw a guy on the train with a basketball and I talked to him about Nicolas Batum and the Blazers. He had heard of BYU before because of the NCAA tournament.

The bus ride back was really long, but it was good to be back in Cambridge. That afternoon I had my last supervision that went really well. It has been amazing working with Professor Steinberg. That night we had a final formal dinner, afterwards they had a party with a slideshow and dancing. After that we all went out to a club that the programme had reserved for us.

The next day I spent as tourist in Cambridge. I toured around Cambridge and did all of the other things that I have wanted to do that I havent gotten around to yet. That night everyone said goodbye. I have gotten to know lots of people really well, and it was sad to see everyone leave.

Yesterday I left Cambridge early afternoon for London. I then met up with my cousin Georgie and went to here flat in East London. We went out to a local pub and saw some of the area where she lives. We spent the night at her place and woke up the next morning and after a walk through a local market we took off for Sonning where her family was staying.

Sonning has been amazing. The house the Clark's have here is in an absolutely beautiful location. It is right on the Thames. We spent the afternoon barbecuing and eating strawberries and cream next to the river. Afterwards we went on a boat ride up the river. It was an absolutely beautiful day, and the scenery was incredible. It has been really great getting to know the Clark family.

Boat ride on the Thames

The boat that I sleep in

Relaxing at the point

Dinner last night in Cambridge with Dr Martland

After the formal dinner

Eiffel Tower at night

Ceberes

Barcelona Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 14:38:00 +0000

From Madrid we took off and the first train to Barcelona that got us there around ten in the morning. On our way to the beach (By this time we were tired of traveling and pretty smelly since we had only showered once in four days so we didnt feel like much sightseeing just laying out) we stopped at an internet cafe. While checking our email I overheard a couple talking about the problems they were having getting a train to Paris. I asked them what the problem was and they told me that no trains were running in France that day because there were strikes going on. This freaked us out, with all the other problems with trains we had the last thing we wanted was not to be able to get back to London, lose the deposit on our bus out of Paris, and have to buy a bus ticket to Paris (which is a 16 hour ride). We went back to the train station and asked everyone we could find about it, but never got a straight answer. Since European trains are so international, you would think there would be better organization between countries. They are not. All the Spanish rail workers told us that those were French trains and they had no information on them. So we decided to go to the beach and come back to the station later. We had until 1:30 in the morning to figure it out, that was when the last bus to Paris left that would get us there on time to get us on our bus to London.

The rest of the day was amazing. The weather could not have been better. We both got pretty sunburned, but it was so relaxing. That evening we got dinner at a bar along the waterfront and then wandered around the boardwalk and the marina. There was live music everywhere and the atmosphere was very fun. We sat for awhile and listened to a band play Spanish music. They were really good and entertaining. After that we went back and sat on the beach for awhile.

This trip has been kind of an interesting sociological experience/experiment. For about a week Brian and I lived pretty much like homeless men. You look at the world differently when you do not know where you will be sleeping that night. Also after four days with no shower we looked pretty ragged. On a few occasions that night we had homeless men join us as we sat by the beach. It was really interesting to hear their stories and their outlook on life. Just a few hours before we had been on that same beach as tourists, these men were wandering around constantly trying to sell us coke and beer. It became rather obnoxious. After spending an hour talking with these guys on the beach I saw them in an entirely different life. It made me wish that I would have bought more drinks from them. The saying that you don't understand someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes held very true for us. Its something I hope to continue to do, see everyone as an equal no matter their position in life.

That night we returned to the train station and were very blessed. We went into the customer service office to ask about the French train situation that nobody knew anything about. I had even called the train station information center twice that day and talked with five different people, none of which even know that there were strikes going on in France. The head of the station just happened to be in the customer service when we walked in there, he also was the only man that had any idea of what was going on in all of Barcelona. He told us that the strikes may very well continue through the next day, but that there were certain trains that would make it to Paris because they were with a different company. The thing is most of them were full. The biggest problem would be finding a train that would actually cross the border. He told us which trains to get on that we wouldnt need a reservation that would take us to the French/Spain border. It wasnt much of a train, but more like a subway type train that stopped at all of the beaches along the coast. He then told us to get off at a certain train station where we would be able to board a train that would take us across the border. He told us to get on it there and not in Barcelona because in Cerberes there was no security control and we would be able to get on it without a reservation (we figured it was the head of the train station telling us to do it it was ok to sneak on), and that if there were any problems just to hang out in the train bar (where they dont check for tickets) until the next stop. From there we were able to talk to a french railway attendant who would be able to help us get back to Paris. He then told us to stay in his office when the security cleared out the station so that we could spend the night there. It was a relief to know that we were most likely going to make it back to Paris, and that we weren't going to have to spend anymore money.

The beach we spent all day at

Listening to live music at the marina

Out on the pier

Madrid

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 09:36:00 +0000

We woke up early to take a train to Madrid. Spain has some new high speed trains that travel between Barcelona and Madrid that were actually really nice. It was almost like being on an airplane. They even showed a move, unfortunately it was Mama Mia. Honestly the worst movie I have ever seen. I have seen the show and actually enjoyed it, but the movie was bad. The only entertaining part was watching the movie in Spanish only to have them break out into song in English.

When we got to Madrid we set out to explore the city. We pretty much walked all over the entire thing. We saw the palace, many of the gardens, monuments, and cool plazas that Madrid has. The pastries there were amazing. I will be sure to feature some in my next eurobasedson post. That night we went to the Madrid train station and after talking to several different people we got permission to stay the night inside the station. The cement was hard, but its nice knowing that they kick everyone else out so that you don't have to worry about getting robbed in your sleep like you do sleeping outside the station.

Where I spent the night

The Plaza Mayor

Don Quixote, Pancho, and I

Royal Palace Gardens

Royal Palace

Barcelona Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:52:00 +0000

Getting on a train headed to Barcelona was a relief. My day in Paris was great, and I found the French people rather nice and friendly. I thought the stereotype of the French being jerks and anti-american was not all that true, until about twenty minutes into the train ride. Brian and I were talking about what he had done with his family when they came to London, all of a sudden a French guy in his late twenties who was sitting across the isle gets in my face, I stopped talking and he says to me in English, "Oh so now you stop talking about me?" He continued to say that he spoke really good english and knew that we had been talking about him. I told him that we were not talking about him and that he misunderstood what we had said. This just made him more mad, and started showing off his "good english" which mainly consisted of swear words. Not wanting to get into a fight in a foreign country i tried to keep a level head and resolve things peacefully (avoiding the very strong temptation to say thing like - What are you going to do, try and fight me, lose terribly, and then hope some other american comes and beats me up?). I asked him what we had said about him, in response he just continued to shake his head at us, act put out, and swear in english. Brian and I just sat there with this crazy guy who was on drugs staring at us, not able to talk in neither spanish or english because he would think we were talking about him. So we tried to be really nice to him, that really made him mad and he moved to a different compartment. However, during the night when I was asleep he came back and took my water bottle that had fallen behind my seat and drank most of all of it. When I woke up he had already gotten off the train, his plan to get back at me was actually quite effective. It was really hot in Barcelona, and there was nowhere to buy water because it was Sunday morning. Needless to say I got pretty thirsty.

Barcelona was amazing. I loved the city and being in a spanish speaking country again. The first place we went was the Parque Guell. It is a park designed by Gaudi. Lots of cool collage art everywhere. We then went to the Sagrada Familia, a church that was designed by Gaudi that was not finished before he died. We then headed off to the beach. The weather was beautiful and it felt so good to go swimming because the weather was incredibly hot. That night Brian did not feel well at all so his parents got us a hotel room. It felt good to take a shower, which would be my last for the next four days.

The food was great in Barcelona. I had dulce de leche ice cream and churros filled with dulce de leche. The whole time Brian and I talked about how much it made us feel like we were back on our missions. We talked to lots of people from South America, and it was refreshing to interact with such friendly people compared to the majority of Europeans. When looking for an internet cafe we asked a man from Ecuador and he walked 10 blocks with us to show us where the closest one was. While at the internet cafe a couple was watching the world track championship online. So I got to watch Usain Bolt break the 100m world record while sitting next to the beach in Barcelona.

Here are some picutres from our first day in Barcelona.

The beach after all the topless Grandma's left

La Sagrada Familia

Parque Guell

More of Parque Guell

Paris Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:36:00 +0000

A lot has happened since the last time I blogged so I am going to break it up into a few different posts. According to my mother long posts are boring and people tend to skim, so I will try to keep them somewhat short, entertaining, and coming as often as possible between packing and other final activities.

Last friday I took my last exam and immediately hopped on a bus to Paris. It was a long time to be on a bus, but luckily I was able to sleep most of the way. I got to Paris at around seven in the morning and after wandering around lost for a little bit I located myself on the map and set off to find Notre Dame. It was about an hour and a half walk, but it was fun to watch the city wake up. I bought a croissant at a small bakery on my way (To be included in YourEuroBasedSon Part IV). Notre Dame was awesome, and I even got to attend a morning mass. The organ in there was incredible, I took a few videos of different things on this trip and may try to upload them in a later post.

After Notre Dame I went to the Louvre. To be honest I really don't like art museums. After about ten minutes all painting start to look the same to me. Call me uncultured, but I had way more fun in the Oxford natural history museum, which is about the size of the Louvre's entry room, with all if its dinosaur bones and shrunken heads than I ever could have had in any art museum. But I figured since I was in Paris I better go see the Mona Lisa, plus I got in for free since I'm a student within the European Union. If had been anything over five Euros, I would have most definitely bought a crepe and a Mona Lisa post card instead. After wandering around for about a half hour I found it, looked at it for a minute then left. I really don't understand all of the hype it receives. The thing is really small, personally the fifty foot painting on the opposite wall that nobody has ever head of was much more impressive.

After the Louvre I walked to the Eiffel Tower. It was much more impressive than I thought it would be. I took a nap in the park in front of it and then climbed up as far as you can go without taking an elevator. I then went to the arc de triomphe, and then walked by Moulin Rouge on my way to the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. The Basilique was by far the best part about Paris in my opinoin. The building is beautiful, the view was awesome, and the ambiance of the place was way cool. There was a guy playing live music, a couple of guys doing tricks with soccer balls that were unreal, and a dance crew right out of some low budget dance moving performing in front of the church.

At the Paris train station we ran into some problems. They told us that all of the night trains to Barcelona were full. We went through several different possible routes with the very unhelpful guy at the ticket counter who was very annoyed at our persistence. There are two train station that are about two minutes apart, one in France and the other in Spain. He kept telling us that there were no reservations left on the train to the Spanish station where you make the connection to Barcelona, but I asked him what about the French station? There happened to be two reservations to there even though it is the same train. Needless to say the train system in France in Spain leaves much to be desired. The train ride was very interesting, but that will have to wait for the next post.

Basilique du Sacre-Coeur

View from where I took a nap

The Louvre

Notre Dame

Last full week in Cambridge/YourEuroBasedSon Part III

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:03:00 +0000

I am up kind of late and I have my last final exam tomorrow so I probably shouldn't be blogging, but it has been a little while since I last posted and I leave for Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Cordova, and Seville tomorrow so it may be awhile before I am able to do so again. This week has been full of studying and paper writing. I can't wait for 6:00 pm tomorrow when my last final gets out, because my bus for mainland Europe leaves at 6:50. Yes a bus to mainland Europe. Apparently the put the bus on a ferry, I should be able to sleep the whole time and it is the cheapest way to get to Paris.

My supervision continues to go really well. My supervisor is excited about my paper. This week he offered to continue supervising me through skype once I go back to BYU, with the goal to eventually get this paper published in The Historical Journal published by Cambridge University Press. It will be a lot of work, but an amazing opportunity. My supervisor used to be an editor or someone high up with the journal and said that if it goes well he will recommend my paper to the Journal. I was hoping to maybe get something published in the BYU undergraduate historical journal before coming to Cambridge, my sights have now been set a little higher!

I need to get to bed so here are some pictures.

Your Euro Based Son Part III

Well they don't eat spiders here but if I leave my window open I get tons of bugs in my room because I overhang the river. I found this spider last night in my room, to give you an idea of how big he was, that is your average sized crown molding behind him.

We found a Polish Restaurant in town

I had potato pancakes with beef goulash, they were really good!

I also tried borscht and a few other traditional polish dishes.

Bangers and Mash

Stake and Ale Cornish Pasties

Lemon Fanta is amazing!

Chapel Roof Tour and Prince Charles

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:14:00 +0000

These last few days have been full of different interesting experiences. We had another formal hall where I ate dinner with and olympic gold medalist. He was on the British rowing team that one gold in Sydney. He is now finishing up his PhD with one of my professors here. The next day I had my supervision that went really well. I have begun to focus on Cardinal Isidro Goma, who was the head of the Catholic Church in Spain during the Civil War. I have been doing a lot of work with all of his archived letters, that have recently been published and have not been used in previous publishing about the civil war. So I am going through and seeing if there are any discrepancies between what Goma reports (which are all in Spanish which is fun for me) to the Vatican and what has been published in previous studies of the Spanish Civil War.

This project is really taking off well, and my supervisor is very excited about it. Mainly because it is something that has not been really touched before. He is starting to talk to me about the possibilities of coming back to Spain next year to get my masters degree, an idea I am beginning to seriously consider. And if not in Spain in London with one of the top scholars on the Spanish Civil War. I also found out this week that my supervisor supervised Prince Charles when he was here studying at Cambridge. I plan on doing a post just on my supervisor later on because he really is an incredible man.

A unique opportunity that I had this week that is only available to student of King's College is to go on a tour of the roof of the Chapel. It was cool to see all of the old school graffiti from the 18th century that was in the vault area between the ceiling of the chapel and the roof. There was an incredible view from the roof of all of Cambridge as well.

Today we went to Blechley's Park, this is where all of the code breaking took place during the Second World War and where the first computer was built to help in the code breaking process. It was really interesting to learn more about how the code breaking process evolved over the course of the war, and to be there where it actually happened was very cool as well.

I never get tired of walking out my

front door and seeing this

On the chapel roof

View from the chapel roof

The University Library

American War Cemetery

Croquet with some of the TA's (I won)

Dinner at the Eagle and Child in Oxford

This is where the Inklings would come and discuss

and drink. Both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were members

of the Inklings.

View of All Saints College from the St Mary's Chapel tower

In front of the hall that was used in the Harry Potter movies

Colossus, the first computer.

Sir Richard Dearlove

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:02:00 +0000

I am currently taking a course on the history of U.S. and British intelligence. Last night Sir Richard Dearlove came to speak to us. He was the head of MI6 (Britain's external intelligence agency) during the 9/11 attacks. He talked to us about the future of the intelligence community and answered some questions. He told us about the flight he took on Sept 12, 2001 to the United States. Their plane was the only one allowed into American airspace that day, and they took off before they even had clearance to land. It was incredible to hear someone of his knowledge and experience talk to us about these things. He even said that there is undeniable evidence that Saddam Hussein attempted to buy yellowcake (a uranium concentrate key in the process of building nuclear weapons) from the Egyptians, that it would be unreasonable not to use intelligence even if it was gained by torture, and that he had been misquoted when the media said he had said that the U.S. was basing its intelligence around its policies. Just another amazing experience that happens on a regular basis here in Cambridge.

A visit to the "other" university

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:52:00 +0000

This last week was much more relaxing than the previous few. The first one that I have not had atleast one paper due (don't worry I have three due in the next week). I was able to spend more time participating in activities like croquet, basketball, punting, and sightseeing around Cambridge. On Thursday we went to the Wren library, named after the designed by Christopher Wren, that is located at Trinity College (where the race scene in Chariots of Fire takes place). On display there they have a Bible from the 8th century, Isaac Newton's personal copy of the first edition of Principia Matematica with his own notes and corrections in it, and A.A. Milne's first edition copy of Winnie the Pooh.

On Friday we woke up really early to catch a bus to go to Oxford. We found bus tickets for one pound each, the only catch was that we had to leave at 5:30 in the morning. Oxford is a very cool city, much different than Cambridge. It is much bigger and busier, with lots of busses and traffic zooming all over whereas Cambridge has much more of a small town feel to it. We saw several of the colleges, and many of the spots where they film the Harry Potter movies. Also went to the college where C.S. Lewis taught, and had dinner at the Eagle and Child where the Inklings used to meet. The Inklings were a group that included J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis would meet to discuss the books they were writing and other things. We actually got to sit at the very table where they would meet, and on the wall they had pictures of them and a framed piece of paper where they had all signed their names.

I went with a few other BYU students, two of which knew a former BYU student who is a faculty member there now. She took us on a tour and was able to get us into a few places for free, like the tower of St. Mary's Cathedral that had an amazing view of the city. At the end of the tour we went to the Oxford Museum of Natural History where they have the last remaining soft tissue from a dodo bird, a dodo bird skeleton, some dinosaur skeletons, and shrunken heads from south america that were used in one of the harry potter movies.

I spent most of Saturday studying. I also found out that my camera arrive, but it is being held hostage by Cambridge customs until i pay them 70 dollars, so I am going tomorrow to see what i can do about that. Luckily one of the other girls in the program has an extra camera, so I have been using it for the last few days, the only thing is she does not have a computer cord for it so I still can't upload any pictures.

Yesterday I taught primary again, it was just me and two five year olds. I taught for the first five minutes and then we ended up drawing pictures on the blackboard for the next half hour. After church we went to the American Military Cemetery that is here in Cambridge. There were dozens of American air bases in the Cambridge-shire area, and many are buried there along with a memorial to all the air men that were lost fighting over the english channel and Europe.

After which we had a testimony meeting in the Kings Chapel.

That's all for now, I will start uploading pictures this week for sure so expect more frequent posts of mainly just pictures.

Cramming one semester into a week.

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:48:00 +0000

This last Winter semester at BYU I wrote five research papers, I have written that many this last week and a half on top of studying for a final exam. So that has pretty much consumed my life for the last week. It has been an awesome learning experience though. I am becoming much more efficient in my research and writing abilities. My supervision is going extremely well. I am a completely different writer now than I was two weeks ago. Professor Steinberg is honestly the nicest man I have ever met. He has this uncanny ability to tell your paper is horrible while making you feel great about yourself at the same time. For an hour we went over every line of the paper I submitted to him, and he pointed out everything I did well, and everything I did wrong.

It is unreal the amount of world class personal attention that I am getting here. For everyone of these five papers I have submitted I get one on one feedback from my professors. That is more than I have gotten in the last three years at BYU. I know for a fact that I will progress more as a writer here than I have in the last three years at BYU.

To give you an idea what I am writing about my last five papers have been on whether or not Spanish Carlists were fascist, why the US and Britain did not go to war again after 1815, advantages of constructing chronologies when doing research, why Francisco Franco rose to power instead of one of the more charismatic Spanish generals, and if manifest destiny was just America's version of British Imperialism. Not all of them sound really that interesting I know, but I have really enjoyed learning more about them. What I enjoy most about it is the challenge of finding the evidence to prove my thesis correct.

After my final exam on friday (the term is still not over some of the classes are only 4 weeks and others are 8) I took a much needed nap and then a big group of us went out clubbing. It was my first experience in a European night club, and it was actually a lot of fun. Then yesterday afternoon I went out with some guys to a pub to watch New Zealand play South Africa in rugby.

This morning I went to church and helped teach a primary class. Wiping noses, taking kids to the bathrooms, convincing them to come out from under tables to join the lesson, and keeping kids from escaping was a drastic contrast than what I have been used to after attending singles wards for the last few years.

After church I went to dinner at one of my professors houses. Dinner was really good, and afterwards we watched a documentary. I was happy to hear from him that I had received top marks on both my term paper and final exam. It has been great really getting to know him, his name is Dr Peter Martland and he is one of the top intelligence historians in the world. He is only one of two men in the world that does not work for the British Government to have been granted access to the secret MI5 archives.

After dinner the Cambridge Ward historian came and talked to us about the history of the church here in Cambridge. He had lots of interesting stories, but what was supposed to be a 45 min lecture turned into an hour and a half. One thing that I left excited about is that he told us the Cambridge University Library has a copy of the first Book of Mormon printed in Europe in 1841 that you can actually check out, along with all the original Millenium Stars. I am going to go tomorrow and check them out, hopefully I will have my camera back by then so I can take some pictures.

I am excited for these next few weeks. I will have more time to explore the city and see more of all the cool museums, libraries, and colleges. Most importantly I should have a camera, so I promise more fun, non-academic, picture filled posts.

First Weekend in Cambridge

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:37:00 +0000

This last week I sent my camera home to be repaired since they could not do it under warrantee here, but my mom sent me her old one so I will be able to post more pictures soon. Also this upcoming week I have three papers and an exam, so there won't be much time for picture taking anyways. After that my schedule is a lot easier so I will be sure to explore Cambridge more then with my camera. This last week went really well. I got an A on my first paper which made me happy. I also had a really good meeting with my supervisor. I was excited to find out that I have my last class on the 14th, so the culminate my study of the Spanish Civil War I am going to fly to Malaga and make my way to Barcelona visiting important historical sights along the way.

Also this last week we went and saw Harry Potter. It was a lot of fun because they pretty much rented out the entire theater for all of the kids in the programme (yea that's how they spell it over here). The movie was good, my favorite part was the beginning scene where the death eaters cause all the havoc in downtown London, this was because I had been to all of the places they showed only a few days prior. This weekend was relaxing. First time in over a month I have had a couple days in a row not having to be going to class or traveling somewhere (rough life I know). I played ultimate frisbee one night, I guess they don't see that too often around here because we got some strange looks from people walking by. Also we had a discussion group on the other night which was really interesting.

My time here started to make me think about becoming a professor, this weekend I attended a conference where some of the leading minds in the world were there presenting. I fell asleep through the entire thing because I did not understand a word they were saying. Granted intellectual history isn't really my thing, I still let convinced that I am meant to be a lawyer, not a professional academic.

Sunday I attended the Cambridge family ward, I have been asked to help out with the young men. This entails sitting in their quorum meetings and playing soccer with them at mutual, it is going to be a lot of fun.

Every Sunday night they do a pub quiz. They split us all into teams and ask general knowledge questions, granted general knowledge questions thought up by Cambridge graduate students are a little harder than your average trivia questions. My team won though, primarily thanks to the grad students on our team; however, I did contribute by knowing that Steve Harris is a member of Iron Maiden and that Socrates said, "A life not examined is not worth living." First time I have put something I learned in Poli Sci 201 to use.

I will try and post again this week, but no promises. After this week though I will have much more time and I promise to come through with some more interesting and entertaining blog posts than this one.

Puro Chile Tu Cielo Azulado!

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:59:00 +0000

Two years ago today I returned from my mission in Santiago Chile. Viva Chile!

Your Eurobasedson Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:11:00 +0000

In my last few weeks here in England I have developed an attachment to a few different kinds of food and drink that I had not tried before.

Cadbury dark chocolate, so good i have started buying it in bulk to save money.

Apple Soda

Fish and chips with mushy peas

Most of all lamb, I had never eaten it before coming here but they serve some type of lamb almost everyday in the cafeteria here and it is really good.

London for the weekend.

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:58:00 +0000

I decided to try and blog more frequently because so much happens everyday here it is easy to get behind. Friday I had my first paper due. I was in the library until about 2 in the morning and then went to bed for a few hours and was back there at 6. I really wish the library at BYU was open 24 hours a day! Then Friday night I played soccer with the King's choir and went out for drinks with them after, don't worry I just had a coke. It was a lot of fun getting to know them and to actually interact with British students since all of us in the program here are American. Friday I also went on a walking tour where they showed where all the famous writers lived around Cambridge. I live just around the corner from where Shakespeare first put on the first performance of Macbeth, where A.A. Milne started writing Winnie the Pooh, the mill pond where Chaucer would go for inspiration while writing the Canterbury Tales, and countless others.

Yesterday we were in London. We did a walking tour and saw the sights. After which we went to the British National Museum where we saw so many amazing things like the Rosetta Stone, the Flood tablet, and the sculptures from the Parthenon. I was so tired though, every room we went into we would all just sit down and rest awhile. After that we went to a restaurant near the globe theater and got some really good ramen. We then went and saw A Mid Summer's Night Dream in the Globe. It is honestly the first time I can say that I have enjoyed Shakespeare. The actors were great and kept the audience very involved. The setting was in the 1920's but it was the original script otherwise. Puck was this scantily clad women who would come out into the audience, she grabbed a few BYU guys and gave them quite a thrill. We were in the standing section in the middle and its started to rain on us a little a few differen times during the play but it held off.

Today we went to church at the Cambridge Ward. Elder Johnson of the 70 was there visiting his son who is the bishop of the ward, he also gave a fireside tonight which was awesome. Well im off to bed and have a long week with lots of work to do ahead of me!

Soccer with the King's Choir

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey
The London Eye

Taking a nap at the British National Museum

Edinburgh and First Full Week of School

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:51:00 +0000

So it has been awhile since I last blogged, but they really know how to keep us busy here. If we are not in class or the library they are constantly having different activities we can participate in. Last weekend they took us all to Scotland for fo ur days which was a very cool experience. The bus ride took forever because of a two hour traffic jam, but I was able to sleep for most of it. On the way up we stopped at a place called Hadrian's Wall. It was the furthest north the Roman's reached and where they built a big wall and had a small fort. That night we got into Scotland and headed out to the Royal Mile for dinner. That is right when my camera stopped working so I don't have as many pictures as I would I like, but I had other people take some for me. We found thi s little take out food place called the clam shell where we ended up eating for most meals. I had some good fish and chips and a fried mars bar for dessert. If you are ever in Scotland please find a place that serves these, they are really good! They are horrible for you but delicious. Kind of like a donut with lots of gooey carmel and chocolate filling. We spent the rest of the night exploring the royal mile, seeing statues of Adam Smith, Hulme, and the Edinburgh castle. That night we found a cool little pub where there was a band playing scottish folk music. They were really good, they were called Rantum Scantum you can listen to some of their music here at their website. The bartender didn't like us at first, probably the first time he's had ten people come in and order non-alcoholic drinks, but he learned to like us. He was this guy with long curly hair, lots of piercings, and a kilt with nothing on underneath. We found that out as people were taking pictures with him at the end and he flipped up his kilt showing everyone his butt.
The next day we got up early and took a bus a few hours away to a place called the Trussachs. It is known as the Scottish Highlands in miniature. I really wish I had my camera there but I will post some that I've gotten off other people's facebooks. It was beautiful and an intense hike in some parts. But at the top we had a beautiful view of the surrounding hills and a loch. That they threw a fourth of july party for us. Which consisted of eating Scottish food and learning several traditional scottish dances, not a weekend at the beach but it was still a lot of fun and a very cool experience. That night we went back to the same pub to listen to Rantum Scantum some more. As I have been listening to their music off their website I realized they are much more entertaining live (probably because they've had a few beers in them), but I reccommend Folk Fae Fife.
Sunday morning we went to the Elephant House Cafe, also known as the birthplace of Harry Potter. We ate breakfast there, and you can totally tell how JK Rowling was inspired there. There is an amazing view of Edinburgh Castle, which looks exactly like Hogwarts in the movies. After that we went to sacrament meeting at the local Edinburgh Ward which was fun. After that we explored the city some more of the city and got some more fried mars bars, I had four in the tree days we were there. That night we climbed Arthur's seat. It was a fun short hike with an awesome view of the city. When we got to the top a huge downpour started, but on the other half of the city. It was a very cool sight seeing this rain storm that was only covering half of the city with sun setting behind it with the Firth of Forth in the background.
Monday morning we headed back to Cambridge, and on the way back stopped at the ruins of an old abbey called Fountains Abbey. It was very cool, this nearly 1000 year old huge building that was still intact for the most part except for the roof. The ground were beautiful as well with cool water gardens.
Since then I have been here in Cambridge trying to stay on top of my school work. It is a lot of work but amazing at the same time. I had my supervision this week and it was amazing. There is a small room at the top of the tower above the porters lodge at the entrance of Kings. For an hour and a half it was just Dr. Steinberg and I discussing what I had read, and analying the information using different historical models. The man knows so much and has so many cool experiences. He would tell me different scholarly articles he would want me to read for next week and he knew which journals, volume, and numbers I should look at just off the top of his head, and Spanish history isn't even his specialty! It was honestly the best hour and a half of my academic career. I've spent a lot of the time in the library this week, I may have said this before but it is open 24 hours and it has a little sign hanging on the door that says if you are the last one out please turn off the lights. It is a goal of mine to be the one to turn of the lights atleast once. I also got my library card for the University library this week. Each individual college has its own library but have access to the University Library. Which is amazing, it has so many books and there are all these cool little staircases and wings of the library, sometime I am just going to go there and explore it. It is quite the ordeal to get a card to the main library. You have to get a letter from the head of your college explaining why you need access, and then go to the admissions office in the library and sit in this room with this not very nice old lady while she reviews it.
I am really loving Cambridge though. It is such a cool city and I can't wait to explore it more. This week all of the BYU students at the London Center came up and I took a group of them punting which was fun, and then we went to a pub for dinner. The room we ate dinner in was the room where the discovery of DNA was first announced. Everything here has so much history to it, and so many cool things have happened here! Like just walking down the street I pass by where Darwin used to live and where Isaac Newton used to study. This week I had another once in a lifetime opportunity of participating in an Evensong with the King's College Choir. I met the Chaplin one of the first days here, and arranged it with him so that I could give one of the lessons out of the New Testament during the service. There were several hundred people there, and it was the coolest setting ever and between two of the songs I got to stand in front of everyone and read one of my favorite passages of scripture Matthew 7:21-29. The chaplin is an amazing man, that morning I spent a half hour practicing reading with him in the chapel. It was just him and I in this amazing building. He would go sit at the far end and I would read and he would interrupt me to tell me whether I need to read louder, slower, and how to emphasize certain words.
Tonight I am going a literary walking tour of Cambridge. They take you around to all these different part of the town where different literary greats read, wrote, and studied. Then tomorrow we are off to London for the day and to see a play in the globe theater.

Our bartender before he flashed us.

Some guy playing the bagpipes on the Royal Mile

Sitting on Hadrian's Wall

Hike through the Scottish Highlands

It was the 4th of July so I showed some patriotic spirit

Hanging out at the pub

First of many fried mars bars

Fountains Abbey

View out of the window of the Elephant House Cafe
You can tell how JK Rowling was inspired to thing of a place like
Hogwarts while sitting here

On the top of Arthur's seat

Here is a video of a performance at Evensong.
Just watch the first few seconds, I was sitting right next to the choir and when they stopped singing I stood up and read from the Bible to a packed house.

My new home - Cambridge.

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:43:00 +0000

So I am just finishing my first week of school here at Cambridge and it has been an absolutely amazing. I have met so many cool students from some of the most prestigious universities all over the U.S. The campus is unreal, I feel like I am at Hogwarts. I went to evensong yesterday in the chapel, which was a very cool experience. I met the pastor and after talking to him I am going to be able to do one of the readings during evensong next week, it will be a very neat and unique experience. I even played a little cricket with a couple members of the choir. They were impressed at how far I hit the ball, but I wasn't much of a bowler. When you bowl, or pitch, the ball you cant bend your elbow.
My classes so far have been really cool. One of my classes is about Anglo-American relations after the revolution, something i know very little about. There are some kids in there that know a rediculous amount, which is impressive and intimidating. My other class is about Europe from 1890-1990, something I know much more about so I am excited about that. I am also doing a supervision with the professor of this second class. His name is Jonathan Steinberg, and he is a very impressive man. He has accomplished so much in his life, he even has a wikipedia article about himself. It is an incredible opportunity to study WWII with someone who was an expert witness on a war crimes trial. Also you know somebody is impressive when they name drop in their lectures and they talk about how they were on the same panal as Mikhail Gorbachev. I had my first meeting with him and he assigned me two 800 page books about Franco to read by the next time we meet.
They have lots of activities for us while we are here which is fun, but I have been in the library every night trying to get ahead or atleast stay on track with all the work they are giving us. Tomorrow we leave for Scotland for the weekend which will be fun. We are going on a hike in the highlands, and hopefully make a visit to St Andrews golf course. Here are some pictures of where I am living and of Kings college.

The entrance to my dorm room.

Bodley's court, where I will be living the next two months.

In the main courtyard. The building the left of me is the King's chapel and to the right is the porter's lodge. One of my favorite things here is seeing all of the tourists trying to take pictures of the inside of the college from the gate because they aren't allowed in, and I just nod to the porters and they let me go by!

The view from my room.

My front yard.

YourEuropeBasedSon Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:45:00 +0000

So following the footsteps of my mother I took lots of pictures of the different foods I ate while traveling. The pictures are in reverse order of the countries we visited.

Belgium waffles in Brussels.

My first Kebab in Berlin, pretty sure I had one of these for three meals straight. They are that good.

Staple of my diet while traveling. Gummy bears and apple soda.

Really good sausage in Prague, if only they would have had the buns from Vienna...

Polish donuts, recommended to us by the Priest that bailed us out, and Mountain Dew. First place I saw it in all of Europe.

Hungarian goulash. Really good.

Traditional Hungarian meal of beef on top of dumplings, it was the first real substantial meal we had eaten in several days. It felt so good to be filled with something besides gummy bears and street food.

Gummy bears and soda at the Vienna Opera house while seeing Aida.

Bratwursts in Vienna. The buns they use there are both ingenious and way good. They stick the bun on a metal spike and put the ketchup and sausage inside to keep it from spilling.

Apple Strudel in Vienna

We were sure to sample lots of chocolate in Switzerland.

Didn't have any cheese in Switzerland but we still took a picture next to the sign.

Plum gelato in Italy was amazing.

Mike will have to correct my spelling but these fontanellas de aqua in saved us. It was so hot and bottled water was extremely expensive.

Chicken Parmesan in Rome. Way good!

Real Italian pizza was amazing.

Arancino in Rome. They are these little fried balls with rice, cheese, meat, and tomato sauce in them. We bought them as snacks whenever we were hungry. You could buy them in all of the little pizza shops that were all over.

I know that none of it looks as good as what my mom make, but it was a really cool part about traveling all over was to be able to get to know the different cultures through what they eat. I am now in Cambridge and the British food is not all that bad, as long as you have lots of salt to go with it. We are having a formal dinner tonight so I will take pictures and post them tomorrow so that you can see this amazing place I am now living in.

Amsterdam and Brussels

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:37:00 +0000

Amsterdam

Amsterdam has been one of my favorite cities so far, and no not because of the legalized marijuana and the red light district. I had never really seen pictures of what Amsterdam looks like, so I had no real idea of what to expect. I was surprised at how beautiful the city is when I got here. So many very cool looking buildings running along canal streets, it is very similar to Venice in that aspect. We went to the Anne Frank house which was a very cool experience, they had a cool exhibit there regarding freedom of speech, press, religion etc. Then we just walked the city, saw the Van Gogh museum, the Rembrandt house, and walked through a very cool park. More than anything about Amsterdam I just really enjoyed walked the streets and experiencing the city. We then took a night train to Brussels.

Brussels -

We got into Brussels around one and again to save money decided to crash on the benches in the train station. At around two in the morning police men yelling in French came and woke all of my homeless friends and I up, so I figured they were closing the station as they had done in Venice. Not until I was outside did someone who spoke a little english tell me that if you had a ticket you could stay inside, by then all the doors were locked leaving me outside for the next few hours. Something I learned on this trip is that you meet some of the coolest people sittin outside of European train stations in the middle of the night. I talked with two girls from Lituiania for the next couple hours. It was interesting to hear from them about what things are like in their country and hear the questions they had about america. We also bonded over our mutual love for Arvydas Sabonis. When the train station opened back up we went inside to get some waffles and use the internet. The internet was pretty much worthless though because of how slow it was and French keyboards are way different than what I was used to. We then waited for our train back to England. I am now in Cambridge and it is absolutely amazing. I really am living at Hogwarts. The campus is unbelievable. I love walking into the college where there are lines of visitors trying to get in, and I just walk by the porters and flash my pass. Classes start tonight and we leave for Scotland this weekend, so it will be a very exciting week. I will try and take some pictures of the college tonight and post them tomorrow, also I will work on my first installment of youreuropebasedson (My mom's website is yourhomebasedmom.com) later today. Following in the footsteps of my mom I took pictures of all of my favorite foods I sampled while travelling that I will share later. Here are some pics from Amsterdam.

One of the any canals in Amsterdam

Beautiful Amsterdam

My bed and roommate in Brussels

Belgium Waffles for breakfast

Harry Potter and I go to the same train station to get to school, no big deal.

Berlin!

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:15:00 +0000

Berlin day 1 -

For those of you who do not know my area of study is World War II so I am very excited to be in Berlin. I have read about most of all of the historically significant places in Berlin before, being able to see them first hand opened up a whole n ew perspective. When we first got to Berlin we went straight to the city center and started seeing the sights. We saw the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the Reichstag, and many other memorials and buildings. We finish the night by going up to the roof of the Reichstag (German Parliament building) and watched the sun set over Berlin and the glass dome on top light up. We then explored the city some more and I got my first Kebab, it was love at first sight. We then took the subway back to our hotel, and we were the only one's on the subway without a beer in hand. One guy got on without a beer and starte d talking to us, but after rolling a ciggerette he pulled one out of his bag and popped it open. After declining several invitations to go bar-hopping we headed back to the hotel for a much needed nights sleep.

Berlin Day 2 -

We woke up this morning and headed out t o Potsdam. Potsdam is a town about a half hour outside of Berlin where Fredrick the Great had a few palaces built. It is also where the potsdam conference was held, this is where Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt met to decide the fate of post WWII Europe. It was beautiful, we took some pictures and wandered around a little while. I also brought the total of the number of imperical palace gardens I've peed in up to three. I'm still unwilling to pay to go to the bathroom!

After Potsdam we headed back to Berlin to go on a walking tour. Our guide was a cool guy from the Czech Republic. It was cool to get further insight on the places we were seeing. Crazy coincidence is that on the day Micheal Jackson died we went and saw the balcony he dangled his baby off of. Outside the hotel there were pe ople singing Micheal Jackson songs with a kareoke machines in honor of his death. I am now in Cambridge so I am going to post some pictures. For pictures from the first part of the trip you can check out my facebook page where I wi ll post more of them.

The infamous balcony the day Micheal Jackson died

The Sans Souci Palace in Potsdam

The New Palace in Potsdam

The Brandenburg Gate from atop the Reichstag at night

The Reichstag at night

Checkpoint Charlie

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Section of the Berlin Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:47:00 +0000

Vienna day 5 cont. -

So when we got to Vienna it was pouring down rain, we had been so lucky with the weather up until this point. Rome, Venice, and Switzerland had been absolutelz beautiful. The first place we checked out was the Hapsburg palace, we took a guided tour of the rooms and it was very impressive. We then walked aroud the grounds out back and took some pictures before taking the subway to the town center to buy some umbrellas. Unfortunately all of the museums were closed since it was Mondaz, so we walked around the city and took some picture by some very cool churches and buildings. After figuring out the cities subway system to keep dry we went and stood in line for opera tickets. Yea I know Im not much of an opera guy, but if you stand in line an hour and a half before the show you can get tickets for 3 euros (the cheapest seats are 170 euros) that let you stand at the top of the theater. Since it is known as the best opera house in the world, and it was pouring rain outside, we decided to check it out. After getting our tickets you run upstairs to mark your spot by wrapping your program around the banister they provide for you to lean on. After that we ran to a nearby subway restaurant to use the hand dryer in its bathroom to dry our socks and shoes. Again I cant emphasize how much I appreciate american restaurants. Then we bought our second weinerscnitzel of the day. Favorite thing I have eaten so far. I will have to post pictures but the way they prepare it is awesome. They take a small loaf of bread and cut off one end of it and then put it on a metal spike. They then put the ketchup inside the bread and put the sausage in, makes it way easy to eat because you dont have to worry about it spilling all over, plus the bread is way good too. We then bought snacks to sneak into the opera and had to run back to the opera house to make it in time. Im pretty sure there are many people who have gotten a kick out of two American kids running crazily all over Europe. There are lots of undergroud walkways in many of these cities and so there are not alway crosswalks where you want them. Because of the walkways very few people jaywalk, except for Brian and I. Instead of finding the underground walkways we just play frogger through the cars, making it pretty clear to everyone else that we are not from around here.

Budapest day 6 -

Budapest has been my favorite city by far. It is beautiful, good food, and has a different feel than the other cities we have visited. All of the other cities we have visited are more tourist oriented, Budapest is not. This gives it a much more original, authentic feel. Some people have told us that Budapest is the new Prague, that they believe within a few years Budapest will be the new cool place to visit in Eastern Europe as Prague is now. The Parliament building in Budapest is amazing, my favorite building so far up to this point. We then walked along the Danube and crossed Budapests famous chain bridge. We then climbed castle hill and checked out the sites. I bought some Hungarian goulash and ate it at this little cafe on top of a hill overlooking the city. For dinner we ate at a little restaurant and had a really good meal. It was this beef served on top of some dumplings, best meal so far. It was good to eat something real and filling after living off of gummy bears, sausages, and soda for the last week! We then got on a night train to Prague, or so we thought...

Slovakia, Warsaw, Prague Day 7 -

So the train system in Budapest is not exactly the greatest. Nothing is labled clearly and few people speak english. We asked several workers and they all told us this train was going to Prague, also there were several people in our car who also believed thez were going to Prague, everyone was a little worried since nothing was really clear. We were in a car with a girl that we had stood next to at the opera in Vienna the day before, kind of a wierd coincidence. They got off in Bratislava and that is where we learned that our rail passes are no good in Slovakia so a very large unfriendly man made us pay 16 Euros for a train ticket. We then met our Finnish Lesbian friend who was on her way to Berlin for Europes biggest gay pride festival, made us excited to be in Berlin in a few days! She was also going to Prague first on her way and we had a lengthy discussion about american politics, universal health care, and gay marriage. Very interesting to hear her views of America, all based on what she sees on mtv for the most part. We all then fell asleep and woke up in Poland. The next few hours were really crazy. If it had not been for the Priest interpreting and helping us out we would have each had to pay 80 euros to get to prague. After that we had a little time to walk around downtown Warsaw and eat some Polish donuts that the Priest reccomended. I also bought a Mountain Dew, who would have thought the first place in europe i would see a mountain dew would be Poland? Well we are off to potsdam, ill write more later!

A Polish Miracle!

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:57:00 +0000

So we left last night on a night train to Prague, or so we thought. Everything in Hungary isnt labled very well and not very many people speak english. So after having that the train we were on was going to Prague confirmed by two train workers and the Finnish gothic lesbian we were on the train with we figured we were ok. We had an interesting conversation with our Finnish friend and then fell asleep (no spooning this time dont worry). We woke up to some guy banging on our door demanding to see our tickets, we show him our passes and he then tells us that they are not valid in this country. We asked him what country we were in, he replied "you are in Poland" and then just laughed. So we ended up in Warsaw pretty lost and confused, nobody speaks english here! So the lady at the counter told us it would be 80 euros each to get back to Prague, that is how much i was planning on spending the rest of the trip! We saw some guy in an ambercrombie and fitch shirt and we decided to ask for his help. He translated at the counter and got us tickets to the czech border, where our eurail passes will be valid again. Then he pulls out nearly 100$ out of his own pocket at pays for our tickets. He was a Catholic Priest from Washington DC visiting family in Poland, honestly the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I have never been so close to tears since in a very long time, and thats saying a lot coming from me. We are now about to board a train to Prague. One thing this trip has taught me for sure is that there are so many good people in this world.

Update from Budapest!

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:48:00 +0000

So right now I am in Budapest and am currently waiting to board a night train to Prague. These Eastern European keyboards are a little different than what Im used to so if anything is spelled wrong I blame it on that. Unfortunately I tried to upload some pictures but the computers here are not the greatest. So Ill start off where I finished off yesterday and see how far I get before my time runs out.

Venice Day 3 Continued -

So After the police kicked us out of the train station we started wandering around Venice trying to find a place to crash. We found a heated room with a bunch of vending machines in it that was open 24 hours, unfortunately two other homeless men had already beaten us there so we had to continue our search. You know that you are really roughing it when you are competing with homeless men for places to sleep. After wandering around Venice's many little passageways awhile longer we headed back to the train station where we met two other backpackers that were also waiting for the station to open. I thought that our trip was pretty cool but these two put us to shame. They had been wandering around Europe for the last two months without any real itinerary. They had just got back from a week or so travelling through Bosnia and Croatia, the pictures they showed us were absolutelz amazing. We ended up spending the rest of the night talking with them on the steps and took an early train with them to Milan. Our train to Milan was delayed so we ended up missing our connecting train to Zurich, so we had a couple extra hours to explore Milan. The highlight of Milan was the free public bathroom in McDonalds where I took my shirt off and took a bath from the waist up in the sink. It had already been nearly two days without a shower and i needed it!

Switzerland Day 4

We arrived in Zurich a few hours after leaving Milan, the train ride through the Alps was spectacular. I am definitely buying a house on a lake in Switzerland when I grow up. On one of our connecting trains before getting to Zurich we sat next to a cool young couple from Vancouver B.C. who was living on the border of Switzerland and Germanz for work. They gave us lots of advice about where to go and what to see, we are even facebook friends now! That has definitely been one of the best parts of this trip, meeting so many different people and hearing their stories and about where they are from. We then took off to Lucerne from Zurich, Lucerene is buy far the prettiest place we have seen so far. It is this amazing lake up in the alps. We climbed a hill next to it and took lots of cool pictures. There was lots of cool bridges crossing the river that ran into the lake also. After exploring Lucerne we headed back to Zurich and got some good Swiss chocolate and crashed at a Starbucks. I appreciate america so much more now, nothing like free bathrooms and wifi to make you feel at home! Im sure the people at starbucks didnt apprecaite two smelly americans taking up one of their tables, but nobody said anything so we stayed.

Vienna Day 5 -

Easily one of the funniest experiences of the trip so far was our night train from Zurich to Vienna. In the second class sleeper compartments there are six seats that can fold down to make a bed, so if you are lucky enough to get one to yourself you can have your own bed to sleep on. As soon as we borded the train Brian and I put our stuff away folded the bed out, turned off the light, and pretended to be asleep to try and deter anyone else from choosing our cabin. This worked like a charm until we stopped somewhere in Germany at about 1:ÓÓ in the morning. There was a knock on the cabin door and it opened all of a sudden. Im a little groggy when i first wake up so the door opening scared me and without thinking I almost kicked the guy coming in in the face. He said something in German that Im sure wasnt nice, and we unwillingly folded one of the seats up for him. Brian and I scooted over and continued sleeping on the other two unfolded seats. After sitting down for awhile the German man folded his two seats down and joined us, so there were pretty much three of us full grown men sleeping on what might be equivalent to a double mattress. It wouldnt have been two bad except Brian has a tendency to stick his butt out to the side when he sleeps pushing me uncomfortable close to the German man and Brians butt as well. I wasnt opposed to a little spooning action in Europe I just never thought it would be with Brian and some random German dude. The best part is when the guy first walked in Brian started laughing uncontrolable and I followed suit, that continued on for several minutes. Im pretty sure we freaked that guy out pretty good, I know for a fact that guy will never forget the night he spent in a sleeper car with two very smelly laughing face kicking american kids. Again I mention how bad the sleeper car smelled, I have no idea why after opening it that guy didnt just turn around and leave. Both Brian and I were on our third day without showering, that is the first thing we did once we got to Vienna. Well our train to Prague is about to leave so I will try and finish catching up sometime tomorrow, hopefully we get the car to ourself this time!

Update from Vienna

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:01:00 +0000

These past few days have been pretty crazy. We have had a lot of fun and a lot of both good and crazy experiences. Unfortunately I haven't been able to upload any pictures, the computers in Italy kept freezing on me and my hostel here in Vienna doesn't have any usb ports. So I figured as far as pictures go I´ll just upload a bunch of them to facebook once I can, but before I start forgetting things here is a little run-down of what we have done so far.

Rome Day 1

We woke up and left Jakes flat at 4:30 in the morning, surprisingly it was completely light outside when we were waiting for the bus to take us to the airport. We flew on Ryanair which is incredibly cheap, but you get what you pay for. The seats were very uncomfortable and do not recline, but I sat next to a lady from Argentina who I talked to for all two hours. It was fun to be able to practice my spanish a little bit. Our hostel in rome was really close to the train station so we went and dropped our stuff of there and then headed out to explore. We saw the Coliseum, Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain, and several other really cool places before heading back to the hostel to shower and clean up. The bathroom in the hostel reminded me a lot of the mission, just not as nice. We then grabbed our books, bought some pizza, and went down by the colesium to eat dinner and catch up on some reading for school. We then went and got some gelato before heading back to go to bed. The room we were in was for three people and we met our roommated at three in the morning when he came in and offered us some wine, we declined and introduced ourselves. He was a pretty cool kid from Romania.

Rome Day 2

We had heard that you need to see Trevi Fountain and the Colesium early in the morning before anyone else gets there. So we grabbed the breakfasts that the hostel provided us with and took off to eat them next to the fountain. There was nobody there except for us and the guys vaccuming all of the coins of the bottom of the fountain. We then headed to the Vatican which was pretty incredible. I took a few pictures and a video inside the Sistene Chapel even though we werent supposed to. After the Sistene Chapel we ran into some girls who were from the BYU London study abroad program. Before heading back to the hostel to take a nap and clean up before dinner we checked out the Pantheon and a few other churches that were on the way. For dinner we went to this little restaurant where I had the best chicken parmesane of my life. After dinner we walked around this cool part of town eating gelato. That has been one of my most favorite parts of Rome, just walking through all of the cool little passageways everywhere seeing all the cool little stores, and we have done tons of walking, we walked over 20 miles today alone.

Venice Day 3

We left Rome early this morning and got into Venice around noon. We first went to St Marks plaza and checked out the cool old church that is there. After that we pretty much just wandered around for the next few hours. Venice is the perfect place to do that, it has so many cool little passageways and canals. It is a wierd walking through this tiny passagway and all of a sudden be walking between a Louis Vuitton and a Gucci store. We found a cool little store that made this really good merengue that we tried. Everything in Venice is pretty expensive, including going to the bathroom. So we had to decide between an extra scoop of gelato and taking a pee. We decided on the gelato and found some little side street to pee in. Also we did not want to pay for a hostel in Venice because we were leaving early to Swizterland the next day so we just camped out in the train station. At 2:ooam the police kicked us out. My time is about up so I will write about what happened after that tomorrow.

London!

noreply@blogger.com (Clark) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:32:00 +0000

So after spending way too much time on an airplane and almost missing my connecting flight in Newark I made it safely into London this morning. After waiting over an hour to make it through immigration I met up with Brian and his friends from back home, Jake, who goes to school in London. We dropped our stuff off at Jake's flat, cleaned up, and then set off to explore London. After buying our oyster passes we took off to Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, The Tower of London, Hyde Park, and Buckingham Palace. Considering both Brian and I had slept very little over the last day we were pretty tired, but we still opted to walk to the BYU London Center to meet up with Jake for some Indian Food and then a movie night activity with his singles ward. It has been a very long day and I will be leaving in four hours to catch a flight to Rome so I need to try and get some sleep, even though my body thinks it is 3:30 in the afternoon. Here are some pictures from today.