look! a blog post!

well, we failed to post about the last....hmmm, three cities we've been in?

okay, so a quick run through. we left vienna to go to munich, from munich to venice, venice to firenze, and florence to amsterdam. right now we're in timl's apartment here in amsterdam waiting for our compatriots to finish with the wonderful van gogh museum (which we saw the last time we were here, and was awesome).

mmkay. so munich. great hostel, next to the train station, so we frequently just crossed the street and went into the bratwurst stand just inside the station. we went to the famous beer hall the hofbrauhaus our first night in munich, and it was fantastic. we did a series of wonderfully absurd toasts, including one very memorable one to gregor mendel (about whom toasts are always particularly emotional and memorable). 

we also saw the champion's league final match in our hostel's bar in munich. unfortunately, the video feed kept failing so we ended up dashing up the stairs to the lobby to watch the penalty kicks at the end of the game. (i hate ronaldo because he is a cocky bastard, but he is damn good)

we also went to dachau on our last day in munich, which was a rather somber day. we also saw indian jones 4 in munich, in which the villains are, for the first time,  thankfully not nazis. that would have been awkward.

ok. well im out of time at the moment. we'll describe our experiences in italia in the very near future.

peace and love from amsterdam

münchen!

hallo! wir sind ins münchen!

also, we are about to run out of internet cafe minutes.

so here is a quick overview
tunnelbau
chickens
nathaniel hawthorne
more tunnelbau


immer tunnelbau. immer.
tomorrow we leave for venice and mazbe post real things!

praha,ha,haha, und wien

let me start out by saying that paris was tres belle!
we flew into paris on the 14th and spent three increeeeeedible days there! we saw the kafka museum, the astronomical clock, st. vitus cathedral (possibly the greatest of nostradomadon's late anti-trans-gothic works), and heard people speaking in hilarious czech accents. now as all of you know, paris is the biggest party city in the world. the pub crawl is an institution of night life there, and boy oh boy did we ever see some pub crawls! in fact, get this: we even joined one in progress and tried to get some free shots that the group leaders were pouring into the excited crawlers' mouths from vodka bottles! and matt even got through and snagged one before they discovered our ruse and made us go away. it was at that point that the group leaders lined up all of the partiers in a single file line and made them hold hands while they took them from pub to pub for overpriced drink and strained conversation. the people in paris were magnifique! but to be fair, the city was gorgeous, the traditional czech cuisine was stellar (how many pork steaks can one man eat in 3 days? fifty is the astounding answer), and the beer was oh so tasty. we even encountered a couple of students from america in one of the pubs! and, prepare to be wowzinated: they were from minnesota! and not only that, they were from the twin cities! and not only that, they went to the u! so naturally we hung out with these two lovely ladies for the remainder of the night. they also introduced us to their macedonian friend (read: man they had met for 5 minutes in a souvenir shop about an hour earlier) who turned out to be a real stellar gent: he bought us round after round of drinks until not only could I not stand up, but also I felt like my entire world was made of bouncy foam. it was at that point that we returned to the hostel. on a related note, we shouted with a russian man on charles bridge about rugby and football for about 10 minutes, mostly because those were basically the only two english words he knew how to say. we bade each other good night with a heartfelt roar of "MOSCOOOOW!!!"
this experience has led me to believe that cold war tension is finally starting to thaw.

shovel pass

so, now lets see what josh left out....

hmmm, well here we go:
sugar > breathable air
pointillism > gravy ? (this is still debatable)
vishnu > pepsi
the satchmadon was a large prehistoric beast, much like the brontasaurus, yet the satchmadon can be distinguished by its deep and soothing singing voice and its insatiable lust for peaches, and only peaches.

also, now we are in wien! huzzah! after nearly missing our train (major disaster avoidance #4) we arrived in vienna in the mid afternoon (only after i discovered that i had carelessly lost a camera which was not mine to lose :-( major disaster not avoided #1). as we joked about our incredible indignance that carlye and hannah had not met us at the platform...we looked down the platform to see them there, meeting us at the platform. hugging, kissing, tears, etc.!
after matt had a dangerous run in with a sprinting backpacker, we successfully made it back to our respective host's dorms and deposited our things. we then met up amongst a wine festival featuring wine tasting, wine chess, and marauding children living lawlessly off the land in little cardboard boxes! (they probably moved back into real housing when their parents had enough wine...or did they?)
hannah and carlye gave us the grand tour of wien 1, including a wonderful trip into stefansdom (which may have, in fact, surpassed nostradomadon's masterful st vitus cathredral, due to st stephen's quadruple antiquarian style swimming buttresses). then we went to get a delicious and wonderfully affordable wiener schnitzel! jawohl! we then sat out in front of the belvedere palace eating our schnitzel and debating the pros and cons of childhood, breathable air, ice cream, windows, and the indian ocean.
next we ventured accross the street to a wonderful greek restaurant where i'd eaten with my family a year earilier. the owner immediately recognized me and invited all of us in for a free glass of wine. we sat and chatted and carlye decided that it would be best for all of us that we had dessert. she asked for a menu, and the waiter suggested that we allow him to 'make something greek for us.' he did, it was glorious. baklava, zuckertorte, natural yoghurt with honey and bananas and nuts! yum. then the owner came by and gave us a second free bottle of wine, because, as he said "it is good to have some wine and beer when you are on holiday no?"
what a great guy. shameless plug: go to the art corner greek restaurant if ever you are visiting vienna's belvedere. :-)

well, that was probably our most lengthy post in months! so, in conclusion;

FACT: there are 77,777 peanuts holding up each of st vitus' mighty columns, thats more peanuts than the center, of the sun.

prague is hot

prague in short:

crazy parties!
hot beer!
sick, sick girls!
bitch stands!


fin.

praha!

guess what?
chicken butt

guess what else?
we have free internetz in prague! woot! josh and matt are yet to arrive, but i've been wandering around this beautiful city all day in beautiful weather, and i'm thrilled to be here! expect more detailed posts in the very near future. here is a teaser based on my experience today:
lots o' jewish shtuff.
lots o' pretty church stuff.
lots o' beer.
pictures of the cool mall near hear.
lots o' jan hus.
lots o' pretty park near here.

the end.

post script

ha, this post-script will actually be published above the previous message. odd.
anyways, we did indeed have a very successful picnic this afternoon at regent's park. it was complete with doritos, NICE cookies and frosting, garlic mayo, delightful renditions of red right ankle and macalester love song, bread fights, king's (aka king's cup), and, of course, polar cookies. i'm really going to miss these picnics of ours. they've been great fun...even though we've only had about 3 of them. oh well! still, great fun.

also, i believe i forgot to mention that i was hit by a doubledecker bus yesterday. it was funashell! (the reemergence of a great word). well, it wasn't really funashell, but it really wasn't bad. i just got sideswiped and ended up with a minor scraped elbow. still, i feel as though someone with a blog should not neglect to blog the fact that he was hit by a bus.
well, anyways, i hope all of your days are as sunny as ours, and that your finals finish as painlessly as possible!

<3

sun!? in london!?

hello all you devoted blogophiles. if you are reading this, then i want you to know that i love you and appreciate your tenacious loyalty even in the face of our dearth of posts.

lately i haven't been near my computer for two reasons, one: i'm fuggin' done with school until the fall. i'm a senior. scary. and two: its been gloriously sunny and 70's almost everyday this week. there hasn't been a day when i haven't biked to one of london's many parks. it is fantastic. the otherday i went from norwood park (south london) up to st paul's, over to buckingham and st james park, a little ways over to hyde park, then up to camden (although i just went to the canal, not actually regent's park). wonderful.

in other news, i fucking rock at guitar hero. we went to a pub in camden the other night for their guitar hero competition, and i owned. it is the only competitive activity that i can consistently dominate in, embarrassing both the competition for their lack of skill, and embarrassing myself for my superfluity of skill at a stupid video game. oh well!

also we've spent a lot more time at our student pub the waterfront lately. it really is a great place. they have pretty cheap pitchers of beer or cider, pretty good nachos, futball on the teley, and a beautiful view of the thames. we were there for the champions' league semi finals, pub trivia, and we recently took liora and molly there when liora visited! it was a wonderful little mac reunion, and thankfully liora had an LSE library card so they let her in! huzzah!

oops! speaking of beautiful weather, i have to book it or i'll be late for a picnic! love to all!

scandanavia is a cool word

and an even cooler place! this post will have a much sunnier disposition than did my last, and for good reason: i spent 5 days in Stockholm and it was sunny and warm half the time! hooray!

ari, ivy, jessie, cait and i set off early...well like 9-10am thursday morning. unfortunately, paul and patricia were unable to join us :-(
also unfortunately, we made it halfway to the airport when jessie realized she'd forgotten her passport :-(
also unfortunately, ryanair staff are bitches and wouldn't let her rush to get on the flight even though it was delayed at the gate and she was at the airport in time to make it, but it was after check in closed so they weren't havin' any of it.

because we are cheap college kids, we fly ryanair. because we fly ryanair, we fly into and out of bullshit airports. our airport was a "20-30 minute drive" from the city center, according to our friendly bus ticket seller.
an hour and a half later we arrived safely in the stockholm city center. we made our way to our hostel, which used to be a prison. but it was awesome! ari and i switched into a swanky room so he could stay with us, and the old cell block shape was easily discernible in the hostel lay out. eventually jessie arrived and we all rejoiced, and opened the duty-free wine we'd brought.

we awoke to find something shocking, something i haven't seen in London for months nor expected to see again for many moons: a cloudless, beautiful day. we had gorgeous to 'pretty damn good by London standards' weather the whole time. it was fantastic. i was so enamoured of the warm weather that i threw caution and self-image to the wind and donned jessie's wife-beater. it was hot. (literally!)

okay, i'm lame. moving on. we saw skansen, which is an awesome out-door museum where they transplant historical buildings to 'preserve swedish culture'...or something like that. they move old, 18/19/20th century buildings like farmhouses and mansions and windmills to this touristy island. also they have a nordic animal zoo with mooses (meese?), brown bears, elk, reindeer and the like. it actually reminded me a lot of a few outdoor museums we went to with my elementary school back in wisconsin where they show you old log cabins and let/make you churn better so you can say "wow, living on a farm sure is hardwork" and go back home to play N64 and eat doritos.

aside: one of the things i've come to love about traveling in europe is noticing all the little idiosyncrasies that you don't really hear about in guidebooks. example: in London, what are known as "Cool Ranch Doritos" are called "Cool Original" and in Stockholm they are "Cool American" also, in Amsterdam, "Argentinian Grills" are a big deal, there are a ton of them, and in Stockholm, you can't walk 4 city blocks without finding a 7-Eleven. also, (listen up hannah, we know you read this thanks to our super stalker capabilities) what is known in Vienna as "ein Melange" is coffee with a little bit of frothed milk, like a latte but with coffee instead of espresso and not as much milk (although some places just make them with espresso i think), but in Amsterdam, a "Wiener Melange" is just coffee and whipped cream. okay, aside finished.

in addition to the skansen museum we went to see the Vasamuseet, which was awesome. its the oldest and most complete warship in the world. its a 17th century warship that the Swedish king was rushing production on to send out to the Baltic fleet during the 30 years war, but it wasn't designed well so when they launched it it floated for about a mile, then it sank like a rock. fortunately the low salt content of the water preserved it really well, and they were able to recover 95% of the ship and its now been rebuilt to 100% using the 95% original materials! friggin' sweet!

in other 'i'm a huge history geek' news, we went to the Historika Museet and they had an awesome exhibit on vikings and another one on high/late medieval religion in Sweden. it was sweet. lots of st. olaf and st. bridget stuff, along with some really cool reliquaries, baptismal fonts, church doors, altars, pews, etc. i loved it. fun fact: st olaf is always depicted standing on his killer, and sometimes his killer is a semi-human dragon thinger. neato!

...well the fact that i said 'neato' is probably a sign that i should end this post before i incriminate myself even further. so, the remainder of the trip in shorthand: go to 7-11 to buy froyo and candy. yummy swedish meatballs, yummy and purty lattes, not so yummy salty licorice and (unintentionally) saltylattes. go to 7-11 to buy froyo and candy. cait sings 90's pop songs in public, scares small swedish children. museums are fun, but art museums are closed. go to 7-11 to buy froyo and candy. weather still beautiful. drottingholm palace is pretty. the royal palace is prettier. we see changing of the guard, the swedish army drum corps plays dancing queen. meet nice girl named 'keta' who is from neenah, near appleton! picnics with salami, bread & cheese. i say "konditori!", cait gets mad. go to 7-11 to buy froyo and candy. godMORgon brand OJ + 'little water' + boxed wine = fun, meeting friends we don't remember who work at subway, meeting strangers wearing NYC shirts who argue about futball and religion, and, last but not least, mom friending on facebook.
....go to 7-11 to buy froyo and candy. bus, plane, bus, bus, home.

end scene.

April 20th

Well, happy 4/20 everyone. I hope your days have all been fantastic. Mine, not so much. I was covering two nightshifts this weekend at a hotel near here for a friend of a matt's. I was very happy to finally be having some cash coming in instead of going out. The shifts were from midnight until 8am Friday and Saturday night, so I was awake at midnight and 4:20 on today, the most infamous of days (Hitler's birthday, is of course what I'm referring to). So I was awake, but oblivious when, sometime this morning, disaster struck. Someone stole my ipod, right out of my fucking backpack, which was sitting (i'd assumed safely) in the hotel's laundry room. Fun times? Not so much. I discovered it this afternoon when I opened my backpack only to discover a big gapping whole where my music should have been. This time last year I was sitting out on the lawn in front of Bateman, absolutely fascinated by the clouds passing by, with my biggest concern being how to get the bits of bubble tea pearls out of my teeth.

I miss st paul. I miss macalester. I miss all of you.

adventures in holland

ok peons, prepare yourselves for the most important update to hit the blogosphere since rick astley first rolled onto the scene.

our romantic dutch honeymoon is admittedly a little bit blurred in my head now, but i'll do my best to bring some parts it into focus for the benefit of you all, my dear friends, family, and hired henchmen.

so after that first harrowing evening, our time in the dam became decidedly more docile. our first day in the city we went on a quest to locate some of the coffeeshops that had been recommended to us. we tried the grasshopper first, a trendy but overpriced shop in the heart of the centrum, the central district of amsterdam. there we sampled the baked goods, baked a little bit ourselves, and marveled at the weather outside as it shifted from snow to blue skies and sunlight to hail to everything in between.

after the hopper we walked around the city and took in the beautiful architecture of dam square and the old church -- we went into the church to see the exhibit they were hosting on afghanistan, not so much to cross cultural boundaries as to purchase a couple pairs of sweet afghani gloves that meg had told us could be had for quite cheap. so while we were browsing around the gift shop we found another item of note in addition to the stylish gloves -- a certain book. the book was in dutch, but we didn't really need command of the language to understand it: it was a "Where's Osama?" book that was created after the fashion of waldo! in an afghani culture exhibit. heinous? yes! hilarious? also yes!

so it was about that time when we discovered abraxus, our favorite coffeeshop in all of the dam. we had heard from multiple people that it was great, and the guidebook recommended it so of course we dropped on by -- and wow! the food and shakes were terrific and the atmosphere was really nice too. there was a lot of wood finishing and an upstairs with nice benches to sit on, smoke, and socialize.

afterwards, we went for pastries at a delicious bakery just down the road and also got some coffee and read at a cafe for a while. we ended up divvying up most of our time between smoking in coffeeshops and drinking coffee and reading in cafes -- the days start to blur together on this count, but suffice to say that it was one of the most relaxing times i've ever spent in my life!

so that's how we filled our days. of our nights, we spent several of them with great company over at an apartment complex east of the city center called funenpark. these lovely apartments were inhabited by none other than mac students studying abroad at the university of amsterdam, and their friends whom they'd met on the program! ej and i quickly developed a rhythm with tim -- go to albert heijn's (the grocery store), pick up some ingredients for dinner and many bags of a delicious treat called stroopwaffel for dessert, go back to his place to cook, smoke, eat, and generally hang out, and then smoke and watch mr. show, and then smoke and whip up some playlists for each other to listen to before bed. so we became fast friends, bonding over our shared love of food, TV, and music! we also hung out with our new friends sarah, halley, and christy, two of whom we knew a little bit from macalester and one of whom we had never met. but we got to know each other over a delicious burrito dinner that sarah cooked, and a few bottles of albert heijn's house red and a few (not albert heijn's) bowls.

so besides all the coffeeshopping, cafe-ing, and funenparking, we did only a few other things. we had a wonderful time seeing the van gogh museum -- we spent quite a while there and enjoyed it immensely. we became regulars at a place called "eet-cafe de valk" between the centrum and funenpark and we spent lots of time there. we thought the place gave elliott and tim food poisoning -- they both ordered the "spicy chicken sandwich" against my advice ("the dutch don't know how to do spicy..."). also, ironically, i ordered a sandwich (as had become my custom) called the healthy roll that had ham, egg, gouda, and 'salad' (veggies) as the brits would say. but later we found out that some brand of evil dutch flu was responsible for all the subsequent vomit fests.

also, the red light district was amazing! the prostitutes stand at glass windows with red lights behind them showing what their mommas (and likely in some cases, science) gave them. we wandered around bleary eyed in amazement and in a haze -- really, we couldn't believe what we were seeing. at one point we got a little bit lost, and e arbitrarily chose a direction to go -- one that led along a canal, and one in which the sidewalk began to slowly disappear, giving way to a sandy embankment alongside the water. we kept walking, finally along one narrow strip of concrete and eventually emerged back onto a main road next to a bridge -- it was at that point that e looked at me and said, "did you SEE her?" and it was at that point i realized that i had totally ignored a (apparently gorgeous) prostitute who had been banging on the glass to get my attention, but obviously, i was too classy for the likes of her.

so! that is a selection of stories from our time in amsterdam. we relaxed. we met great people. we enjoyed the beauty of the city. there are other stories to tell about the swedes at our hostel, seeing our friend marlene, and a hellish day of travel but i'll leave those for the next update.

so good night dear readers, and stay tuned for the next (final) installment of our dutch holiday.
and you should know a few things more too:
Were no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do i
A full commitments what Im thinking of
You wouldnt get this from any other guy

I just wanna tell you how Im feeling
Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

ya'll just got ROLLED
-jp

"amsterdamning"

okay, so the title of this post is blatant plagiarism, but at least i'll give a plug with a fancy amsterdamning hyperlink, sound fair? good deal.

after our first glorious day in amsterdam, josh and i bid farewell to megan as she headed off for krakow, and we in turn set off on our own journey to find our hostel. again, we would find ourselves battling inclement weather at every turn; but this time, this time, it was different. we had an advantage. we had cheese.

our 'directions' from hostelworld said "metro/sneltram 51 (subway), you go off at Spinnerij (15 minutes walk, see map) or at Sacharovlaan (bus 199, 3 minutes)"

well, we had no map to see, so we got off at sacharovlaan and caught the 199 just about dusk. 'success!' we thought.

we stayed on the bus, but saw no hostels, and after about 15 minutes we came across something familiar: a metro stop we'd passed on the tram about 30 minutes before... we got off, got back on the metro, went to spinnerij, and decided to walk the 15 minutes. we knew that we had to go vaguely southwest from the metro stop, so we walked vaguely southwest. as night fell, our bones chilled, and our spirits began to flag, we decided to stop in a bar and ask directions. a friendly dutchman turned from the bar to slosh the beer from his mug and yell to us that it was "teyan keelomeetars south. then FEEFTEE KEELOMEETARS WEST!"
the bartender chuckled, then drew us a glorious map that outlined the remaining 10 minute walk to our hostel. 'ok.' we're set, we thought. and as we set out into the dark night, reinvigorated and secure in the knowledge of our hostel's location, it began to hail.

this is where the cheese comes in. we two travel weary companions, without an umbrella, weathered the coming storm as best we could; we laughed at mother nature in her petty attempts to dissuade us from our mission. we opened our satchels, took out our melba toast and cheese, and feasted as we made unflagging progress towards our destination, cackling at the absurdity of our predicament and challenging mother nature to give us her worst as we ate our delicious dutch cheese en route.

the hostel was quite nice. our camping chalet was very new, very clean, and inhabited by a dutch woman of few words. so we decided to go back to the helpful bar for a beer. after that, we went to the communal kitchen, smoked, and devoured two packages of cookies.
quite a successful evening.

PEEK-A-BOO

HANNAH WE ARE WATCHING YOU.
WE KNOW EVERYTHING.

the 10th of march. that epic day when the power went out all across europe for a record three weeks. why wasn't the blog updated? blame the power grids, probably the swedish ones. the vikings never really learned how to be civilized people. they're still rapacious vikings at heart, though they clothe themselves in a thin veneer of "tolerance" and "good-natured humor".
okay you don't believe us? that's fine. we've never written an honest word on this blog. you are being held captive in our fortress of lies.

.......

OR SO SAYS JOSH! i am here to whisk you away from josh's fanciful fortress of lies and deceit to inform you of the real situation which has unfolded over the past unblogged weeks. we've been overrun by a plague; the most glorious plague you can imagine! even better than locusts, about 1,453 macalester students descended upon london in the past week for spring break, and we had the time of our lives entertaining them and frolicking gayly amongst the beauteous wooded ceilings and flowing taps of the cheshire cheese.

we have not, however, posted on our blog, sadface :-(
we apologize to our myriad legions of adoring fans, spiteful haters, and creepy stalkers who have anxiously awaited this blog post. but rest assure, josh and i guarantee this epic blogpost will blow you out of the water, or blow your socks off, depending on whether you are in water, or wearing socks. if neither is true, stop reading now, or rectify the situation, because here we go:

ok so first off: london! with friends! we explored all the dripping decrepit corners of the city with our stalwart macalester contingent. from the gunshot riddled alleys of camberwell to the courtyard of scenic buckingham palace, made all the more impressive by a certain virulent hailstorm that pummeled us as we resolutely trudged up the mall, screaming at mother nature and cursing our parents for bringing us into this cruel world.
but it wasn't all crime and natural disaster!
indeed, there was more than enough ribaldry and mirth to cheer ourselves up. sitting next to the english hearth through the days and nights the sounds of hearty laughter intermingled with the police sirens and shrill cries that resound through the london night.
we spent one terrific night at caitlyn's pad in earl's court. we co-opted a certain shack in the back of her apartment complex (a "classroom") and we chilled there until the early hours of the morning, at which time we all collapsed upon each other on the floor in a big teeming pile of macalester friendship. conversations about how amazing the summer will be were non-stop. and when we woke up in the morning, the landlord, fabio, was angry at us because we had not checked in with him. so in order to rectify the situation, he thought he would read off some names of people who had supposedly arrived for the next program he was housing (as caitlyn and co. were vacating the apartments that night). so imagine his surprise when he discovered that none of the six groggy bodies splayed out on the floor were actually supposed to be there. but just as he was about to evict us, luckily caitlyn came down from her quarters and explained the situation and we cleaned up the wreck of a classroom and went our merry way.
thanks for visiting everyone! it was terrific to see all of you. we miss you a lot.
and now! for more exciting travel news updates, i am proudly sending you over to the desk of one E. Nib. esq., lower-level clerk for the legal war machine of the Scoopington Brothers, feared attorneys and polo enthusiasts.

I, one E. Nib. esq., would also like to convey my amorous affection for all the lovely folks who came and visited us. Great times were had by all!!!...except when I couldn't hang out because I was writing papers :-(
also, i am firm in my commitment to calling my essays papers, they are not essays, they are papers, and don't let any of these heady britons tell you anything different!

hmph. now that i'm done with my haughty semantic quip, lets talk about less obnoxious and more fun things, like amsterdam!
josh and i arrived early easter morn', right around the time when that misty glow of dawn
illuminates the pasture to show thousands of little easter bunnies carrying baskets with eggs and announcing jesus' ressurection. god bless those little bunnies, always there to remind us that pagan fertility worship is important, and that triumph over death itself is nothing unless we eat chocolate eggs! unfotunately, josh and i celebrated easter sans candy eggs or latin mass :-(

instead we hung out with great people, smoked quite a bit thanks to a treasure left to us from william, and went on an epic quest for pancakes!

this was a quest of messianic proportions, as if it were preordained to happen on easter. we set out from tim l's gorgeous apartment and josh and i faced our first trial: the pavement.
the courtyard outside tim's apartment is quite amazing. it is arranged of...um, my geometry fails me. trapezoidal(?) type shapes were arranged brilliantly in the courtyard so that they all fit together, and, astonishingly enough, are all the same size. josh and i were simply mesmerized, but with the help of megan, marissa and timl, we were able to snap ourselves out of it and continue on our quest. our first destination was unsuccessful, as the pancake stand we journeyed towards had vanished. yes, vanished. at least thats how i remember it...
so we journeyed on, but the weather soured; yet we did not let our spirits do the same, and our unflagging determination guided us through a veritable blizzard, a maelstrom of ice, hail and snowflakes the size of your head!...well they were pretty big anyways.
so how did we face this powerful vortex of wintry weather that amsterdam assaulted us with? a picture at the "i amsterdam" sign of course!(publication of said photo on facebook is forthcoming)
that last part was crucial, remember kids, if ever caught outside in a blizzard whilst questing for pancakes, it is vital for your survival that you trudge through the mud to take pictures at the nearest and coolest tourist landmark you can find!

so finally we reached the pancake house. its a fantastic little restaurant in the middle of a park and it stands in what used to be a carousel! if that were not fantastic enough, the pancakes are incredible. not quite crepe, and not quite american pancake, but all deliciousness.

then we trudged back to timl's apartment, and ended our odyssey with a long nap, dominos pizza, and lots of arrested development.

and that was the first day we were here. um. oops. that was rather long. sorry about that, if my soapbox doesn't creak under my feet i forget i'm up there and keep pontificating. rest assured that josh and i will return post haste to enlighten you as to our subsequent amsterdammian adventures. i hope that our words are a bit more pithy and less rambly in the coming post, but i promise nothing, because, well, we're pretty much done with classes....so yeah, expect more, sorry for the delay, and we love you all

<3 niblorte

'stick to coffee and alcohol'

well josh, i'm afraid i shan't be rising to the challenge of your injunction to write a better post. instead of providing a cogent narrative of the recent events in our lives, i'm going to provide anecdotal musings on two subjects which lie very close to my heart: coffee and bicycles.

coffee shops are not a big thing here. it makes me sad. they have starbucks, caffe nero (they spell it with two f's here because they like consonants more than us midwesterners with our extended vowels), and a few small coffee shops such as the wonderful caffee silvers near our campus in central london where they specialize in being friendly to punk kids like me, and making delicious candy bar milkshakes. i had a ferror roche (sp?) milkshake, and i've heard the kit-kat milkshakes are great too.

the starbucks here are exactly the same as our starbucks in every way except for 3 outlying differences.
1) everything is exactly twice as much because our currency is shit
2) the music. they play A LOT of bob marley. this is a good thing. they play some opera. this is a weird thing, but not exactly a bad thing.
3) the no smoking signs. yesterday when i was daydreaming instead of contemplating women's changing position within the 13th century family, i noticed that starbucks' no smoking sign says "To protect the quality of our coffee, we ask you not to smoke."

bicycling. less terrifying than i'd thought it'd be, but i miss st paul. i miss the midtown greenway crazy. they don't really do bikepaths here, and they also aren't so consistent with bike lanes on streets. sometimes a major street will have one and then it will just disappear, only to reappear inexplicably 4 or 5 blocks later.
also, roundabouts are awesome. at first i thought they were scary and strange, but now i think they're funashell! everytime i go around one and then go off on one of the streets i feel like the starship enterprise orbiting the sun and using its gravity to catapult itself off somewhere. or maybe it wasn't the enterprise, i dunno, something in startrek, ben, stephen, help me out here.

so thats about it, now i'm actually going to start writing my paper, and i'll have to leave it to josh to make more substantive and interesting posts than my anecdotal ramblings.

love to all!

i turn my tape up, i let my tape rock

hey duders
i hope everyone is alive and kicking lots of ass. at the moment i'm procrastinating from writing my paper on my most riveting topic to date: that glorious beaver-infested, timber-strewn wasteland that is our friendly neighbor to the north -- canada! oh and australia and the other dominions of the british empire as well (but mostly canada). basically i spend half my time thinking about what to write and glancing around my room to decide which tool i should use to remove my eyeballs as to guilt trip my professor so he can't hold me responsible for turning in any work on the topic.
but on to even more exciting topics! earlier tonight was the study abroad humanities students reception / gala event! we feasted on exotic dishes such as microwaved mini-quiches, still-half-frozen chicken fingers, and my personal favorite, apple pie squares stuffed with tiny ice coated cheese cubes. needless to say it was a classy event complete with delightfully vapid speeches made by the president of the college (an american!) and the dean of the school of humanities (a german?). but in the end the whole thing was worthwhile -- together ari and i made off with 10 pieces of fruit. mostly apples. they're coated with some sort of sticky substance? but it least it's not frost!
ok so thus far this post has consisted of how boring things are in my life, but check THIS one out: we went to see girl talk on monday! and we danced like savage wildebeests. for some reason there was a chair on stage, and this girl was chilling in it in the midst of everyone dancing? anyways i got knocked into her and she kicked me in the chest and yelled at me! and that's the story of my stomach legions. that crazy harpy. but on a much sweeter note, we hung out with girl talk after the show. he was in his briefs and i have a great picture of him smoking a cigarette that jenna gave him with his arms around her and elliott on my phone! but i don't know how to transfer it to the computer? frustrations! but yeah! we touched his mostly naked body!

so that's my installment! now i'm gonna pong the ball back over to niblock. you people are insatiable. stay tuned for more exciting tales about...bad catering? okay this was a weak post, elliott do better!
love all
jp

fire alarms, menomena, and open container laws (or lackthereof)

hello world, sorry for the delay, we've been busy, josh had a big greek exam this week, and me...well i wasn't that busy, i'm just a tool.

so without further adieu, let me regale you with the tale of menomena's performance at the illustrious king's college. it was rather great that the venue menomena played at was on our campus...too bad we live 45 minutes away from our campus. 'oh wellidy'*

for better or for worse, we missed the openers (some local band and land of talk), and arrived just as menomena was setting up. they(/our school's venue) were entirely without roadies
so they were setting up their equipment themselves, and between songs they made their own transitions between instruments, which, even though it broke up the rhythm of the show just a bit, i thought was kind of cool.


so menomena is on the stage, making final adjustments to their equipment, and then we hear "DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, WE MUST EVACUATE THE BUILDING, PLEASE FIND THE NEAREST EXIT" which was then repeated ad infinitum.
so we went towards one exit, and in typical KCL bureaucratic fashion, they told us to go the other exit, we waited by that exit for a while, then they told us to go back to the first exit.
finally we were out on the street. one might assume this to be a lamentable and frustrating break in our evening. oh no. josh the portely and elliott...the niblocker? take the lemons that life gives us and use them to make...beer. we ran to the nearest off license (i think i mentioned these, they're like the offspring of a 7-11 and a liquor store) and bought scrumptious beer at NOT club prices. it was grand. thanks to the UK's glorious lack of an open container law, we drank them on the street, however, due to our ingrained 'NO. DRINKING BAD. BAD DRINKING. NO DRINK OUTSIDE. BAD.' American viewpoint, we drank them far faster than we had to, so as to be finished before we got to the crowd on the street outside the venue...where we saw that most everyone had a drink in their hand.

anywhoo, they finally let us back in, menomena came on and played some wonderful music, we listened to said music, and a great time was had by all.

in conclusion; menomena-great, open container laws-not great, fire alarms-can be made use of.

<3the latter half of jelliott and the former of niblorte

summer plans and weekend activities!

hi friends!
i hope everyone's staying warm and content! except cabal, who i hope freezes and goes directly to hell. just kidding, the first handle of scoresby is on me when i get back (assuming i have more than the -$8 that currently comprise my checking account).

so here's one exciting piece of news: i'll be working again at the glorious annual fund, meaning that st. paul is now for sure viable for me this summer! i hope everyone's prepared for endless rounds of hookah, losing to me at soccer, and baseball games after work.

this weekend was pretty fun: friday night the twin-headed abomination that is niblorte met up with molly at a swank pub. of course we reminisced about how glorious mac is. after that we went to the student club on the strand called tutu's after desmond tutu, some famous king's alum. i think he ended racism and won a pulitzer or something. ANYways, the bouncer was a jerk and told elliott he was too drunk to go into the club and to go "freshen up"; that was about the point we knew that we had to permanently cripple him: we parkoured to the top of the strand building, then elliott slowly lowered me down til i was suspended just above this bouncer, then i punched him in the back of the neck as to sever his spinal cord. ej then hauled me back up and we grabbed some chicken mcnuggs then came back 30 minutes later and got in. there was also a big hullabaloo involving our friend jon and the bouncing staff but we decided one debilitating injury was enough for one night. so we let him live -- for now.

anyways the club was terrific, they play radio hits from the 80s 90s and 00s on fridays which was great. we got to hear "teenage dirtbag" and "la vida loca" and a billion other throwbacks. but i personally prefer indie rock nights on saturdays where they play pretty much exclusively songs that have been heard at some point on the goulash, meatloaf chapstick, or the thorax.

saturday we had a drunken mid-day excursion to the bourrough street market where we scored some free samples of delicious cheese and meat. it was lovely.

and now i'm off to study greek as i've got a big exam coming up, but i hope you're all doing tremendously. write soon.
-jp

the thing about india

so i'm in the middle of writing this paper about the nature of british imperial authority in colonial india, and i can't help but thinking: what would i do if i were somehow magically transported back in time to this period?

and here is the answer:
opium!
-jp

struggling against our posting inertia

so i'm thinking we need a post at this point so as to save our blog from falling into disrepair before it even starts. i feel it my civic duty, nay, my preordained destiny to save this blog from stagnation.

that said, i have absolutely no idea where to begin.

a wise man once said "begin at the beginning"
but i don't listen to proverbs.

also, i just made that up.

so instead, i'll compose a thematic post on a topic that i'm sure none of you saw coming;
"alcohol consumption in britain"

don't worry, this shan't be a "dude, i got so wasted last night, and then i passed the fuck out in your yard!" post, no, far more classy than that.
it will instead be a "sir, do believe that, after that last glass of fantastic '72 port, i was rather battered (thats the common synonym for drunk used here), and because i am far too dignified to sleep among the rabble at this pub, i chose instead to sleep on your lawn"

so as to construct some semblance of a chronological narrative, i'll begin with our first days here. matt's first facebook album was entitled "Turns out, drinking cures Jet-Lag!"

and how untrue it is!

we quickly discovered four things about our lovely little south london neighborhood (camberwell)

1). the first pub we went to the very first night i was here, the bartender said "..well...this isn't really a 'walk around alone at night' kind of neighborhood" (actually, just yesterday a rapist escaped form the hospital 2 blocks away...so thats fun)

2). our dormitory has its own student bar within it!

3). our dormitory's student bar is rather shitty, and the prices aren't so cheap as we'd expected

4). there is a wonderful pub called "the fox on the hill" one block north of our dorm, and we love it dearly

we slowly have come to learn other things about the state of drinking here, and because i like the little list i just made, i'm going to make another one. if you don't like lists, then you should just deal with, and you should also probably get someone else to do your grocery shopping.

1. Cider
1. oh my goodness, i'm falling in love with cider faster thank you can say 'beer is better' (which i'm sure you're thinking, especially if your middle name is elias and your last name ends in 'orte')
2. there is a brand of cider called 'K' which comes in 550ml cans for 1 pound, and is 8.4% alcohol. we love it more than most people love their cants of cheap cider, because we think in dollars, and then we say 'fuck' and buy the cheapest, strongest thing we can find (well i do anyways).
1. As an aside, i might mention that josh and i have, on several occasions, bought three cans of K at once and consumed them in a night. we flirted with a few names for nights when three or more cans of K are consumed...we're thinking a baseball metaphor will be best...
   
3. there also exists a very foul, but very cheap brand of cider known as "white strike" which is sold in 2 liter bottles for about 2 pounds sterling. i had one during the nfl playoffs a few weeks ago, and a british student here was kind enough to inform me that "that shits for chavs mate"
1. yay! a new aside! apparently, a 'chav' is somewhere between douchebag and wanna be badass, usually very young in late teens or early twenties. yay slang education! yay asides!
   
2. Drinking Culture
1. so when we were at our nice little macalester orientation, the british woman who came to speak those of us coming to london said that we should be warned that 'binge drinking is more acceptable there'; at which point josh and i looked at one another with terror and i jumped into his arms for fear of alcohol consumption
2. she wasn't kidding. or rather, she wasn't kidding, but was a little bit wrong. kids here DRINK. a lot. but they do it more often, and not quite as ridiculously. i'd say they average 4-5 drinks 3-4 nights a week....well, for some 4-5 nights, so they aren't stumbling around drunk all the time, but a lot of them are tipsy more often than not, which is nice, but not conducive to getting work done when people are down with drinking on any given night of the week :-( ...... :-D
3. granted, i should also point out that we live in a freshman dorm with a bunch of 17, 18 and 19 year old kids. its weird that the 'dorm culture' here is one where everyone can go out to the bars/clubs....
   
3. shhhhhhhhhh
1. speaking of the last post, that means that drinking in the rooms isn't quite as prevalent here, which means we americans get yelled at for being loud with a relatively high degree of frequency when we hang out and have a few bottles of wine (that is, Sainsbury's Basics Spanish Red Wine ^_^).
   

oh, and i almost forgot. the greatest discovery of our young lives: ye olde cheshire cheese. its a fantastic pub at which dickens drank frequently (and apparently is implicated in tale of two cities) that was rebuilt in 1667 (fires suck). it has wonderful old londony atmosphere and delicious beer (exclusively samuel smith's) for very reasonable prices, especially considering its in central london. if ever you come to london, ye olde cheshire cheese is a must.

well thats about it, i should finish tidying up my room. they have a cleaning staff at this dorm that forces you to have your room tidy so they can clean it. weird huh?

'cheers'
~Nibl without the orte

dear friends, we love you more than it appears we do

ok first thing's first: we suck. a lot. we've been pretty incommunicado while we've been here (too many bottles and bowls, etc.), but this blog is our attempt at reconciliation. don't worry we'll also send you all some private messages with the goods.

to explain our blog-o-name: the 68 is a bus that we ride every day, and it seems like every time we need to get to a new place in the city, said bus miraculously happens to run there. it means home, and "i only need to hold in the contents of my stomach for a little longer", and plenty of other things too.

we're gonna be summing up our experiences in london and barcelona in installments pretty soon here. again, we feel terrible about having not written you all nearly enough. you are all collectively the hottest people we know, making us the single most attractive group of friends in the known universe.

expect post cards / clever blog-o-banter soon!
lovelovelovelove
niblorte