...fine line between insanity and genius

if you know me well, you know that if i keep repeating "what the fuck is going on?!?" throughout the course of an evening, it's a good thing. well last evening was one such evening. it started with dinner at club lago , which sounds like an exciting place, but is really just a little italian joint by david's place. danny and i were driving around, looking for parking so long, that dave left the restaurant to get parking permits from his building. al, jim, phuc, and roy were inside lago waiting patiently, and tim, dar, and porta arrived while we were parking. dinner was great. a lot of catching up and storytelling. it was really nice to see everyone together after being away for so long. especially roy, who was already drunk from the day's events. we saw r. kelly in his ferrari, outside of the restaurant and said our goodbyes around midnight , and david, dan, roy, and i headed to buddha for a little drinky poo. we were met by aymeei, amber, and adrian , the

so in dublin i met this girl, very briefly, at a hostel that danny and i were doing our laundry in (it wasn't the hostel we were staying in). she was cute, and smart, and sweet, so i thought, hey, get her information... so i did. yay. we talked for only like 30 minutes, but it was a good conversation. she's in europe until august, so we email very short bursts, and so i really don't know much about her. but for some reason, armed with the little information i know, she fascinates me, and i can't really explain it. it doesn't happen very often, so i thought it appropriate to blog. does anyone fascinate you? set up in other news, the lamest/funniest thing happened today. let's start from mother's day in may... i'm at the cemetery visiting my mom, sitting on the grass, praying and what not. some lady comes up from behind me and says, 'hi brian', in a medium-strong filipino accent. it's a distant non-relative, in-law sort of aunt, who's na

i had lunch with aymeei today, at claire's corporate, and all i can say is that i am jealous . if i had her job... ...i'd be surrounded by lovely ladies all day. then, for a little while, i'd write orders to the chinese and tell them to send us 1000 units of the little cow trinket, that hangs from your cell phone. once or twice i'd knock on ashley's cube to see if she wanted to go get some coffee from the cafeteria. i'd flirt, and flirt, and flirt. then i would go back to work for 15 minutes and repeat... all day, every day... ah, to have aymeei's job! on the way home i saw rob on her way home for lunch, so i went over. she called chuck while we were there, so i was able to catch up with him. then i stopped at springhill to get something for friday at buddha . talked to chris from express for like 30 minutes and ended up buying a bunch of shit. shit. late in the evening, danny and i watched knocked up . now usually i would write a little review, but

it's amazing all the stuff you can remember. all the memories and stories and moments. what's more amazing is all the stuff you don't remember. sometimes there are seemingly insignificant moments in your life that pass you by, that others have held on to so tightly and with such detail that when they begin to tell you again, the memories seem to flood right back in. for example: back in freshman year of high school in advanced algebra, i sat in front of this cute girl named beth . back then i had an unexplainable haircut at best, most accurately described as male tail , a 4 to 5 inch monstrosity that hung down the back of my neck. in retrospect it was horrible and at the time, beth evidently agreed, and so to show her distaste, at some point in the semester, beth decided to burn my hair with a lighter. jump ahead many years later to 2007. italy, cinque terre . walking down the street before the long hike, phuc asks beth how she knows me, and before she can answer, i bring

pictures taken with my camera : 2911. pictures uploaded to fotki before browser crash : 1294. hours taken to upload 1294 pictures : 17. flights taken : 14. Chicago to Montreal. Montreal to London. London to Genova. Milan to Amsterdam. Amsterdam to Dublin. Dublin to Warsaw. Prague to Athens. Santorini to Athens. Athens to Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki to Budapest. Budapest to Milan. Milan to London. London to Montreal. Montreal to Chicago. flights missed/abandoned : 3. Genova to London. London to Amsterdam. Berlin to London. carriers : 8. air canada, sky europe, easy jet, ryan air, olympic airways, aegean air, alitalia, united. countries visited : 11. canada, uk, italy, amsterdam, ireland, poland, slovak republic, hungary, austria, czech republic, and greece. fellow travelers : 9. dan, chris, dave, al, tim, dar, jim, phuc, and beth. fines paid for having no subway ticket : 2. prague and budapest. passport stamps : 17. cost of international text messaging : $65+. (estimated based on usage u

i woke up this morning in a confused state . you know that you've been away from home a long time, when you wake up in your own room, look around for 10 seconds, and have no idea where the hell you are. i seriously thought i was in a hotel room in greece . when i arrived home last night, the first thing i did was put in a load of laundry . all in all, in 1 month, i was able to wash clothes about 3 times (once by hand), and i never washed the shorts. i uploaded my pictures to my hard drive, which took multiple hours. i can't imagine how many hours it will take to get them onto a website for sharing. now i'm just trying to decompress. my head is still swimming with thoughts of city after city. moment after moment. there will be no fresh bread and cheese in the kitchen when i go down there. no hard boiled eggs or nutella. no coffee machine and fresh squeezed juice. no strange looking lunchmeats or tiny packages of marmalade. the continental breakfast is gone... because i'

for the past couple of days, staying with chris in london , i've been doing my best to blog our various misadventures, which have been some of my fondest this whole trip. but i haven't finished anything yet and i'm beginning to think that my subconscious has been convincing me that once i put it all down, it signifies an ending. it symbolizes a conclusion. it completes a chapter. i don't want the chapter to end. the phrase "back to reality" comes to mind. and it's bullshit. because maybe this traveling thing is reality, and everything else is just the means to get there. i need to stop before my attention deficit gets the better of me. it's 9:20am on a cloudy and chilly london monday, and it officially marks the final journey back home. painfully, chris has left for work and i must gather my things and stuff the backpack just one last time . each moment that passes is complimented with a memory of the trip. one month leaves you with many memories.

2:22pm. Milan, italy. Quick transfer on alitalia. Said bye to beth & budapest. Saying hi to chris & london. Last 3 nights!

8:23pm. budapest. it's raining right now, just a brief moment for the brutal heat to subside, allowing a little bit of cool air flow through beth's flat. so today we did something that will definitely make my top 5 events in europe 2007 ... the hungarian bath ! ...to be continued.

12:30pm, Budapest. we've been up for 3 hours and ain't done shit. really, we're doing our best to just not sweat. i was just looking at some of the other pictures that people took on this trip, and i've been reflecting on some of the most memorable moments of the trip. here's one that will never get old for me... we had just landed in italy, the airport in genova. we rode a budget airline, and since the planes are a little smaller we deboard and walk down the stairs and onto the tarmac rather than walking straight into the gate. i was in a giddy mood. there were 9 of us together, tim, dar, jim, phuc, al, dave, chris, dan, and myself. heading toward passport control, down this corridor, i mentioned to timmy... "hey tim, do you know how to say 'where's the bathroom' in italian?" before tim could respond, i waved my hands in the air and in an exaggerated stereotypical italian accent said, "how-ah do-ah yah get-ah to dah bad-da-room?"

1:30am. thursday, june 20. so i'm at beth's flat in budapest, and i'm trying to access my blog account, and the damn thing keeps popping up in hungarian ... not my blogs, but the menu system... "create blog" and "sign out" look like words from the original printing of the communist manifesto . the smart people at google have developed this thing that identifies what country your ip is registered to and modifies the default language they show you. anyways... tomorrow, i think that beth and i are going to the market to pick up fresh fruits, then a stop to one of the infamous hungarian baths, a quick lunch at a local traditional hungarian restaurant, followed by a walk through the hungarian national museum. and then on friday , over to london to visit chris and celebrate the last weekend in europe . chris, dan, and al : remember that shit that happened to us in the subway at prague ? well guess what? beth and i got tagged for that shit again! this time

10:15pm. pest. We're eating sushi in hungry. How effed up is that? Plus... No asian employees or customers!

alas... i've been texting my blog through my phone for the past couple days and it looks like not much got through. hopefully they don't charge me for those. greece is but a memory now, as we're transported back to the humid city of budapest .

6:30pm. Sitting at kitchen bar on the port of thessaloniki. We've been here for 3 hours. Typical for the culture. Buzzed on mojitos.

thanks danny , for checking up on me. here's the skinny on the trip... i lost my atm card somewhere on sifnos and since then, have been borrowing cash from beth . it feels like i'm asking for allowance every time... except in 50 euro increments. greece has officially overtaken spain and italy as my number one european destination. it is expensive, but i think now that i've had the chance to experience some of it, i know how to budget for future travels. aegean air has the most beautiful flight attendants ever. of 10 said attendants, 9 were absolutely fabulous. fresh fish is delicious. fresh octopus is even better. i have 2 minutes on my interent connection, so i'll continue at a later date... hope all is well in the states! again, wish you were all here...

11:24pm. Thessoloniki. The nightlife here is amazing. We're doing the al fresco thing. The streets, squares, and alleys are lined...

10:30pm. Santorini. Long day. Climbed volcano, swam hot springs, rode donkeys, and watched sunset from oia. I'm black from the sun.

5:30am. Back at the hotel. We're safe. Long story. Ask me later. Two words. Greek mafia. Holy shit. Really trashed. Blog soon.

4:15am. Beach bar. Somewhere on santorini. Some shady shit is happening right now. If you don't hear from me in 5 hours... Shit.

I don't have time or space to blog this right now, but ask of about the first night in santorini. Some fucked up shit.

I don't have time or space to blog this right now, but ask of about the first night in santorini. Some fucked up shit.

7:00pm. On the flying cat 3. A speed boat 2 santorini. There must b satellite cell service, bc i get a signal. I'm dizzy writing this.

5:10pm. vathy, sifnos. finally swam in the sea! Santorini by ferry at 6:20pm. I'll miss this island. Quest: why is greek coffee gritty? Wh

10:00am. Thanks to anna for answering that yogurt question! We're heading for santorini tonight. Til then, atv tour of sifnos.

so bethie came up with this idea... blog questions about what we are doing, so that people at home can participate with the journey. the only issue is that i cannot check my blog as often as i would like. also, this damn keyboard will not accept the apostrophe key (sorry... my attention deficit kicked in). so if you could text me the answer to questions, that would be delicious. here"s something... if you"re bored... find out some weird, disgusting food that i should try in greece, hungry, or england, and i"ll do my best to eat it. so the last question was... "why or how is yogurt in greece so thick?" don"t worry, you sick bastards, it"s not code for anything. beth eats a lot of yogurt and fruit and she"s noticed that it is very thick here. so text me the answer, and look out for more questions in the future... by the way, as great as it is to be here... i do miss the company of my friends. but i know that someday, we"ll all be back.

11:30am. Kamares. Thnxs to dan, chris, and ernin for answering the golem question. Next... What makes greek yogurt thick? Text me!

6:50pm. Just got back from milos. Can someone google prague (praha) golem and text my phone? It's killing me. UPDATE: by the way, the praha golem is a creature that protects the jews in prague... it"s more complicated than that, but i don"t have time to write it. again, thanks to dan, chris, and erin, for responding to that blog!

it's like 10:05pm over here in kamares . i just wanted to drop a few lines, while i can... i've got like 5 minutes, so excuse the grammatical errors. greece has been incredible. the people, the food, the life, the view. it's all around a romantic country (as are most european countries), i completely understand why many newlyweds come here on their honeymoons. unfortunately, i'm just here with beth (no offense), but let's just say the idea of a ' snowball's chance in hell ' comes to mind. she's like a sister... a real annoying sister that won't stop bugging me... oops. j/k. i wish that you could be here with me right now. but i know i'll be back to greece someday. it's one of those places you could go to 100 times and still have something to see. remind me to tell you why this island i'm on right now reminds me of the philippines . very nice. lastly , sorry that my mobile blogs have been so short. chris just informed me that the

9:00pm. Kamares. Have you ever done your laundry by hand? Me neither. Until just now. Feeling very european. Hung clothes on the line. Hope that they get dry.

3:00pm. Kamares, Sifnos. Lazy afternoon, just ate lunch on the beach. The view, the life, the pace. Love greece!

7:45am. Arrived safely by ferry, to sifnos in greece. Have to do laundry by hand. Beautiful town, nice villa. Perfect weather. A vacation

11:45pm. Piraeus port, athens. We've got a late night ferry to sifnos on a creepy old ship. The beach and sun await!

7:15pm. Athens. I have conquered the acropolis, the greek coffee, and mousaka. On our way to sifnos by boat.

2:00pm. Prague. Just ate the best meal of europe. At cafe savoy, on our way to take in some of the city by foot. Chris, al, and dan are ba

3:12am. Prague, a club called duplex. It's on top of an 8 story building. Ibiza house night. Fucking wicked. Dancing with czechs.

3:30pm. On the train from vienna, austria to prague, czech republic. We got good stamps in our passports. Did a quick tour of vienna. Must

3:17pm slovakia. On the hottest train ever. Sweating my balls off. Heading to bratislava to get to vienna, austria. Google mozart balls.

Dalinka shots. I'll tell you later.

5:00pm budapest. Overlooking the river danube. Just ate goulash. It's a beautiful city. It's just really hot!

7:00pm wed. Leaving krakow by overnight train to budapest. Saw auschwitz today. Ate shoarma.

3:00am krakow. Just got home from the club. Ate pierogies. Saw the city. Polish men can't dance. I was king.

12am tues, Krakow. Dan and i are beat from travel. We're going to try to find something to eat. Yikes! Our hostel is scary!

7:00pm warsaw, took a self-guided tour of the city. Ate polish sausage. On our way south to krakow, by train.

3:00pm dublin. Just finished city tour. Raining non-stop. On way to airport, to warsaw, poland.

5:14pm. Dublin, ireland. Wasted on guinness at a pub called madigan's. Ate boiled cabbage, chicken, and potatoes.

Made it to einhoven airport, for flight to dublin... After missing train stop and coming back!