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blanko1324
Created : 01 August 2007
Edited : 01 August 2007

Euro-Trip (Part I)

Taken Straight from my Travel Journal
(So, I had to edit it a little, remove names, and the certain really bad parts.)

Caen


So, the journal they provided for me (to be graded) on this trip had a whole specific layout and questions to answer. Therefore, I'm not doing it. I'll fill this one out instead just out of boredom. There's only five or so days left of this trip so much of what I write will be from memory.

Thoughts on Rome:


It's not the kind of place Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen make it out to be. Buff Italian men do not take you on romantic tours of the sites on their scooters. (Not that I would want them to.) There are pickpockets, and thieves that would rather take your twenty euros in exchange for a five inch piece of braided string, without your permission. That happened twice...
In other words, it is a city. It sucks. The pizza's good though. As for the monuments: overrated.

Thoughts on Countryside


(I just now almost got hit with a shoe from a 2nd story hotel window.)

The Italian countryside is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It leaves you breathless, and speechless, and other words I don't feel like thinking up. It makes you want to slap yourself every time you blink because you're missing a fraction of a second of sunflower fields, and little towns atop peaceful looking hills. It made me want to cry because I knew that in less than a month's time, I'd have to go back to Maryland, which has an extreme lack of anything nice to look at.

If I'm reading this right now, am over twenty-five, and still living in the States: Get your ass back to Italy.

From there we went to Florence, which was all around ugly and not worth wasting a drop of ink on. Instead, I'll take this page to write about our delegation leader.

Thoughts on Our Delegation Leader


Our delegation leader is a complete moron. He is the reason why our bus driver smokes so much. He's dumb, talks too much, and eats his bread like a monkey. During our trip to the chocolate factory he never stopped talking to me. What made this unbearable is that his train of thought constantly jumps tracks and derails. We started with computer programming, then philosophy, then quantum mechanics, for which he knows nothing about, and finally ended up on the production of little chocolates and how they fit in with the rest of the said topics. Also, on one occasion in France, during a walk in the tiny town of Orange, he got lost and didn't return until twenty minutes later. Our bus driver thinks he's a dumb ass too, and has said it to his face multiple times.

The hotel in Florence, a stone building at the base of a mountain, is where all hell broke loose, and our group of thirty-four temporarily fell apart. Basically, we can't get along. There was fighting, crying, name calling, etc. So, we had a group meeting without any leaders in an attempt to be mature. This was about as productive as a bunch of chimps locked in a dining room, throwing s*** at each other. The discussion went like this:


* "We should all keep our mouths shut."

* "We should express our feelings in a productive way."

* "We should all keep our mouths shut."

* "...Express ourselves!"

* "Shut up!"

* "I want more ice cream."

* "F*** this, I'm leaving."



Then we slept. Then left for Pisa, where I saw a broken tower and ate a lot of gelato.

From Pisa, we drove to Cinque Terre. We went on a boat and spent the rest of the day at the beach, swimming in the amazingly blue salt water.

From Cinque Terre, we went to Monaco, where all the rich snobs live and do what rich people do.


* Then Nice.

* A pit-stop in Orange where a certain somebody got lost.

* Then Lyon.

* Then Paris, where I saw a big, brown, pointy statue, and Notre Dame which is the most amazing building ever.



And now, at 23:12, I'm in a two-star hotel (which for some reason is called "Best Hotel") in Caen (North France) writing in the Journal.

Thoughts on People to People


For what it is suppose to be, People to People fails miserably. Flat on its face. An "ambassador" program it certainly is not! All we do is visit the big tourist attractions. We are tourists; a big group of tourists. We are as invisible as every other group of loud Americans that pass through the lines and gift shops. We are immature (some of us) and we prove that the stereotype of stupid, loud Americans does, in fact, exist. And by "we", I mean the whole group minus ten-or-so people. We make hotel managers want to hang themselves...

Normandie Beach


...Or "Normandy", depending on where you're from. Today (July 21st) our group, well, some members of our group, showed everyone how amazingly stupid, immature, and disrespectful teenagers can be. We stepped on the flat beach that was Omaha and immediately everyone started writing in the sand. Cute things in big letters, like "RIP" and "Thank You". It was really nice; I wrote my initials. Then, of course, some jackass had to write "is gay" under someone else's name. I saw it, but did nothing and walked off in disgust. I did my own thing for a half hour or so...

It honestly angered the hell out of me. It's a beach where thousands of American grandfathers were murdered. They hold ceremonies there! Jesus Christ people! So, while walking back up the beach to get my lunch I erased the writing with my feet. It felt good. But it doesn't end there. During lunch, I sat looking out across the beach on a stone wall. I see one of our students, being the **** that he is, drawing a ten foot long sand-penis with his foot. Balls and all. The other losers are standing around laughing and adding some final details. So, I told a delegation leader, and her going off on them was, my god, so satisfying...

I'm at the ferry terminal right now, getting ready for an overnight ride to Portsmouth, England. We had to say bye to our driver and his bus; they won't be joining us...

Thoughts on a Bus


Riding on a bus four to eight hours straight, in between cities, gives you a lot of time to think. Time to think about anything and everything. You get really good at day-dreaming too, and drowning everyones voices out. I was on a sailboat, sailing though my head for most of the trips. Long bus rides do things to people. Sometimes bad things. Learning how to lock yourself in your own mind is a great trick for keeping calm...

I'd love to travel the world some more, but never again with People to People.

Even my best friends get on my nerves if I spend more than three weeks straight with them. I'm a somewhat solitary person and I enjoy my alone time. It's hard to get any alone time on this trip. I do walk around the towns by myself if I get the chance, but technically, that's breaking PtP rules.

This town is called Ouistreham. It's cute.
Goodbye France.

 

Comments
Thursday, 02 August 2007, 00:49
power mousey
 		hey blanko,

where's the pictures!??

whats a adventure journal or blog
without pictures!

waiting for some pictures.
then I will read it more slowly and enjoyablly.


wheres the pics? :/,
and cheers
power mousey
Thursday, 02 August 2007, 01:17
JL235
Blanko As for the monuments: overrated.

WHAT!!!

How can the Vatican be overrated??? It's MASSIVE! It's so pristine. And that building Mussolini built, that was pretty cool too. I'd agree that I was expecting the Colosseum to be bigger, but that was still good.

But yeah, tonnes of thieves. Especially the ones outside the Vatican selling bottles of water for what must have been around £4 each. The streets are also lined with gangs selling fake merchandise on the way to the Vatican. They set up and run off in waves too avoid the police. It's a real shame the people in Europe's capitals have turned so bad. These days Paris is full of non-english speaking beggers. Although Prague is still pretty cool.
Thursday, 02 August 2007, 04:48
Jayenkai
 		Glad to hear you had a nice time, even if it wasn't always perfect, or even quiet!

The whole countryside thing sounded lovely.

Mousey : Photos are here
Thursday, 02 August 2007, 08:50
power mousey
 		thank you Jay,

for telling me where Blanko posted them.

Blanko, I like the pictures you took and
especailly the Europe pictures of 212,200,208,182
and 143. And definitely Europe202.
Oh my OZ!!...I'm in the Kingdom of Oz
Its so beautiful and nice looking. True!.

Yet, what I was trying to say Blanko
is that it would be nice to show or insert a few of your pictures when talking about your journal of adventures
in Europe.
Like...a pic of Rome, a pic of the countryside or near representation of one, a pic of your delegation leader(if any), a pic of people or another person(if any), a pic
of Normandie Beach, and a pic of a bus.
You get the idea.

Just a suggestion.
cheers,
power mousey
Thursday, 02 August 2007, 09:33
Phoenix
 		But you missed the most important part of Europe - Sweden! We have... ehm, well we don't really have anything special. Maybe the turning torso.

Even if the trip wasn't perfect, you've at least seen the Colloseum, the tower in Pisa, Notre Dame, etc, unlike me. Consider yourself lucky!
Thursday, 02 August 2007, 10:14
Scherererer
 		Awesome pictures! I know what you mean about being close to the same people for an extended period of time, I've been in that situation before. I never really understood most of those "ambassador" programs, If they made you get culturally integrated, maybe living in a resident's home or something for a while, then it would make more sense, but the tourist attractions don't really make you an ambassador. Important thing is though, that you did see all that stuff and that's really cool. I've never been to Europe before but I want to go, it sounds like a lot of fun.
Thursday, 02 August 2007, 13:54
blanko1324
 		Let me explain more about the monuments, DD, and why I thought they were overrated. I thought they were beautiful, jaw dropping beautiful. The architecture was stunning, colors, everything. Nothing today can come close.

But that's not why I wanted to go on the trip. I wanted to see common life. I wanted to see what people were doing now. Sure, we got tons of history lessons (now all forgotten), but I think the present is more important if we want to achieve world peace, which is one of the goals of this program, set by the founder, Eisenhower.

The big problem I had with the monuments themselves is that they (and this might not seem like a big deal to you) have huge lines (like this one to the Vatican), and gift shops, which just seemed to give them a ... fake feel, like I was in a giant amusement park. It was like most of the town was geared completely towards tourists, and that from my point of view, normal life didn't even exist there.

So that's what I meant by overrated. Maybe disappointing would have been a better word?

I'll get part II typed up soon.

Check out 84, 85, 86, 92, and 93 for pictures of Assisi, Italy. It was the most beautiful place we visited. It was a small, completely stone-built town on top of a hill with an amazing view of the countryside.
Thursday, 02 August 2007, 14:38
JL235
 		That is a big queue. Funny, there weren't any when I went. It was pretty empty.
Thursday, 02 August 2007, 21:00
power mousey
 		I like the architecture and building styles of
the Palace of Fine Arts and its next to the
Exploratorium and in San Francisco.
I love both of these places.

The Exploratorium




www.exploratorium.edu/



Palace of Fine Arts








www.palaceoffinearts.org/