The Underground

So we took The Underground, or The Tube, or The Subway for you non-euros out there. End of story. I hope you weren’t expecting much more, how much do you think I could write about a train?

Josh and I established, and stuck to, a few core rules of the trip:

1. No McDonalds! We did not come 4000 miles to have a Big Mac and Fries.
2. No undeclared guessing! That means, you can’t say “Oh the hostel is this way…” unless you really know for sure.
3. If it says “in the world” we will see it. If it’s the largest, scariest or smelliest, we want to experience it.
4. If at any juncture, physical or otherwise, Josh and I do not know which path to take. Paper Rock Scissors will decide for us.

A few first observations about Europe:

1. Not only are the cars on the wrong side of the street buy PEOPLE keep to the left as well. That means we keep walking headlong into people in the halls, stairs, and its especially dangerous when turning corners and such.
2. Traveling with Josh is really cool, he’s the best friend ever. I really mean that, on a scale of one to ten, he’s super-great.
3. I definitely did not write #2, Josh did when I stepped away from the computer. If you ever read anything from me that sounds anything like #2, I can tell you right now it’s a lie and Josh wrote it.
4. Josh is still playing dumb games… still calling me “Face” and I’m gonna judo chop him in the throat.
5. I definitely did write #4, if you read future reports from me sounding like that in the future, assume they are real.
6. My new $300 cell phone that I bought, just so it would work in Europe, doesn’t work. Curse you Cingular!
7. Buildings: Old. Statues: Huge. Accents: Thick.

Not knowing what else to do, we went to Trafalgar Square. Mainly because it was clearly marked on the Underground Map, and we’d heard of it before. It was here that I first started to really understand how young America really was. Everything we saw was old; old and huge. Everything we saw was representative of London’s history. Well, except for the Conceptual Art project that was on the square at that moment. There were two people in a glass room reading off years. It was called “Million Years,” and here’s a news paper article about it, from the same day we were there (The Wonders of the Internet, eh?) We soon found our first Internet Café, so I could send an email home. It cost 1.60 Euro a minute which… was a bit expensive, so emails were short.

Now we’re off to meet up with our London Host, Rachel Chapman.

I know it's not much, but I included a few cell phone pictures of our leaving. I figured this might tide you over 'till tomorrow. This is Josh and I in Jerseyville getting ready to leave for the airport.

The Safety instruction from our St Louis - Chicago plane.

This is the plane that was struck by lightning. That wheelable stepladder cart thing is what the mechanics where using to assess damage under a removable panel.

The Tube!

This day keeps going… and going… and going…

March 31^st 20:26 (8:26 pm London Time)

Ok, bad news – This felt like the longest day of my life. Pulling all-nighters in college is one thing, but when exploring a new country, that’s a whole different story. I’m quite sure I didn’t get more than 2 hours of sleep last night and I’m going to go take it up with the makers of Simply Sleep when I get back to the states. One good point however was I got a new pen at the internet café for 50 pence. Take that you money grubbing, expensive pen selling, airport gift shop commie jerks. But wait, I’m getting way ahead of myself.

I’d like to take a moment to thank London for welcoming us with open arms, and by open arms I mean, London Fog so thick we had to circle Heathrow for 20 minutes before we could land. But seriously, I don’t know if I would have wanted it any other way. I’m really not complaining, just illustrating. And I was incredibly excited for my first “spot of tea” on the airplane. I had Croissants, Yogurt, Orange Juice and two cups of Tea for breakfast.

But we did eventually land and walked the exceptionally long halls of the Heathrow terminals, I was excited about them being entirely lined with Conveyor Belts to get us out of there all the quicker. Intermittently, it was very slowly starting to sink in. First it was the accents, and it fully hit me when I stepped out the front door. We were in Europe. Another country, far-far away from home, and we had NO IDEA what we were doing. Josh and I stared in wonder at the tiny cars, black cabs, British People… and then turn right back around and went back into the airport.

We tried to make ourselves feel better about the whole thing by saying that we were just going to use one of the airport currency shops and look for a map, but we were only fooling ourselves. But really, our pocket full of US Presidents wasn’t really going to do us any good so we got that changed over right away (The exchange rate in an airport is horrible… comparable to that of it’s over-inflated pen prices.) Now that our pockets were weighed down with several Pounds (get it? Pounds? Like British Dollars, but it sounds like heavy… nevermind), we went on our first adventure: The Tube

First Flights (cont)

Dinner on the plane consisted of a TV Dinnerish Chicken Parmesan with Potatoes, Green Beans, and a big chunk’a’chocolate brownie. I’m also looking forward to breakfast, I hear we get croissants and hot tea, that’s pretty exciting, I’m feeling European already.

These TV’s embedded into the back of every seat have yet to cease amazing me. You’ve got Flight info (including the ever popular “You Are Here” map), Music Selections, a handful of cable channels and a decent movie selection. I saw watched Timeline at the beginning of the flight and it wasn’t bad… I bet the book was better.

I like talking to the stewardesses. I like how you can get free Soda and Peanuts/Pretzels anytime you walk to the back of the plane. It was a fun game to flirt with the lady stewardesses and pretend like they we’re giving me preferential treatment. I think they thought it was funny as well, that or they hated it and me but laughed because it was their job. Either way I was happy and that’s all that matters. You better believe I took advantage of my free pillow and blanket as well.

We are supposed to meet Rachel Chapman today at like 10:00 or something. Rachel is somehow associated with the Ryder’s, and Josh hasn’t seen Rachel in more than 10 years. So the best part about this is that he really doesn’t remember what she looks like at all. We’re banking on her being able to pick out the two good looking and obviously lost Americans with the ridiculously large backpacks. Assuming all goes well, she’s going to give us a key to her apartment (or “flat” in Brit-speak). Ok, I’ve got 2 hours left ‘till landing, I guess I’ll try and catch some more sleep while I can. I can see that Josh hasn’t been sleeping well either, that gives me some joy. He was making fun of “The Last Starfighter.” I still hate him.

First Flights

Our plane from St Louis to Chicago was my 3rd time on a plane, but it still blows me away how fast they are. It took no longer to get from St Louis to Chicago than it takes me to drive Jerseyville to St Louis (about 45 minutes). Josh and I got our first practice making friends with complete strangers with the guy next to us. He was reading the DaVinci Code, and I was warning him about how fabricated most of it is. But we started talking Philosophy and he was going on about Platto’s philosophy of Forms and Shadows. I had NO idea what he was talking about.

After landing in Chicago I got my last American meal: McDonalds Double Cheeseburger Meal with a Coke. I think I’m gonna kill some time talking to stewardesses and find out about planes and lightning strikes.


March 31st || 6:32 am (London) || 39000 miles high
3846 miles flown || 603 miles per hour || -58 F outside

Alright, so my first international flight wasn’t so bad. Wasn’t great, but not bad either. This jet lag thing really messes with your head. If this plane lands at 8:00 am (London), it’ll still be 1:00 am back home. Which means I’ll be on this plane 9 hours, and feel like its one o’clock in the morning. However, daylight-wise I got on this plane at 4 in afternoon and landed at 8 in the morning. That’s a 16 hour difference, and I only got 9 out of it. Figure I only slept like 2 hours on this plane and now I have a whole new day ahead of me… It’s entirely too much to think about this early/late in the morning/night. You’d figure taking those two “Simply Sleep” pills would have put me out, but no. You try getting a solid night’s sleep:

1. Sitting up
2. In a new and exciting environment
3. At what feels like 8 o’clock in the evening
4. With a plethora of movie channels at your disposal.

As much as I wanted to, sleep would not come. This is going to suck.

Intro and Omens

Introduction

“Western Europe in only 6 weeks? Impossible! Can’t be done!” Yes, Josh Ryder and I had heard this many times before. But as Josh always said, it’s like those Biographies you see on VH1. Anyone who’s anyone had those people when they were first starting out… the ones who constantly told you that you’d never make it. And its those same people that give you the strength to prove them wrong. This was actually Josh’s trip that he had planned on doing for some time; I just kinda tagged along. I graduated college and decided that I didn’t want to get a job, so Europe is just the next logical step.

Planning for the trip went something like this. We got everything Rick Steve’s ever wrote and started circling everything we really wanted to see and do. Josh and I each had our own “Command Central” which consisted of a large map that we could stick pins into. So after picking out everything we wanted to do, we connected all the major points with string and BAM! We had our trip. We roughly figured out how many days we’d want to spend in each city, and left ourselves a few extra days play at the end and our planning was done. All was left was to pick up a few supplies. REI told me there was only 3 things I needed to worry about: Shoes, Pack and Raingear ‘Cause if your feet hurt, back hurt or you were soggy, you’d be miserable. After getting that taken care of, we didn’t really think much else about it until March 30th.



March 30th, 2004 || 4:21pm (central) 23:21 (London)

Alright this is the first journal entry for Rob and Josh’s Eurotour 2004, and I’m new at this journaling thing. So I added the time and stuff at the top, we’ll see how long that lasts. Here’s the first thing I really have of note to point out:

OMENS FOR THE TRIP
(and we haven’t even left Illinois yet)

1. I overslept my alarm this morning
2. On arriving to the airport the escalator was broken, or at least was temporarily stairs. (Thanks Mitch Hedberg)
3. Josh has already started getting under my skin. He’s referring to me as “Face.” As in, “Hey Face, do you know where my bag is?” He’ll be lucky if I don’t punch him in his Face before we leave this time zone.
4. Our plane that was to take us from Chicago to London, had just got struck by lightning on its way in. As we walked to our gate we could see a bunch of stewardesses gathered around the big window facing the plane so we walked up and started asking questions. There were mechanics on big ladders near the nose of the plane checking things out but eventually they went away and the crowd dispersed. So I guess that means that all was well and we shouldn’t be concerned, right?
5. The pen I’m writing with sucks. I went to go buy a new one, and they wanted to charge me $12 – For a freakin’ pen! Airports figure that you trapped here and so they can charge you whatever they want. I showed them, I’m keeping my crappy pen.
6. Hate Josh.