Barcelona

Sorry again for the delay in posts, but my laptop finally gave up the ghost and we haven't been in one place for long enough to really use a computer.  At this moment we are in Barcelona where we have had a few very very interesting and exciting days.  We've eaten incredible food, hung out on some awesome beaches, gotten pickpocketed, and now we are on our way to Nice in France.  I hope that when we get there we'll have a computer and be able to provide a more substantive update but in the meantime we are safe and well and having tons of fun.  Miss you all!

Matt and Christine

Catching Raindrops

**Hey so my laptop just decided that it would be okay if it started charging again so you all get the posts that have been on here for the last couple of days!  This post was written by me (Matt) and the one below it by Christine, so please go ahead and read both if you have the time and just remember they were written last weekend.  More posts and pictures and things will be forthcoming so bear with us while my laptop returns to life!**

First of all, an apology. We never did get around to writing a post about Prague because we were simply enjoying it too much to take the time. Don't worry, a time will soon come for that. At this moment though we are lying in a green field outside of Berlin, reading books, listening to music, and generally enjoying living.

Getting here was quite a journey. We knew only generally where this music festival was going to be, but very little of how to get there or what we would then do was clear. We spent the night before our train left on the painfully slow computers of the Little Quarter Hostel in Prague doing our best to decipher the transportation directions. Directions, I should point out, that could only be found in German. Needless to say, the night before we left Prague I had some slight reservations about how the next day's journey would progress.

We jumped on a train from Prague to Berlin, about a five hour journey, and found ourselves in the main train station of that same city. I wish I had pictures to demonstrate, but this station is bigger than many airports and busier still. With only a vague idea of our destination, a town called Brieslang, we approached an electronic ticket terminal and apprehensively picked the English option. This was actually incredibly easily and we found a train going right where we wanted leaving in less than half an hour. Things went so well in fact that we purchased our ticket to Paris and we aren't even going there for another two weeks.

We caught our train, found our stop about half an hour later, and even found the shuttle stop that was supposed to take festival-goers to the grounds some six miles away. At this time we really thought we were some hot shit. Everything that we had figured out as we went worked out perfectly. All we had to do was catch this shuttle that was there specifically to get people from this very train stop(about fifty people in all) to the festival grounds. Easy-peazy we thought, there is a festival official, everything looked in order, this day had been a total slam dunk! Except the shuttle never arrived. We were initially told to just call a cab, but it turns out there was only one taxi for the entire town sooo... I still don't know what happened to it, but hey, we saw this cool sunset while we waited!

Eventually they got a bus out to us, we found the festival grounds before it got dark and were able to pitch our tent and catch some sleep. That was two nights ago and the time in between has been incredible. There has been awesome music, (mostly) awesome weather, and generally a very relaxed atmosphere. Last night we got to see one of my most favorite bands, Gogol Bordello. They sang, they played, they ran all over the stage and the crowd loved this unique music which can only be described as gypsy-punk. It was incredible.

Something about this place is magical. I write this from the ground of my tent as I watch the clouds float past out of the door. On the other side of a grove of trees to my left are several stages from which we can hear all types of music. All around me is a giant tent city with people milling about and generally enjoying a really nice weekend. People sleep in the grass, do more or less as they like, and everyone seems to get along quite famously. Oh, and the food is so much better than any sort of concert or festival I've ever seen in the states. It has made a great resting point after all the wonder of Amsterdam and Prague. By the time anybody reads this it will be two days from now and we will be in Berlin and hopefully knee-deep in our next adventure.

And so, to those of you half-way around the world, I implore you to do one thing for me. It matters not if you do it today or tomorrow, but someday take a second to slow down and catch a raindrop :)

Peeing in Amsterdam

Edited To Add: now that the computer is still holding on to life, I have some posts to update.  I wrote this one in Prague about Amsterdam.  We will send some more updates soon : )

Christine Speaking...

First of all let me make clear, I was asleep during Matt's post of the Intermission blog.  It is not me that doesn't know which floor I'm on, it's Matt!!  He keeps thinking were on the top floor when we are only on the second.  The kitchen is on the top and he keeps trying to go downstairs for food.  It's very amusing because he seems to have a really good sense of direction.  It turns out he doesn't, he just knows how to read a map really well. And somehow I have a very fine tuned sense of direction but am unable to read a map.  We have learned in the last few days of Prague how to make our two skills work together!  I can keep straight where we are facing and which side of the river we are on (and whether to go up or down) and Matt can figure out which square we are in and which street to take to the hostel or museum.  We are almost done with our time in Prague, but first I want to talk a bit about Amsterdam.

The last two days in Amsterdam were mostly spent in two amazing museams.  First we went to the Rijksmuseum.  Which was both a general museum for Amsterdam and included some great pieces by Rembrandt.  It was something being around art with Matt.  I'm not trained at all in art and Matt is.  The only familiar situation I was in was art in Paris with my aunt Liza who is an artist as well.  It opened my mind a lot; looking at brushstrokes and techniques instead of just the historical context of a piece.  It was really fun sharing my art history knowledge with Matt and in-exchange he made me much more impressed with the work of many artists.  Such as this one which is done with pen ink and is several feet wide and high.

We then hung out at a coffee place and watched people travel by.

We found a urinal for men that allowed three men to pee in it at once right in public.  Matt of course used it.

  And yes, dramawiz, we women folk do have to pay to pee, but since I'm so trained to pee whenever it is free I have actually not paid yet, and it's the particular man folk Matt that paid to pee once before discovering the very free urinals.  For those that don't know, due to the amount of deaths resulting from drunk men peeing in the canals (and falling in) there are now public urinals.  There were only female toilets after 300 women peed on a bridge in protest, but they were taken away again when heroin addicts started using them as hiding places.  Now that Amsterdam has really cleaned up their streets I think it's time to open the toilets back up, mostly so we don't have to enter a McDonald's and pay 50 euro cents to use a bathroom that is never cleaned.

We went to the Van Gogh museum which Matt will have more to say about later.  But mostly we just walked around and checked out the cool city and played with taking cool pictures.

Rain Delay

Sorry about the long wait in posts, but my laptop has suddenly decided that it no longer wants to be charged and I am concerving this last hour of energy for as long as I can.  The result of this is that three posts on here are delayed until I can figure out how to continue this from my cell phone.  Pictures may also, unfortunatly, be put on hold indefinatly unless I can fix this computer.

But as long as I have you here I'll give a quick recap of whats been up.  We were in Prague until thursday of last week and it was posativly beautiful.  Great buildings, interesting people, cheap beer, and mediocre food. We spent last weekend at the Greenville music festival outside of berlin and it was awesome!  Saw Gogol Bordello which is one of both Christine and I's favorite bands.  For the most part the weather was great, but the last night get a bit chilly in our tent.  The last two night have been spent in Berlin in an incredible hostel from which we have explored this sprawling, dynamic city.  Much to my shock, the best food isn't even German!  We basically spend all our time finding the various little Turkish restaurants and gorging ourselves on delicious, cheep, fresh food.  If you ever get a chance at a Turkish pizza you absolutly must take it.

I will try to get a bigger update as soon as I can, but in the meantime we are safe, warm, well fed, and having an awesome time.

I hope everyone back home is doing well and we miss you all.

Talk to you soon :)
-Matt