Bye Weeks

It's been a long two weeks with no football. However, the U19 team has had some practices, and a couple of the guys have joined me in doing some running. I can't wait to get back into the swing of things this week.

My time off hasn't been anything too extraordinary. I did a lot of walking on the Strøget and grabbed some souvenirs, and did some outdoor reading on days that didn't rain. I would just go into the city and either find a bench or walk until there looked like a good place to sit.  The weather is getting colder and the nights are coming sooner. I found myself wearing pants and a hoodie, in August, for the first time in my life.

I did have some fun over the break though. Last week, I joined the Running Backs, QBs, and Offensive Line for their annual all you can eat rib meal. We went to one of the RBs places and he cooked up 50-60 KILOS of ribs. There were maybe 14 guys. It was the most amount of ribs I have ever seen at a single place. I ate 3 racks of ribs, which was incredibly difficult, but I couldn't have some leftovers on my plate, so I cleaned everything. After the eating, and letting everything digest, we played some Rock Band, as well as Dance Central on the Kinect. There is nothing better than watching some O-Lineman dance to a Lady GaGa song. I participated a couple times, and even won a battle once, but it was far from anything glamorous. It was a ton of fun and a lot of laughs. From there, we headed into the city to some bar. A couple of other guys were there and we all just kind of sat around and talked, played some foosball,  and had a few drinks. I didn't engage in too much of that, but I'll go into why later. I had a couple of shots of the Danish snapps which is absolutely miserable. It was pretty fun.

The weirdest part came when some girls that were talking to a couple of the guys asked why I was always speaking English. My natural answer is well that's the only language I speak. They said I had a Danish accent which I, and everyone else, felt was strange. I showed them my Missouri license as proof, but I guess they still thought it was some elaborate prank. It was weird to say the least, but hey, at least I sound like a Dane, even though I can't do more than count to ten in the language.

From there, we went next door to Heidi's, because "they don't care if you dance on the tables." We arrived, and I see one of the big OL clearing off a table and next thing I know, he's on top dancing. One of our QBs join him, and next thing I see, tons of people throughout the place are on top of tables. It was so funny. I headed home around 4 with some of the guys. I got home and went to sleep around 5, only to wake up at 6 with what had to be the worst stomach ache ever---from the large amount of ribs I digested. My body was just confused. I looked outside, and it was a yellowish-green color, and just pouring down rain. A bit scary. I know that The Office is on from 6-7am on Saturdays, so I popped on the tube, and watched for about 20 minutes before I fell back asleep until 11.

Now Saturday was quite a day. I ate a quick breakfast and headed out to Holte, which is a bit by our field, to help out the team hang up some poster's for the upcoming election. I'll first dive into my understanding of the electoral system, then tell you about the poster hanging process.

So the Danish Prime Minister can call for an election whenever he wants. Apparently he recently did that, but before he can do it, he must get the Queen's approval, which is more just tradition--she's not going to say no. So then that happens, and people within the part run in different areas. The parties that get the most votes then get to elect the Prime Minister or something like that. That's where I get confused. I just know that people aren't directly voting for the Prime Minister. So the parties select who will run where. I guess to make an example is say that a party has Tom, Dick and Harry running. Tom will run in New York, and ONLY people in New York can vote for him, Dick runs in St. Louis, and ONLY St. Louis people can vote for him, and Harry runs in Denver, and ONLY Denverians can vote for him. That explains why there are signs for like 50 different people are up everywhere throughout the city. Also, smaller parties just put up signs with their party names. I don't know too much from there, but that's all I gathered and really understood from all the people I talked to.

Now to the signs. There are signs about the size of a medium poster, that we tie up to phone poles using like zip ties I guess. I went around with on of the DBs, JC, to hang up around 150 of these. We spent a solid 5 hours doing this in the rain. It was not the most exciting thing I have ever done, and the first time in my life I have supported any kind of political action. It's just funny, because these posters are EVERYWHERE. Basically any place you can hang them, there are 6 there. It's just nuts. Everyone agrees that the poster's don't do too much to sway an opinion, but it's just a custom. The elections are in a couple weeks, so I'll keep you guys updated with the winner. I think it would be really funny to somehow bring home a poster of the winner, just to have one. A bit weird maybe.

The rest of the time was nothing special. I saw the movie Horrible Bosses a couple days ago with AG. It was a great evening--getting out of the apartment and all, and a really funny movie. AG, like everyone else, works during the day, and I'd seen him at practice from work and know he's a sharp dresser. I really wanted to bum it up at the movies, but knew I would be with the most stylin man in town that evening, so I had to appear presentable. All in all, it was a good evening. Last night/ this morning for me, the Bulldogs opened their season against Northwest for the Hickory Stick, the last meeting until 2014 I believe. I woke up at 2 am here to listen with high hopes for all the guys. It was weird listening to it, and hearing the names of all my buddies and not playing. I guess it's something I'll have to get used to. It started off close, but Northwest pulled away in the 2nd quarter for a 65-3 victory. The offense seems shaky and Northwest won the rushing and turnover game, as well as convert 9 of 13 3rd downs. It's hard to beat a good team like that when they are able to convert on 3rd downs. I went to sleep at halftime, with an unpleasant feeling, but I know that Northwest rolling is incredible. I truly believe the guys will bounce back and have a good season. I'll be doing my best to listen to as many games as I can.

This weekend, I am meeting up with one of the OL, and going to his parents cabin. We are just hanging out, and doing a hell of a lot of BBqing. I look forward to it very much.

Lastly, I am missing another one of my grandma's birthday parties. It's been 6 years of football keeping me away, especially from the pool which I miss like crazy. This should be my last year away, and I wanted to wish her a happy birthday. I will never forget begging for grilled cheese sandwiches as a youngster, and usually eating my cousin Alex's leftovers. I like to think that's how I became a big guy, and why Alex remained an average sized human. Hope the weather is nice and everyone has fun!

Back in Business

Sorry for the long delay in keeping you guys updated with my spectacular life. Computer stopped working about a week ago, and with the help of some of the guys, I resuscitated it and it's now working, although every time I turn it off, I pray it turns back on, but that's not interesting at all.

So lots to talk about, but I'll be brief. I'll start with the Knights weekend. The U19 won 56-6 in the 3rd quarter I think. The fields don't have scoreboards, so I use my iPod to punch in the score as it happens, otherwise I go nuts trying to remember everything. The next day, the seniors did the same thing and won like 55-0. Pretty awesome to throw a shut out at them. Defensive line wise, it wasn't our best game which was disappointing, but at the same time, its a bit comforting to know we have a good enough team around us to pick us up when we aren't playing the best.

Most of last week was spent trying to revive my computer. I only really need it to watch film and get notes out for the guys, and I guess to keep in touch with everyone back home, but that's really it. Due to it not functioning and TV getting boring, I ended up reading a nutrition book I brought with me in like 3 days, which is unreal with how slow I generally read and how my mind wanders around. I was pretty proud of myself. The sad thing I guess is that it was a book I "read" in my nutrition class at Truman when I was a sophomore. It was nice to finally read it though, some good stuff in there.

We put in two pretty solid practices leading up to our game against the Rebels, who came into the game second in our conference with a 6-2 record to our unblemished 7-0 record. They have quite possibly the fastest player in Denmark as their QB/WR and is very dangerous when he gets the ball in his hands. They also  would feature a few key players who didn't participate in the 48-20 Gold Diggers win the first time around. Their defense played tough and kept them in the game with a touchdown early in the game to make it a 14-7 halftime score for the Gold Diggers. Both offenses couldn't seem to muster much, as defense seemed to be the theme for the day. At the end of the day, we prevailed with a 28-13 victory. The Rebels had roughly 180 yards of total offense, with 85 of those coming on one scramble by their American QB. No one here believed a white guy could run that fast until they saw him. It gave a lot of the Danish guys hope to think they could one day speed like that. After watching the film of this game, I was much more pleased with the pressure we were putting on their Danish QB. He was constantly had like 2 seconds to throw before one of us was in his face, chucking the ball off his back foot and completed like 5 passes if I had to guess. I don't think he's too big a fan of me......

Early in the game, I hit him as he was throwing and he mumbled God knows what to me. In the 3rd quarter, after his like 2nd interception of the day, I blocked him, and knocked him over as the play was ending, and again he said something. Now this fella doubles as their kicker/ punter and is very good at that. Being that I am on the punt return team, I guess that was his time to get some revenge. I as trail back to get to the punt and see it bouncing backwards and hearing the "peter" calls to get away, I throttle down and start to take it to our sideline. Next thing I know I get slightly brushed from behind and its the bozo punter "getting me back for hitting him" after he threw a pick. He said something like "thats for hitting me" or something stupid that a football player shouldn't say, I just said don't throw us the ball and you won't get hit and walked away. I like to think I made his day by letting him hit me, so I felt good by making him feel good about his performance.

So with that win, we clinched the first round by in the playoffs. Our next game is a couple weeks away when we play the Razorbacks, which could be a preview of this year's Mermaid Bowl. We also have the honor of playing against two UConn guys, a DL/OL and a do it everything WR/DB. Should be an exciting matchup of two unbeaten teams to round out the season before the playoffs. What should be an equally exciting matchup the day before our game is the Rebels-Towers game, which decides the 2nd and 3rd seed in our division.

I now have a couple weeks off due to the U19 National Team participating in the European Championships. They will get to face Germany and Austria, and the Gold Diggers have 16 players going, which is freaking great. We have a bunch of senior coaches going as well, so we do not have the senior practice, but the U19 practices will continue, which will be interesting to see what kind of turn out we get at that. I play on seeing some things I haven't seen, castles and such, and praying for some SUN. We have had a couple of nice days, but as a couple of the guys said a couple of weeks ago, the summer went south for the summer this year, as there really hasn't been any solid string of warm, sunny days. It has been nice recently, but it will be sunny and great when I go to the gym around 10, then at noon, it will get cloudy and breezy, then I head out to practice and its sunny and humid, it's so crazy. The worst thing for me is that the beach is so close, and it's never really been "beach weather" while I've been there. I hate it because I will probably never live this close to the beach again in my life. So that's all I really have to complain about, life is rough right?

Post Summer Break

Summer break ended and we played our first game. We got together and had 4 practices the week before so we knew we would be beyond prepared for this next game against the Towers. Our last game was touted as one of the best football games ever played in Denmark when we came out on top with a 41-40 victory, scoring withing the final minute. With all the hype from the last game, and the opening of our new stands, this game would surely not disappoint!

The spectators game out to support, and the atmosphere was great for a game of football. The weather was a bit warm by Danish standards, but a beautiful day it was. After a very solid week of practice for the DL, I was super excited to play this game. I knew we would be prepared more than the guys would know, and I truly felt we would win by 2-3 scores, but did not really want to seem so positive.

The game started out with the Towers receiving the opening kickoff. The very first offensive play of the game went for a 70 yard passing TD, 6-0 Towers. While it was a blazing start and not the way we wanted to start, a lot of the guys had the same feeling--it's just one play. They ended up rolling out on the PAT for an easy 2 to go up 8-0. The high powered Gold Diggers offense took the offense and put together a beautiful 8 play, 85 yard drive highlighted by a 40 yard reception that led to an easy running score for our QB on a keep from the 2 yard line.  We kicked the PAT and the defense readied itself. Surely they would not score right off the bat again.

They came out and ran on first down and we stuffed it. The next play was a pass down the sideline picked  off by our DB. The offense couldn't put another beauty together and punted back to the Towers, who were stymied by the Gold Digger defense and forced to punt. A major frustration on my day was again how close, but so far I was from blocking punts. I was a step away from all of them, but I'll get that back soon enough, since I could still feel the traveling during the summer really holding me back. My favorite part of punt return, is that I am usually lined up on a DB or WR, so that's kind of fun, and they seem to freak out, when all they really need to do is just get in my way for .5 seconds. I digress though. After receiving the punt, the offense put together a 7 play drive with a failed PAT to put us up 13-8. We would never lose that lead throughout the day, as the Towers could not move the ball with any consistency on offense, and really couldn't figure out how to stop out offense.

The first play of the Towers next drive, the RB coughed up the ball after getting destroyed by our LBs, including one of our U19 guys stepping up. I loved watching this play on HUDL, because you see him going one speed all the way to the play. Our DB scooped, and was  practically one on one with the QB at about the 20 going in, but instead of cutting to the field to get behind blockers, he decided to try to truck the QB and was knocked out at the 2. I told him about the blockers, but with a smile, as usual, he says come on if you're one on one with the QB, what are you going to try to do. Good answer I thought. The Towers defense came up tough and held us to a FG, making it still a one score game at 16-8.

To sum up the rest of the half without using too many words, the Towers offense didn't record 1 first down, and our offense was rolling, putting up 33 points, and the defense allowed 8, however a kickoff return for a TD for the towers made the halftime score 33-14 in favor of the Gold Diggers I believe.

We received the ball after the half, and as expected at this point, marched down the field and scored, going up 40-14. The Towers then seemed to have something going, moved the ball to the Gold Diggers 30, before an huge interception by our LB, killing any momentum they may have been trying to swing in their favor. The offense put together some crazy long drive before a blocked FG ended it at the Towers 5 yard line. They may have been down, but they showed some pride in their team by fighting to keep points off the board any way possible.


After forcing a 3 and out again, our offense went on a 3 play drive to score their last TD of the day to put us ahead 47-14. The Towers answered their next drive connecting on a 40 yard TD pass for the last score of the day to make it 47-20. The rest of the game was back and forth, as our offense ate up clock, and they couldn't piece much together.

When all was said and done, the Gold Diggers defense was on the field for 40 plays, while the offense had an astounding 90 offensive plays. That is a huge number and definitely played a major role in our ability to blow them away.

After the game I met up with some of the guys and had a pretty wonderful night out. We played this game which required like flicking (although some cheaters would push it) a wooden circular car piece around a made up race track. It's extraordinarily difficult to play, but I was absolutely miserable at it. Despite being so terrible, it was a blast hanging out with the guys.

This week, we had a family day type event at our practice, as the whole club practiced together. The U13, U16, U19 and Senior team shared the field and did some work together. It was kind of an odd practice for me to plan, but I did it based on thinking, what would I think is cool if I were 13 playing with older guys. I figured they would really enjoy working in with the older guys so I tried to get them as many reps with the Seniors as possible. Also, the Senior guys did a really good job coaching up the youngins. Afterwards was a BBQ, and it was a truly fun evening of football.

The weekend both the U19 and Senior Teams travel to Helsingor to take on the Kronborg Knights. It will be a weekend packed with football, which is what I love!

European Journey Part 4- Germany

So we get to Munich around 8am a bit sleepy, but much better rested than if we had to sit in a chair all night. We spend some time in the train station and got some coffee and breakfast. We then checked our luggage and got a map and went into Munich. We were meeting the Brinks around 11 at the Glockenspiel, so we headed out there around 10. It was about a 10 minute walk in the rain. It was about 60 degrees and rainy in Munich after seeing 90 degrees and sunny for a week, so we were pretty unprepared for that. Audrey bought a sweatshirt and we had to buy a new umbrella since we couldn't find ours (turns out it was just in the bottom of Audrey's bag). I don't know much about this Glockenspiel things except that it wasn't destroyed in WWII and it's extraordinary underwhelming. Twice a day it does this little dance thing that's hard to explain, but it drags on for like 5 minutes and it's not very cool. I wonder how cool people thought it was like 60 years ago.

We walked around Munich for a little bit and had a couple beers before catching the train back to Bamberg. I did a pretty good job of sleeping all the way back, and I'm not really sure when we got back. In the evening, we met up with some of David's buddies and got some food. It was so good. I got pork shoulder that came with some weird potato dumpling thing and some like mashed broccoli I think. It was all very filling and super good. It was a pretty low key night as we headed home from there.

Sunday morning we slept in which felt wonderful. Lizzi cooked some breakfast and while that was going on we took a ride with David to where they do some rock climbing. We took a pathway up to a big rock that overlooked the area with some great views. We got back and ate some breakfast then we started the our real day by going out and seeing a castle which provided another wonderful view.
It was pretty cool to see hills and mountains, since that landscape is nonexistent here in Denmark. From there, we started a brewery tour around 1 in the afternoon on a Sunday. We went out to all the little breweries in Bamberg and some of his friends from last night met us along the way, even one in full lederhosen. We went to 6ish places and saw some neat churches along the way.  After a wonderful day of beers, brats, and playing BS, we headed back to start packing up and ready ourselves for our adventures Monday morning. We got up nice and early Monday morning and got a ride to the train station. Monday was an uneventful day of traveling which was nice. Basically 5 hours of train rides then an hour of flying and we were back. It felt pretty good to be back, but we were getting sad since we knew it meant Audrey's time here was coming to a close.

Tuesday, Audrey packed and we went to get her some souvenirs before practice. There was some kind of scout convention or something since kids in uniform were running around everywhere. Audrey watched out practice and got to meet some of the guys before getting a post-practice meal at Kosk with the coaches. Wednesday unfortunately came and we parted ways at the airport. It was clearly sad to see her go, but we were so lucky to have been able to see and do what we did. It seemed so long ago that we were in Copenhagen doing a canal tour, almost like a different time. Audrey left, Esben was at the National Team camp, so I had the place all to myself. Audrey made it home safely and is now prepping for her first year of school, and I am in the middle of our game week with the Towers. I haven't done too much in my week since. The biggest highlight was going to a Running Sushi place with some of the guys Friday night. I had zero clue what I was doing and was pretty horrible with the chopsticks. For the first about 5 minutes I was holding them backwards, but turning them around didn't help much at all. It was pretty good food and a good evening.

Football is back and we are in the end swing of our season. Life goes on!

European Journey Part 3- Terracina to Munich

So Thursday morning rolls around and we want to get an early start to make sure we get to our next destination, Terracina, nice and early so we can spend as much time on the beach as possible. While looking for train tickets, we found our two choices were either a train at like 5am or 3pm. Lourdes looked into the bus schedule for us as found the bus leaves at 10 and we would arrive around noon. Perfect. We made sure to take the metro to the station nice and early as we had to find an ATM to get some money for the bus ticket. We arrived to the station at like 9 and found an ATM and bought our bus tickets. We sat and waited and next thing we notice its really close to 10 and no buses are here. There are a few people, but not buses. Then, a lady comes up to Audrey and says "shopporo" (I don't know how to spell it in Italian and the internet and google translate have been no help) and shows her some signs that are in Italian. Turns out no buses were running that day from 8:30am until 5pm. Unbelievably unreliable transportation we think. Can't really trusts the buses to get to our destination. So we head back to termini to get some train tickets and book the train arriving at like 5pm and then we book the return train for 5pm the next night, which is scheduled to get in at 6:30 to Termini, giving us 30 minutes to get to our night train. Surely we can trust the trains.

We arrive to Terracina and find our little B&B as scheduled and went to spend some time at the beach since there was still daylight and it was pretty warm still. We sat around for about 2 hours before heading back and getting ready for dinner. We went to this wonderful restaurant and had a fantastic meal. We got some wine

Temple of Jupiter from the beach

and it was one of those fancy places that pours a little in your glass and has you try it to make sure you like the bottle. Being that this was the 2nd time in my life I have ever had wine while out at dinner, I had no idea what was going on and why the waiter was standing there staring at me holding a bottle in my face after pouring a sip of wine in my glass. Audrey told me what to do, and I took a sip and amused him by saying it was fine, I really had no idea if it was good or bad or what, but it was wine and tasted okay by me. From there, we ordered fried mozzarella, which we were expecting to be like cheese sticks. Nope--they were these 4 hunks of fresh mozzarella that were battered in the light breading and fried. We ate 2 and a half and decided to save room for our main courses. We each ordered a pizza, Audrey got some kind with Salmon and some sauce, and I got the best pizza man has ever created. It's called the Lasagna, and had tomato sauce, mozzarella, skinny pieces of ham, and 4 huge spoonfuls of ricotta cheese on top. It was beyond amazing, words can not describe it. Needless to say, we did not finish off our pizzas. I tried so hard because it was so good. We were at dinner for about 2 hours and I was so determined to finish the pizza, but I just couldn't. Audrey is currently at home working on perfecting this pizza for my return. We got back and went to sleep to go spend another day at the beach on Friday.

We went back to the beach Friday, this time with all our stuff as we had to check out of or place. We also had no towels, so we were using dirty shirts to lay on and stuff. I'm 90% sure everyone thought we were homeless people. We (well, I) decided against going to the beaches you have to pay to use that come with chairs and umbrellas and go back to the free public beach. We laid there for about 3 hours and baked in the sun (and I am now peeling and look ridiculous since I put on no sunscreen). We got hassled by numerous people walking the beaches trying to sell all sorts of crap. I could careless about buying sunglasses, and I really doubt they were authentic Gucci, Prada, and Ray Ban sunglasses they were peddling on the beach. From there, we walked to one of the places you have to pay for and snuck in to use the showers. I changed my shorts on the beach and we went to get food where Audrey used a bathroom to change. We then got to the train station about an hour early since we had nothing else to do.

Around 4:30, 25 minutes before our train is supposed to arrive, a man comes over and starts blabbering in Italian about who knows what, but we hear the "shopporro" again. So we start freaking out, and Audrey asks some people who show up to the station and luckily one guy speaks English and informs us they were checking out to see if trains were running, since there would be an Italian rail strike that day. Wonderful. Instead of taking the 3pm bus out to Rome since the buses can't be trusted, the trains aren't running because of a strike. Magnificent. The man who told us the trains aren't running is going to Roma, and tells us to follow him. I'm pretty sure Audrey thought he was going to take us to a field and gut us and sell our organs on the black market, but I had faith in this stranger. And we really had no other choice. We got on a bus and I figured out he was taking us to another train station that is possibly running to Roma at 5. Well we get there and that on is not running. The next train to Rome is at 6 and we have to be there by 7 to leave. It's a 70 minute train ride. We sit and wait since we have nothing to do, and its all out of our hands. There were trains scheduled to come before ours and none show up. An announcement comes on and we find out the train is coming, but its 5 minutes late. We are silently freaking out and I think we both started planning how to spend our night in Rome and get home to Copenhagen. We got on the train and sat in silence for the whole ride. As we arrive to Termini at 7:20, I see a European train leave, so I'm trying to stay calm, but am really thinking great we're stuck. We get off and start running to the platform to see where our train is leaving from, and see just a ton of people hanging out at Termini. We look up and don't see a platform by our train. Next to it, in red it says 19:25---our train had also be delayed, we had made it!

So dirty, but happy we made it!

We both looked at each other and let out the biggest sigh of relief. Needless to say, our train would be delayed until about 9, so we had plenty of time. A train from Terracina even arrived before we departed. It was one of the most tense, suspenseful moments of my life. We sat around and got some McDonald's since it was right there.

The night train was pretty smooth. The staff knew about our ticket issue and was great with it all. We were in a compartment with 6 beds, basically bunk style with 3 on one side, and 3 on another. Audrey and I were lucky to have the lowest ones. There was a younger girl on one of the second ones, and a nice, older guy one the other. He mainly stood outside and watched the scenery. There were various stops throughout, and our entertainment came sometime throughout the night as an older, out of shape (to be nice) Italian lady came into our compartment. Auds and I are sleeping and I'm pretty sure she woke up as I did listening to this lady. She climbed about 4 steps up the ladder and started panting and making some kind of noises and speaking Italian to herself for a solid 5-10 minutes. I tried to sleep, but it was extraordinarily difficult. I finally popped in my iPod and rolled over and slept as she was talking to one of the train people having someone translate the Italian to English. I guess nothing got resolved because this lady just slept on the floor in our compartment. It was so annoying because she moved for no one as they had to leave. She just laid right in the way. If she did move, it took her about 5 minutes to get up and she was pressing on our beds to get up, like grabbing my arm that's on my bed and using it to press herself up making the same noises as when she was on the ladder. I was just wondering what she was thinking when she booked the bed, that's all really.

We arrived to Munich at like 8am and had all sorts of time before meeting our friends from Truman, the Brinks. I'll get into that part next time to let you fully digest how lucky we felt to have made it to Munich!

Best delayed train ever!

European Journey Part 2- Rome

Audrey left yesterday afternoon and arrived home safely late last night (this morning Copenhagen time). I can only imagine how much sleeping she will do today. Esben is gone with the National Team, so I have the place to myself. I have a ton of laundry I need to do, as well as clean my dirty room. I'm slowly getting that done.
Now, on the the fun vacation part...........

We took an early flight out of Krakow to get to Rome nice and early. Esben has told me about the flights where people clap when the plain lands. I really thought he was joking, but when we touched down in Rome, the Wizz Air flight cheered as if the home team scored a touchdown. It was pretty weird. I'm pretty excited when we land safely too, but the pilot is doing his job. It kind of reminded me of the commercial where Peyton Manning went around and cheered random job people. It was like maybe 8am when we got to the airport and since we only had carry on luggage, we walked right out and waited for the shuttle bus to get us to a Metro Line. It took us about 2 hours from the time we landed to the time we got to our B&B near Vatican City. We did a much better job this time of finding our place and were greeted with a wonderful buongiorno from an elderly couple that was in the building. We made our way up to the 6th floor and met Lourdes, our keeper for the week.

After getting stuff dropped off, we headed in to Rome in order to check out the National Museum and the Baths of Diocletian before heading to Termini (the main train station) to maybe get some help on our Rome-Munich train tickets that had not arrived before our journey.

Discus Thrower Statue

The Museum is literally across the street and on a corner from the station, but of course we missed it. We ended up walking way up to a park near the Villa Borghese through a beautiful park. We stopped for a bit at a fountain and stuck our feet in as most of the people were doing to cool off on the incredibly hot day. From there, we got to the Modern Art Museum and realized that was not the National Museum. The whole time we were looking at the wrong place on our Rome map. Oh well, we got to see a nice park. From there we walked back through the Piazza del Popolo to the Spanish Steps and got on the Metro back to Termini. We located the Museum much easier this time and strolled around. It was a super neat place with a lot of cool statues and busts of the famous. From there, we went to Termini and waited in line to get help. We needed to book new tickets and then we would get a refund for them. Unfortunately, our train was booked, so we could not do that. We returned to our room, and I called the Bahn website I ordered from. This guy was very helpful telling me the could not resend them since they were sent by mail and they have a money value, all things I already knew. He put me in contact with the City Night Line, who operates the train, but I would have to call in the morning. Since I had a reservation and the confirmation with me, we should be okay.

Monday morning came and we ate our breakfast and had some coffee with Lourdes before I phones the City Night Line. I talked to Sandra who was beyond helpful and told me to forward the confirmation e-mail and she would get it to the hands of the staff on the train and if we are unable to get a new ticket printed, we should be fine with the confirmation. we immediately zipped to an internet point and did that. From there, we did what I was most excited about--the Ruins! We went to the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and Palatine

Inside the Colosseum

Hill. It was so freaking cool. You walk right out of the Metro station to the entrance to the Colosseum. It was unbelievable to think you are standing in something people stood in and cheered in 2000 years ago. I truly loved it and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Right across the road is the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.  The Roman Forum was basically the town center of ancient Rome, where the Senate used to be housed. It is basically just a ton of ruins and some cool arches from thousands of years ago. The stuff is all hard to describe and I cannot remember what each little thing was without looking it up, but I was just fascinated by it. From there we

walked up to Palatine Hill. There, we got to see the spot where the throne would have been, and the huts of Romulus, again, more just super old stuff. I loved that day so much. My camera died that day and I didn't bring my charger because I just assumed that since Audrey and I both had the same brand of cameras, her charger would work, but I was way wrong. I'm happy I was able to get some good pictures of all that stuff though.

Tuesday, we just kind of wandered Rome and saw all sorts of stuff, since we would use Wednesday in Vatican City. We got to see the Castel Saint Angelo, the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon, as well as the Piazza Navona and the Spanish Steps again. The Pantheon is freaking awesome because its an architectural marvel from 2000 years ago, since the height of the dome and the diameter are

Outside the Panteon

equal, making it a huge sphere. The only light is from the huge hole in the top of the dome. It has lasted forever and it sits lower than street level, which shows how much the city streets have risen the past 2000 years. Tuesday night we went back into Rome and got a pretty nice dinner. I was wearing my Gold Diggers polo and was asked by our waiter if I played rugby and then asked if I was a professional American Football player. I felt so cool, but couldn't lie. From there, we walked across the street and got gelato, and I got "recognized" again, as I was asked if I am a professional. Audrey hated that so much, mainly because it made me feel like I'm important.

At Dinner

Wednesday we went to Vatican City and peeped the Vatican Museum and Saint Peter's Basilica. We got the museum around 1:30 I guess, and there was zero line. If you show up at like 9 am, it's SUPER packed because all the tour groups are there. It was a neat place to walk around, and you could spend so much time there, but the tour groups make it rather difficult and borderline unbearable. They all herd up and take pictures on the same thing at the same time and you have to weave around all of them. We basically zoomed through a really neat hallway, just so we could pass some groups to get to the Sistine Chapel before them. Before that, I made us take a detour to see Raphael's The School of Athens painting. It is fantastic. In our guide book, we read that Raphael was working on his

paintings at the Vatican the same time Michaelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel. Raphael took a break to see what Michaelangelo was up to, and when we saw the Chapel, he was basically like damn, the stuff I'm doing looks like finger painting, so he beefed up his work and added Michaelangelo to his painting. We got to the Sistine Chapel and sat there for at least 30 minutes taking everything in. Wow, it was amazing. From there, we waited in line to climb the 550 step to the top of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. It was a bit daunting as the path winded and got extremely skinny, and Audrey had a mini claustrophobia attack. We got up there and spent 5 minutes outside and immediately went back down. Inside, St. Peter's is HUGE, but it really doesn't feel like it. It was designed to minimize how large it felt. We caught an evening mass in Latin in the Basilica and headed home to pack for Thursday.

We got to see a lot of the cool stuff in Rome, and it was a really great time and cool city. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but we took in so much. I'll get in to our last morning in Rome and our remaining day in Italy in my next post!

European Journey Part 1- Poland

Audrey and I started our European travels by heading to Krakow, Poland with the main goal of taking a day to see the Auschwitz Concentration/ Death Camp. We arrived on Thursday around noon and managed to figure out how to get from the airport to the main train station, which is where our directions to our B&B start. Unfortunately, we did not have a map, and it was extraordinarily hot compared to Denmark, so we wandered around in the heat, got directions twice, and after about an hour we found it. We felt like idiots since we missed the large sign for the Globtroter Guest House. Oh well. After we checked in, we walked around the area, and went to the Main Square. It is the biggest medieval square in all

Inside the Market

  of Europe. In 2005, it took first place in an international ranking of World's Greatest Squares, so it was a pretty fun place to hang out. The original planning dates back to 1257, however the building has been renovated quite a bit over time. The square is just a great place to people watch, as there are many street performers and some breakdance shows that take place. I would say we spent the majority of our time just sitting there.

Sign to entrance "Work Sets You Free"

Friday was our big day, and reason for visiting Krakow. We took a group to to Auschwitz. The ride takes you through the Polish countryside and winds around, but after about 90 minutes we arrived. It is just an eerier place. It's hard to actually wrap your mind around what happened there, but there are pictures and displays everywhere to remind you. We had a phenomenal tour guide

Rail leading into Birkenau for selection

who was extremely knowledgeable about all the topics. Again, its really hard to try to get what happened there, but when you close your eyes, you just get chills. One of the most intriguing stories from the trip, in my opinion, was told by our guide. There was a picture of the selection--when the trains brought in new people, they would get off and be selected to head to the right or left; one side lives to work, the other hits the gas chambers. There is a picture blown up on the wall of an SS member running the selection. Our guide told us that some time ago, a man was on the tour and recognized the SS man in the picture. Turns out it was his father. Imagine finding out your father was directly involved in the selection process. It's hard to really explain everything there.

Pool built to show Red Cross things are OK

There are rooms filled with luggage, as prisoners were told they would start a new life so pack everything up, one room filled with two tons of human hair, and another with shoes, brushes, all of that stuff. It really takes it out of you to see something like that. We headed to Birkenau which is about 3km away, but it was raining, so we didn't go too deep in. We got to see where prisoners would sleep and head to the top of a guard tower. Just a wild day overall. We returned pretty wiped out and just again, walked around the square.

Saturday would be our last day in Krakow, so we decided to head up to Wawel castle, since it looked pretty cool. We got there early at 10am and just walked around a bit. It was a bit confusing as general entrance to the huge castle and cathedral is free, but you had to pay to get into certain rooms and exhibits, but nothing really was there to tell you what exactly you would be paying for, so we just enjoyed some views from the castle. From there we walked around the Kazimierz area, which is kind of like the Jewish area with a bunch of synagogues. Nothing too special. We spent the remained of our Saturday sitting in the square until we took a shuttle bus out to where we were staying Saturday night, since we would be flying out of an airport 90 minutes away, at 6:05 am. The hotel was super nice, and we slept for a little bit before waking at 4:30 to get to the airport to catch out 6 am fight into Rome.

Krakow was awesome and the Polish people were exceptional nice to us. I'll be back to talk more about Rome, but as of now, Audrey is getting ready to leave and we are going to go to some souvenir places before my practice this evening.