Intro

So at some point in 2004 I decided that I had to go to Europe and see what its all about. Knowing that it would be impossible to really see everything, I wanted to try to get a feel for the flavor and culture of several different places. At the same time, I wanted to hit some big events that I've always wanted to see. Timing didn't work out to see a Formula 1 race at either Nurburging (South loop) or Monaco, nor did it work out to see a MotoGP race in Spain.

My roommate Kevin was to accompany me on this quest for the finest food, drink, techno, and motorsports that Europe has to offer. Due to scheduling conflicts with his last week of college, he was to meet up with me in Amsterdam.

Isle of Man

I flew out of Cincinnati on June 2 and got into London at around 1 pm on June 3. From Heathrow, I took a tube to Euston, and then hopped on a Virgin train out to Liverpool.

The trains in Europe are generally pretty nice, even in second class. You can get a cheaper ticket if you don't reserve a seat. Once you get onboard, there are placards or displays indicating which seats are reserved, and between what stops that seat is reserved. So with a little planning, you can find a seat that's unoccupied, and maybe have to switch once or twice during the trip. If you can't find a seat, the ends of the cars have a decent sized area where you can sit on the floor next to the doors. I didn't have any problems finding a seat.

Once I got to Liverpool, it was about a 1km walk down to the pierhead from the station. It was here that I took my first pictures. Here you can see bikes being loaded onto the staging barge for the ferry to the Isle of Man.

The ferry ride took several hours. I was amazed at the number of bikes on the ferry; there had to be at least 500+. One thing that really surprised me was that nearly all of the bikes were sportbikes, and nearly all of the riders were in full gear. Most riders were sporting riding boots, riding pants (some with knee sliders!), leather or synthetic jackets, gloves, and full-face helmets. I guess that's part of the sportbike culture. They won't let you onto the track without all that stuff, and judging by the number of race-replica bikes, a lot of the riders idolize the real track stars. Plus since everyone is wearing gear there's no pressure to go without it, like you might feel as a Harley guy in the States.

When I got off the ferry, the TT festivities were in full swing. The promenade that runs along the beach had a sort of carnival set up, and people were drinking everywhere! Most of the bars were so packed that the crowds spilled out onto the streets. The sidewalks were completely lined with bikes parked shoulder to shoulder. There had to be at least 2000 bikes that I walked past from the pier to the Ascot hotel.

The Ascot, where I stayed, is about a mile from the pier, and about 2 blocks off the prom. Walking up a sidestreet I spotted this odd-looking car, which I think is a Messchierschmit. I know its not an Isetta. Too bad the pictures didn't turn out better.

The next morning I took a few pictures of the prom before I headed to my spitting spot.

Man has a lot of hills. The island basically goes straight uphill once you get about 200 meters in from shore. This shot is from the top of a hill in a residential area while I was walking to my first spot. There's a narrow footpath in this neighborhood that runs between some houses and takes you down to the bottom of Bray hill.

At the bottom of the hill is the first major turn of the course. This point is about 3 miles from the start. They start at the top of the hill, which is flat for about a mile, then it goes downhill for basically 2 miles with a few slight bends. When you see the size of the straights and the hills, you can really start to understand why the TT is considered nuts. These pictures are off the traffic going through the intersection before the roads close.

If you're not familiar with the TT, it stands for Tourist Trophy, and it started in 1905. Originally it was a car race and later became a cycle-only event. The race takes place on public roads, which are closed to traffic during racing. The course basically spans the entire island and is 37 miles long. Its considered probably the most dangerous motorcycle racing event in the world, which is pretty easy to understand when you see the huge straights, high-speed turns, and lack of runoff area in most places. You can read more about the history of the event here. This picture is of the original start/finish line which is now in a residential area.

Unfortunately, a light mist over the island delayed the start of the Superbike race several times until eventually it was decided that the race would be postponed. Instead they ran practice for all classes. The first half of the circuit was actually pretty dry, so the guys were going pretty hard in this turn. Here's a bunch of pics.

As you can probably see, not all my pictures were so great. I borrowed a digital camera from my father; a simple point-and-shoot affair. The problem was that the autofocus mechanism takes about a second from pushing the button to actually taking the picture. Probably not a problem for family snapshots, but a major issue when trying to capture a superbike going by at high-speed. I had to try to time the pressing of the button with the volume of the exhaust note as I heard the bikes approach. Here you can see some of the stone walls that line the road down the hill.

Two of the better pictures I managed to get.

The way to spectate the TT is really with a motorcycle. The distances are too far to really walk and parking for cars is very limited. Its as if the whole island was made for motorcycles. Since I didn't have one (and I doubt many places are apt to rent out sportbikes, like I'd want), I hoofed it around, probably covering 7 or 8 miles by the end of the day. I went back up Bray hill to this cemetery that is opposite from the grandstands and about 200 meters down course. If you're careful, you can climb up the wrought iron fence and sit on the concrete pillars. Here's the cemetery.

From here I took pictures of the sidecar race. I'm not sure exactly what the rules are, but the passenger doesn't have a seat. He/she crouches on a platform next to the rider, and I guess moves around to shift weight. Some of them lauded on their bellies and let their legs dangle off the edge! Not something I'd want to do at 200+ mph.

Next I walked back down the road a bit to where the hill just starts to fall away. At this point the riders have been going full throttle in a straight line for almost a mile so speeds are very high! There is no other place in the world where you can stand 20 ft off the road with only a rope between you and the bike passing by at more than 200 mph.

After the sidecar races, it was time for grub and a pint. I grabbed some food and walked over to the beach on the other side of the prom. Man @ dusk:

London

For the trip I wanted to travel fairly light, as I knew there would be a good amount of walking involved. I borrowed an LL.Bean backpack and a messenger bag, both of which worked great. I kept everything of value, along with maps, info, water, snacks, etc in the messenger bag and carried that with me everywhere. Most hotels and hostels will let you stash a pack or bag after you checkout and come back later to pick it up.

After dinner it was time to head back to Liverpool. The ferry left at 2300 and I got back to Liverpool at about 0300 on June 5. My plan was to sleep at the train station until 0900 when my ticket back to London was to leave. However, the Liverpool station doesn't open until 0700, so I made some phone calls and found a 24hr coffee shop to kill some time. Since all of the bars in England close at midnight, the night scene after that is pretty dead. Seems like everyone makes it a point to get smashed rapidly before that.

June 5 was consumed largely by getting back to London and getting to my hostel. The Underground is London's subways system, aka the tube, and its pretty fantastic. I got a 5 day tube pass for about 20 pounds, which allows unlimited travel on the tubes and buses. At most stations there is a train every 3 minutes, so there's very little waiting.

I stayed in Shepard's Bush Park, which is 2 stops west of the trendy Notting hill area. It was a pretty cool area, with a mall and movie theater close by, along with lots of shops and an internet cafe. The hostel I stayed at was right across from the underground, so that was great. I found out the hard way, trying to buy some things at a BP station, that the Isle of Man prints its own money. Of course that really doesn't make any sense since every place on the island accepts the English pound and their 'currency' is exactly equivalent to the pound. So the lesson is: don't use Manx ATM's unless you are going to spend it all.

Speaking of ATM's, I used those exclusively for currency exchange. I have a Visa ATM card and it worked everywhere, and it gave me much better exchange rates than the currency exchange places. Most places in Europe are not big on credit cards, especially for smaller purchases, so its good to have cash on you. Also, using notes to pay for small purchases is frowned up, so make sure you look at your change and use it. The Europeans seem to dislike making change, so they really like exact change.

The next day I set out for the Tate Modern museum. I found out that two of the tube lines were shutdown that day, so that forced me to take a very confusing path and I make a few mistakes along the way that ate up a good chunk of time. Oh well. The Tate Modern is across the Thames from St. Peter's Cathedral. These pics are from the millennium pedestrian bridge over to Tate.

Tate was awesome, and I actually went back the next day because there was too much to see in the short time I had the first day. I did a bunch of other stuff, like going shopping in Covent Garden and generally just walking around. I largely avoided the typical tourist sights because I'm wasn't really into those. Anyway, before long it was off to the airport to fly to Amsterdam.

This was one of the most stressful points in the trip. I was flying out of terminal 4 at Heathrow, which does not have tube service until 2006 (they're redoing it I guess). So you have to get off a stop early and take a bus. Me being me, I get on the wrong bus, but it takes me a while to realize it. Then I switch buses trying to get back to the original station, but I get off at the wrong station! So then I wait for another bus to take me back to the first station, and then finally catch the correct bus to Heathrow T4.

After all of this, I get to the ticket desk with about 3 minutes to catch my flight. The attendant gives me the express ticket to bypass the normal security line, and after I get through security I take off sprinting down the terminal. When I get there, it turns out they are a bit delayed, so they are just in the middle of boarding and I can sit down and catch my breath.

Amsterdam

The flight was pretty much on time, although I don't understand why KLM and the Dutch are so fond of cucumber and mayonnaise sandwiches (the snack on KLM flights). Once in Amsterdam, its a 20 minute train ride from the airport to the Central Station. Then, it should have been about a 20 min. walk from the station to my hostel, but I got lost and it took a lot longer. I finally found it, checked in, dumped my stuff, and went for dinner.

The streets in Amsterdam are in a wheel and spoke arrangement, which isn't too bad once you get used to it. The trick is to pick out landmarks like the train station and Damm square and use those to orient yourself. The street signs are usually on the side of a building and pretty hard to see. I went to dinner at this Argentinean steak house and basically had an expensive yet terrible dinner.

The Europeans have a much different idea of service than us in the States. I don't think I expect all that much. I want someone to acknowledge me when I walk in the door, and either seat me or tell me how long I have to wait. I want someone to take my drink order within a few minutes, and for someone to take my order within a few minutes after I close the menu. I don't mind waiting a little bit for the food, but drinks should be prompt. And after I finish with my food and put my utensils down, I expect someone to get my plate, ask me if I need anything else, and bring my bill.

What we found was that after the food is served, no one is going to come up to you again for a while. No one will bring you your bill unless you ask for it. Even if you ask for it, expect to wait at least 10 minutes for it. Expect to wait 10 minutes after ordering drinks. Expect to wait 30 minutes for your food. Some places were better or worse than others, but for the most part, this was the rule everywhere. Also, you don't need to tip; they build it into the price.

Kevin was delayed in his flights, so he ended up getting into Amsterdam a few hours later than he had planned, and actually a whole day later than he told me. We met up at the hostel on June 8 at night and I handed the camera off to him, so the rest of the photos you'll see are largely his doing. I think he probably did a better job than myself, since I kept forgetting that I had a camera. Anyway, here's what Amsterdam looks like:

The construction you see was going on on the canal outside our hostel. I'm not sure what they were doing, but whatever it was, it didn't seem to make much sense. It looked like they were driving iron rods into the ground, but at all angles without any order. We suspected that, like the rest of the city, it was an operation being conducted by stoners. In the middle pic above is the Extase coffee shop which played some really great music that sounded like a mix of two-step and reggae. It was some radio station, so I'm anxious to find it. Extase is one of the best shops in Amsterdam. Here you see our hostel; check out what's next door:

We didn't see any of the shows. There are lots of small little food places around, probably to serve the needs of those with the munchies. We thought this place was particularly amusing:

Here's some more shots of the city. These are of Damm square, one of the busiest plazas in the city. There's some great cafes here to grab a brew or cider and watch people pass by. In the last pic, there was some big Indian movie star staying at the hotel right on the square; no idea who though.

More shots of the city.

Amsterdam is a city made for bicycles. You have to be careful walking down the street or turning corners because they are everywhere. What’s funny is that no one has nice bikes. Everyone rides the same dull green old school 1970's bike, I suppose so there's no point in stealing it. The forth pic from the left shows the bike parking garage outside the train station. There had to be at least ten thousand bikes in there. The leftmost pic shows the train station.

We walked down to where the modern art museum was supposed to be and stumbled upon some sort of political rally in a big square. There were tons of people so we just walked into the rally. They had booths where they were giving out all sorts of things, so Kevin walked up and grabbed a bag of sandwiches! We found out that the museum moved, so we walked back to its new location. It was a pretty sweet place, not as good as Tate, but they had some cool pieces.

Later that night Kevin, in his drunken wisdom, decided it would be a good idea to climb the gate of this palace we walked by. He climbed up on it, and did a freestyle-walking 360 dismount fakie-style off the gate, but botched the landing and twisted his ankle. He would be limping until we got to Barcelona. In some odd way however, it was indeed hilarious to both he and I.

Some misc pics.

There was a lot of graffiti on the walls next to the train tracks into Amsterdam Central. Some of it was pretty cool. Kevin took a bunch of pics on our train ride from Amsterdam to Bonn (Germany).

Bonn / Nurburgring

Kevin (left) and myself (right) on the train.

More pics auf train of Germany.

We took the train from Amsterdam to Koln (Cologne), and then another train to Bonn, then a taxi to the Sixt rental car office in Bonn. Of course, Sixt was closed on Sat. when we got there (even after I had been assured they would be open) so we felt essentially screwed. We got a taxi to the hotel and proceeded to watch some tv while we came up with alternate plans for a rental car.

We came across this show called 'Was ist das?'. It was a live gameshow in which they would show the profile of an object, and callers were supposed to guess what it was. Each time the guess was incorrect, the prize went up. But what was really funny was that people were guessing things that were just ridiculous and the host would get mad and say things like 'NEIN! Das ist nicht auto! Das ist falsch!'. It was hilarious. But when the prize got up to 33k Euros, I tried to call in. Someone had called in an guessed 'klavier', which is a piano, and it sounded like the host said that they were really close, so I figured it might be a harpsichord. It was too bad because I couldn't get past the screener since I had no idea what they were asking me. Guess I should have paid more attention in German class. I don't think anyone ever got the answer, and it went on for over an hour and half. Also on German tv, as evident in the pics below, porn and South Park.

Pics of Bonn and Koln. The gothic-looking church is the Dom, which I suppose is famous.

So to find a car rental place we first tried a few listings in the German yellow-pages-equivalent, all of which were closed. I called my gf in the States and she was able to book us a car at the Europacar office at the airport, which was in Koln. So the next morning we took a cab to the train station, a train to Koln central, and a taxi to the Koln airport. The taxi driver didn't speak English, and I didn't recall the German word for car rental, so it was a bit interesting. When in doubt, just start naming companies that rent cars; that worked for us.

In Germany, you have to be 25 or older to drive a car with more than 200 hp or something like that, so I couldn't get a Z4 or something more sporty, but I knew that going in. Anyway, they didn't have the Audi A4 I had requested, so we got a Mercedes C190 Kompressor, which was supposedly an upgrade. I really liked that nearly all cars in Europe, including rental cars, are manual transmission. I have an affinity for manuals, especially for performance driving. Here's the vehicle I was about to use to do battle at Nurburgring:

Auf der Autobahn. I'll claim some of the pics are blurry because I was going so fast! Actually, contrary to popular American belief, speeds are not unrestricted on the majority of the autobahn. There's only about 10% where you can drive any speed. We didn't hit any of those parts; the fastest speed limit was 130 kph which is about 80 mph.

There were a ton of cool cars gathered when we arrived at the ring. Lots of Porsches, Caterhams, GSX-R's and Ducati's. The ring was temporarily closed when we got there because there had been a bad accident, but within 20 minutes it was cleaned up and they started letting people back on.

If you're not familiar with Nurburgring, its one of the most famous racetracks in the world. Its 13 miles long and has 73 turns. There are actually two tracks at Nurburgring now, the north and the south loops. The south loop was build after the north loop was considered too dangerous for grand prix racing. So the north loop is open to the public certain days of the month; other times its used for club racing or rented by manufacturers for testing. You can drive 5 laps for 60 Euros, or a day-pass is 300 Euros. We got a 5 lap ticket.

There are gates that lift when you put your ticket in, then you drive through a chicane and then you're off! There are a few rules you have to follow on the track. You have to let faster traffic pass you, and you should indicate when they should pass. You should pull right and get off the racing line to let people pass. You must do all passing on the right. You pay for what you break, including Armco (think guard-rails) and oil spills. But that's really about it. No one does tech inspection on your car. No one requires you to wear a helmet. Its really great, and nearly everyone I saw was very respectful and cautious. It really helped to have Kevin watching my mirrors for me so I could know when traffic was coming up behind me.

Within a couple turns I had the Mercedes’ tires squealing and the car sliding through the turns. I made sure to drive the ring every night for a week in GT4 (playstation game) using the wheel+pedals so I would know the place. Kevin and I also had printouts of a section-by-section breakdown of the track, along with the line to take and braking points. I must have been doing something right because I was able to pass some cars that should be faster than our 190 on crappy rental-car tires.

On lap two I got behind this Volvo s60 who did not want to let me pass. His car was faster on the straights due to having about 60 more hp than us (the S60 has 257 hp, the Kompressor has 190). But I was keeping up with him because I was taking better lines through the corners. It was a terrific battle and we stayed really close. I had a couple times were I thought I might be able to pass him, but I didn't try. Both of us were passing motorcycles in the turns, as the bikes can't drift as fearlessly as a 4-wheeled vehicle. You're not supposed to take cameras onto the track, but Kevin managed to take these shots as we went around.

After lap two, we pulled back up to the queue to get back on and I noticed smoke coming up from the car. I figured I had cooked the brakes, but smoke started from the rear, and Kevin jumped out and verified that the tires were indeed smoking! Two laps of the ring can really heat up your tires. Fearing the tires would be cooked, we took a break and ate lunch at the cafe. After lunch I drove 2 more laps, and then we switched and Kevin drove the last while I called out what turns were coming up and tried to watch his mirrors. Kevin wasn't big on shifting, but in some sections he was pushing the car as hard or harder than me. We had a blast driving the ring, and I would do it again in a second.

After we finished, we drove down to one of the corners and watched some of the cars go by. The track is incredibly beautiful and dynamic, with its rolling hills and camber changes. We so need places like this in the States.

Kevin tells me what he thinks of my driving.

The German countryside.

Back in Koln. This time we went inside the Dom. There were services going on, but Kevin managed to get two pictures before a priest kicked us out. I'm not sure what the big deal is; its not like we used a flash. There's also a pic below of both of us sitting on a bench.

Leaving Koln we hopped on a train that distinct read 'Hamburg-Altona' on the placard. But when I noticed I didn't recognize any of the stops we were hitting, I pulled out my Eurail map and realized we must have gone south through Frankfurt, and then back north, on a line east of Koln. Once we realized our mistake, we hopped on the next train north and took that as far as we could until it stopped. There were no more trains that night, so we stayed at a hotel near the train station.

Hamburg

The next day we got on the Hamburg train and this time we actually made it there. These pic were in our room at the hostel in Hamburg. I'm flashing our bling-bling room key and Kevin is phazed.

Since Kevin was still limping, I decided a bus tour might be a good way to see Hamburg without having to walk around. Hence these bus tour photos:

Hamburg has this big man-made lake almost in the center of the city. Its really cool, with a big park around it, boats sailing, etc. Its interesting that many of the cities in Germany don't have many old buildings since so much was destroyed during the war. In some ways it helped the Germans, by allowing them to build much more modern city designs with adequately sized streets, unlike some places in London.

Hamburg was a big shipping port back in the day. They build this warehouse district, where the houses could be loaded and unloaded via the street or via canal. Today they are turning it into housing and clubs to revitalize the area.

Levity pics

We went to the modern art museum in Hamburg (can you tell I like the modern?) which was ok, but the actual modern wing was closed for renovations, so they moved a bunch of the works into the other gallery. We looked at those, along with the old-school pieces. Below was from this installation piece; all of the clocks on the walls are set to different times, all of them are a few minutes off the actual time.

Berlin

We took a train from Hamburg to Berlin. We got the Eurail pass, which is an outstanding value. The pass we got was for Benelux-Germany, so we could travel any 5 days in Belgium, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and Germany during a 2 month period. You basically can hop onto any second class car on any train, any time you want. It cost us $199 USD and you can only buy them outside of Europe. I priced out our anticipated train rides separately and it would have cost over $400 and we would have lost the flexibility of the Eurail pass. We stayed in a hostel about 200 meters from the Berlin Zoo station, which is basically the central station for Berlin until the new station is completed. This area is a busy part of the city, with lots of shopping and bars around.

There's a park in Los Angels Platz in Berlin. Kevin couldn't resist the slide, despite its wetness.

Amusing items to photograph can be found everywhere.

After the bus tour in Hamburg, which turned out to be pretty cool, we decided to do one in Berlin. This one was more expensive, but it lasted about 2.5 hours and went a lot of places. So we present, Berlin auf Bus:

Of course, no one thinks of Berlin without recalling the wall. There's only a section of it left that was protected from being demolished. However, they did put a row of bricks two-thick in the street, marking where the wall used to run.

More Berlin.

At night, the Sony building on Potzdammer Platz lights up blue and morphs to purple. The modern art museum (which we didn't see) has its ceiling covered in scrolling message boards. I couldn't make out what they said, but they really looked cool.

We went to Stern Radio one night in Berlin, which was a pretty cool club, but it wasn't especially busy on the weeknight we hit it. We tried to go to Tresor, but apparently they moved and now its inside of the WMF club, which was closed that night. Kind of a bummer, but I suppose it happens.

Ibiza

Next we flew from Berlin to Barcelona. We took a bus from the airport to Catayluna Place, which is pretty much the city centre. Its a busy shopping district with all sorts of crazy alleys and crooked streets.

It was about a 1km walk from the bus stop to the pier, where we boarded a ferry for Ibiza. They had this cool modern art sculpture near the pier, which actually goes over the road.

If you take a ferry to Ibiza, its very important to know if there are other stops the boat will make. I suspected as much, but when the boat stopped, we had a debate as to if we were on Ibiza or not. We decided to get off and get a taxi to our hotel. When I told the taxi driver the address he looked at me like I was crazy and told us that the address was on another island! We had accidentally gotten off at Palma! So after running back up the ramps, we managed to get back on the boat just in time.

We got to Ibiza at something like 2300 and then hailed a taxi to take us across the island to San Antonio. Ibiza has basically 3 major towns, Eivissa (aka Ibiza Town), and Santa Eulalia. The whole island is pretty small, and you can get from one end to the other in less than an hour. Kevin took these night shots:

As you can see, the camera works much better in the day. These shots were from our hotel room balcony. We had a spectacular view.

Ibiza doesn't have much for public transit, so the way to go is to rent a car. You can rent a smallish eco-box for like 30 Euros a day, so its a good deal. We acquired the much-vaunted and feared Fiat Panda! Check out the sticker on the windshield.

We decided to take an ad-hoc driving tour of the north side of the island. We basically tried to hit every beach on the north side. In the process, we got to drive on some of the best roads on the island; twisty, narrow ascending and descending mountain passes. If it was a rally driving game, the co-driver would be saying "Hairpin left, narrows, caution: exposure" on every turn. The island, as you can see, is completely beautiful.

If you look carefully in the last two pics, you can see Kevin striking a pose. We stopped and had lunch, or dinner, or a beer on the beach at each place, just enjoying how nice everything on the island is.

We ended up going down this crazy like gravel mining road. It had a bunch of switch-backs and big ruts and potholes. We stopped for a second to consider if we'd be able to get back up the slope. Then we saw a guy in a car worse than ours coming back up, so we figured the Panda would be able to handle it. We stopped by the ruins of an old house. There was this huge cliff nearby. Kevin climbed up top; you can see him in a few of the pics, then I climbed up after him. That's him in the 'lens flare' pics.

Here you can see where were drove down to. The clearing you can see in the first pic is where the Panda is in the second and third pics.

Some amusing pics. The first is an old-school gen 1 Panda. In the last pic, you can see this trucker has a Flat Eric puppet as his passenger.

The south side of the island. We did a similar driving tour, stopping at the beaches.

At night we went clubbing. The first night we went to Space, which is near the airport. To get into the club you need to buy tickets. You can either buy them at the door, or you can buy them at various places on the island. What we did was go to a bar across the street from the club. Almost all of the bars have these 'deal-makers' who stand on the sidewalk and try to get you into the bar. I talked to one of these guys and he hooked us up with free tickets to Space in exchange for buying a drink. Pretty sweet deal!

The clubs are absolutely awesome in terms of their sheer size, sound, decor, and atmosphere. Most places open at 12 am and don't really start going until about 2 am. The ideal time to get to the club is probably about 1 am. That way there's no line to get in, but there are still a good number of people inside. There were probably 2000 people at Space by the time we left. The club had at least eight bars, each with two bartenders and a stocker.

The big problem with the clubs is drink prices. They are simply outrageous. Twenty to twenty-five Euros is the going price for a Redbull and vodka. Expect to pay twelve Euros for a bottle of water. Its nuts. The thing is, most people only buy one or maybe two drinks, so I don't understand why the clubs price themselves they way they do. Either they must have had a problem with people getting too intoxicated, or they really think they can make money on a captive audience. It certainly didn't seem like the latter to me, because none of the bars were ever busy.

The second night we went to Amnesia, which is even cooler than Space. It was opening night for the season there, and the place was packed. We went to our same dealmaker and managed to get our tickets for twenty Euros along with two free shots while we were there. Supposedly the tickets we had entitled us to a free drink at Amnesia, but what constitutes free is pretty questionable. I tried to order Redbull and vodka and they wouldn't do that for free. I had to pay for the Redbull which was something like thirty Euros for two "free" drinks. Ridiculous.

What's funny is that while the clubs are very expensive, everything else is pretty cheap. There are a ton of bars in San Antonio where you can get a pint of Redbull and vodka for six Euros (that's ten shots of Smirnoff and a can of Redbull). Wine is really cheap in Spain; we got bottles of Vina Esmeralda and Vina Sol, including some Gran Reserve for fourteen Euros. We ate excellent dinners, usually for less than forty Euros for two people.

Barcelona

After 3 nights on Ibiza, it was back to Barcelona via ferry. We walked from the pier to our hostel which was about midway between the pier and the city centre. We took a bus tour of the city, which covered a lot of ground, but made some unnecessary stops. Barcelona was by far the most 'touristy' place. I guess there are a lot of cruise ships that stop there, so they unload by the droves. Maybe its just me, but cruise-ship tourists seem like the worst kind. I sort of think its nice to at least tone down the tourist look a bit, while these people sport new, unwashed Barcelona t-shirts and beltpacks and carry their cameras around their necks.

I don't know what makes it tronic but the sign says it is, so it must be true.

So that's about it. We left Barcelona on June 20, making my trip about 17 days long; shorter for Kevin since he met me in Amsterdam. We both had an outstanding time. It was probably a bit more expensive than I thought, mainly just because I spent more than I thought I might. But I wanted to have a good time, so I really wasn't too concerned about cost. Coming back to the States, I was almost disgusted with everything culture-wise. Overheard conversation, signs, advertising, public layouts, etc. I think what they say is true; you learn more about your own country by going abroad than you do about the countries you visit.

My favorite thing I did on the trip: driving on Nurburgring. I'll never forget the experience of hurtling our Mercedes Kompressor through Hole Acht and dropping it 'expertly' into the carousel turns.

Favorite place: Ibiza. Its where I would move if I had unlimited funds. The place is just great.