So here is my travel journal from my backpacking trip to Europe. It's more involved than my day log stuff that's already been up the site. There has been some complaining (you know who you are) that my daylog was rather boring and that it focused too much on the details of transportation. I can't promise that this is less boring, but's there's certainly a hell of lot more of it. Occasional parts of the journal have been omitted to protect the (not-so)innocent. These parts really weren't that common, but hey - use your imagination. Keep in mind that this is a journal and things like punctuation, sentence structure, paragraph breaks, grammar, and spelling may or may not been a part of the writing process. Not to mention my almost criminal use of parenthesis. Like my pictures, the writing is quite erratic as far as consistency of content. The journal style kind of mutates over the course of the trip. Read at your own risk.
 4/28 Cincinnati 4/30 Paris 5/02 Paris 5/03 Paris 5/04 Bayeux 5/06 Toulouse 5/07 Barcelona 5/08 Barcelona 5/09 Madrid 5/11 Salamanca 5/12 Salamanca 5/13 Barcelona 5/14 Portbou 5/15 Narbonne 5/17 Nice 5/18 Venice 5/20 Naples 5/21 Rome 5/22 Rome 5/24 Florence 5/25 La Spezia 5/26 Lucerne 5/29 Interlaken 5/30 Interlaken 6/03 Amsterdam 6/04 London 6/06 Salisbury 6/09 Nottingham 6/11 Edinburgh 6/13 Kyleakin 6/15 Dublin 6/17 Dublin 6/23 Hamburg 6/27 Brussels 6/29 Berlin 7/01 Prague 7/02 Munich 7/03 Munich |
5/29 - Interlaken, Switzerland Ok, I was supposed to be in Amsterdam this morning. Instead I'm waiting for the weather to clear up so I can throw myself out of a plane. Yes, I'm going skydiving. I'm all suited up and everything, if only these damn clouds would go away. Anyway... Let's see, two days ago I spent the morning walking around Lucerne. I spent most of the time looking at pocket watches and Swiss Army knives. I had some thai food for lunch, decided I was bored and hopped on the train to Interlaken. Got into Balmer's (the hostel) fine with no reservations. This is one of those well organized very busy hostels.  They organize extreme sports activities out of the hostel, and I decided to partake. I chose canyoning leaving bright and early the next day at 9:30 (which coincidently is when the lockout starts). I spent the rest of the evening hanging out, meeting and talking to people. Watched most of The Sixth Sense (they show movies nightly). At 10 they make you go downstairs to the club/bar if you want to keep being social. Hung out down there for a while until around 1. Got up, had the complementary breakfast, then climbed into the van and headed off for canyoning. After getting fitted for wetsuit overalls and jacket, booties, second jacket, life vest, and helmet, we headed to the canyon. The trek basically consisted of hiking downstream, interrupted often by jumps , slides and rappelling . It was so much fun. Highlights included a 15-20 or so foot jump into a pool. On that one I head the somewhat unwanted pleasure of going first. Standing up at the top was terrifying, but once I actually jumped, I wanted to do it again. The water was ridiculously cold, when I took my booties off at the end it took a few minutes to feel several of my toes again. After getting back to Balmers, I rented a bike and cruised around for a few hours. Rode along the rivers which were some of the deepest blue colored water I'd ever seen. Stopped and read for a while on a bench beside the river. While I was there, a group of cows walked up to the fence behind me and started staring at me. Kinda creepy. Randomly happened across an old castle of some sort, don't really know what it's doing there. Made a reservation to leave tonight for Amsterdam, bought some beer, and went to back to the hostel. Hung out in the hostel, watched Fight Club, played some drinking games, and went out to a bar briefly before calling it a night. This morning I decided to bite the bullet and try the skydiving. While signing up for the skydiving, I found out the full day of canyoning (different canyon that wasn't opening up until tomorrow). After a walk I decided that I couldn't pass that up and went by the train station to change my ticket. Came back to the Hostel and very nervously got in the van for the dive. We drove to an airfield 10 minutes out of town and got suited up. The first group went up and did their dives, and then they told us that we were on a weather hold because of the clouds and the wind coming in. And here I sit.
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