50 days in Europe

     When I recall my 50 days in Europe, I think about several different experiences. First, I picture the WUCC- World Ultimate Club Championships that my team competed at in Prague. The second thing I think of is the 11 different countries I visited- the beautiful landscapes, ancient historical structures, and the amazing people I encountered long the way. Finally, I think of the challenges and adventures I experienced and my responses during this time on a foreign continent. These experiences are what usually drove my mind to write about the things you will find in this blog.
 
     I will briefly describe these first two parts of my trip. To me, it's not as interesting as the later posts will be, but it definitely is something I want to share and remember for myself.
 
Ultimate in Prague

     For the third straight year now, I play on a Club Ultimate Frisbee team based out of Austin, TX. The team consists of about 25 guys, with the youngest player 19 years old and the oldest in his mid 30s. Our team finished 5th in the nation last year, which was good enough to earn a bid to the WUCC held in Prague. I saw it as a golden, unique opportunity and made the trip, with the help of my parents paying me in advance for some work back home. I just graduated from school in May and had no real commitments for anything soon, so I decided to play in the week long tournament and extend my return flight for another month and a half.

Doublewide at WUCC 2010

     The tournament hosted about 45 men's teams along with quite a few coed and women's teams. I think there were about 30 different countries in the tournament (some countries had multiple teams). The field sites were scattered across the city with the main site located in Strahov Stadium. According to Wikipedia, this is the largest stadium in the world, with a capacity of 220,000 fans. It is the home stadium for the Sparta Prague soccer team. The tournament provided housing in university dorm rooms near the stadium. The whole experience was pretty amazing to me. Our team paid an upfront fee, and the tournament provided the dorm rooms, food in the cafeteria, and shuttle buses to the fields.

Strahov Stadium

     My team, Doublewide, entered the tournament as the #6 seed, with Japan as the only non U.S. team ranked better. We beat teams from Sweden, Finland, Colombia (in the showcase game with a stadium full of fans), Canada, Italy, Switzerland, England, and China. We lost to Atlanta and Sweden, finishing 9th with a record of 8-2. We were a little disappointed because we could have played better, but overall it was a great experience and a lot of fun. I enjoyed Prague a lot because it was relatively cheap, and there is a lot of interesting things to see in the city. After our last game, most of the team hung around for a few extra days to just hang out and enjoy the city.

My Travels Begin

     After all the fun times in Prague, I joined a friend from college, Scott "Pretzels" with the goal of hitch hiking to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. We had about two days to get there for the last day of the festival, and we knew we were cutting it close on time. We had to at least try though. Well, after a very slow start out of Prague and Eastern Germany, we finally started getting decent rides through the rest of Germany and France. On the day before we needed to be in Pamplona, a lady named Charlotte picked us up and took us a good distance- close to 250 miles. It was then that we realized our destination would be impossible for our timeframe. Charlotte, maybe feeling sympathy for us, offered us to stay with her at her holiday house in Southern France, in a small town near Avignon. We accepted the offer and had a great time. The flat was amazing, and she drove us to a nice Mediterannean beach. Then, she drove us to a nearby town to watch a stage of le Tour de France, where we saw Lance and had a great time. This lady turned our Pamplona failure into a lot of fun in France.

     From France, we hitched up through the beautful country of Switzerland and into a small town outside of Munich. At the tournament in Prague, my teammate Tank introduced me to this German friend of his who was throwing a huge party the next week. So I used this party as one of the few destinations I had planned for my trip. (Before this, my only plans were Pamplona, London, and eventually Vienna for my flight back.) Somehow, we made it to the party on time and had a blast. I met people from all over the world and had all I could eat and drink of the most delicious German beers and foods. 

     From Munich, we hitched through Germany and stayed in Aachen with some friends we met at the party. From there, we went through Holland and tried to hitch onto a ferry so we wouldn't have to pay. That didn't work, and we eventually paid for a ferry to England. On the ferry, we met a really cool old couple from Whales. Scott was just doing our normal rounds of taking leftovers in the ferry restaraunt, when this old man, the Prince of Whales as he called himself, approached him, gave him 20 pounds, and bought us both a hamburger. We talked for the rest of the ride, and they offered to take us to London that night. This was great news to us because we knew it would be difficult to hitch to London from where we were. Unfortunately, exiting the boat and going through customs took an extremely long time, and we never saw them again.

     So we struggled a little bit to hitch to London but eventually got there and met up with Shen, my old high school friend. It was great catching up with him, and he let us stay at his apartment for the next few days while we all explored the city of London together. I also got to meet up with my college friend Mika to hang out one night, which was cool. From London, we went to Stonehenge and stayed with a family that Scott had met previously while hitch hiking. They were super nice and cooked us an amazing traditional English meal. I always love good, free food.

Shen and I at Stonehenge

     After Stonehenge, we went to Bath and Bristol, staying with more random friends and camping. That's when we split up. Shen went back to London, Scott went a little more around England and then back to Netherlands, and I was on my way up to Scotland and over to Ireland. On the way, I stopped in Rugeley at Rachel's house. I met Rahcel in New Zealand last summer, and we traveled a bit together. Once again, I got another amazing free meal, a roof to sleep under, and an extremely generous family to help me enjoy my stay.

     From Rugeley, I made my way up to Glasgow, Scotland, where I had arranged for my first couchsurfing host of the trip. Couchsurfing is especially difficult when hitch hiking because you never know how far you can make it. I also didn't have a computer or Iphone, so that added more to the difficulty. My CS host Eric was a great guy- very passionate and knowledgable on everything having to do with Glasgow. I stayed with him for only one day because I had bought a plane ticket for Dublin the next day. I decided to play in an Irish beach tournament that weekend, and the flight was actually cheaper and quicker than the ferry. I wish I could have seen more of northern Scotland. The few lochs and green pastures I did see were beautiful, but I had no time for more before my flight.

     I flew into Dublin and hitched down to the Curracloe beach, where the tournament was held. This beautiful beach was where the D-Day scenes from the film "Saving Private Ryan" were filmed. The tournament was great; I made a bunch of new friends. This was my first time to play Ultimate as a complete stranger since coming to college, and I loved it.

     After the tournament, I rode with a new friend and stayed at his place in Cork. From there, I hitched to Dingle, a neat little town on the Southwest coastline. This was one of my most memorable rides. Fergel, about 35 year old man, picks me up and drives me for about three hours. In that time, we had some pretty intense talks. He told me all about his early life as a sex and drug addict, and how he just recently found God and everything has completely changed. He kept reminding me that he wasn't trying to convert me, and we talked about Christianity and Catholicism for quite a while. I told him a lot about what I am learning while traveling, which you will find in a later post. It was interesting because as he pointed out, it is so much easier to open up to a complete stranger and say anything you want because you never have to see him again. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Near Dingle, Ireland

     While in Dingle, I stayed in my only hostel from my trip. I guess the owner realized how desperate/pathetic I was because instead of me paying, he let me clean for a few hours the next day to pay for the bed. From there I went to stay with another couchsurfer in a small village. I loved Ireland because of its sparse population, beautiful landscapes, and friendly people (made it easy for hitch hiking). I saw the Cliffs of Moher next, and it was easily my favorite place in the country. If you notice the background behind this (one of the default background pics) and the picture of me for my profile are both at these famous 200 meter cliffs. After the cliffs, I stayed with Enda-another cool couchsurfer near Limerick. He showed me around to some local castles, including King John's Castle (from Robin Hood).

     From Limerick, I went through Galway and back to Dublin, where I decided to fly to Milano, Italy. I chose to do this because I was spending so much of my time hitch hiking, and I wanted to slow down and spend more time in one area instead of just driving through everything. This is the reason why I didn't get to see Berlin and Amsterdam, among other places- because I was planning on going there on my loop back around.

El Duomo in Florence, where I attended Sunday mass. It's
hard to think how I had a bad time in a city as beautful as this

     I flew into Bergamo, near Milan. After trying hitch hiking for a few hours near the airport, I explored the city, Citi Alta. It really was an amazing city, I think very popular with the rich tourists, but I just walked around a lot and slept in a park until the next day, when I finally bought a train ticket to Milan, where I tried hitch hiking again. I spent nearly all day trying to hitch out of there, and didn't get a single ride. I thought I had a place lined up for me to stay in Florence that night, so I grudgingly bought a train ticket. When I arrived in Florence, I could not contact my host and eventually found a spot under a bridge to sleep. This was defnitely the most frustrating point of my trip. The combination of waiting for hours with no luck hitch hiking, paying for multiple expensive train tickets, having very few people able to speak English, paying a fine for not correctly stamping my train ticket (all the instructions were in Italian), and now failing to communicate with my host all added up to a relatively miserable first week in Italy. After Milan, I didn't even bother trying to hitch hike until my last day in Italy. The city of Florence, despite all my complaining, was an incredible city.     

     Next was Pisa, where I once again walked for hours aimlessly around the city and found a spot under a bridge in downtown. The next day, after another long series of events that almost led to failure, I finally met up with my Couchsurf host Veronica and her family near Lucca, a town near Pisa. I wish I could express my feelings now the way I did at the time in my journal. I went from the lowest point of my trip to the highest point with Veronica and her family. The entire two days I stayed there, I think a smile never left my face. I experienced more gratitude, appreciation, and sheer joy during these two days than any other point in my life. I enjoyed every second of my time there. I had great conversations with Veronica, and her mom cooked me so much amazing food (even some for me on the road). It was very hard to leave this place. 

     I had to leave though, and next up was Rome. I have never been a huge fan of world history, but on this trip, I started to get really interested in some of these things. It's easy to forget how "new" our country really is compared to the rest of the world. Seeing the old Roman forts, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Colliseum was simply on another level compared to anything else "historic" I had seen in the U.S. I loved it. I stayed with an interesting fellow outside of Rome. I helped him do a little bit of work renovating his apartment, and we had a good time. I spent a few days in Rome, then headed to Venice. I got there late at night, walked around the city a bit, slept under a church next to a homeless man, woke up, walked around some more, and left to try to get to Slovenia. There, I had some more hosts waiting for me. I tried hitch hiking one more time in Italy, and it did not get any better. It actually started raining, so I walked a few miles in the rain to the next gas station, where I eventually got a ride to the next town, not very far away. At the time though, I was so thrilled just to get picked up that I threw my bag into the car real quick and left my journal on the ground. I realized this a few days later when it was too late.
     In Slovenia, I met up with two amazing sets of Couchsurfing hosts. The first couple, Urssa and Klemen from Sofja Loka, were very interested in American culture and Ultimate Frisbee. I think this was the first time since traveling to Nicaragua that I was seen as such a foreigner. Usually Americans and their culture are everywhere in the world, especially Europe. I am used to boring people with my culture and family history because everyone already seems to know everything about our country. This was a nice change. They fed me well and took me on a hike to Velika Planina, a local shepherd's village, which is still used today and located in the beautful foothills of the Alps.  Klemen also took me to a local pickup basketball game, which was something I wanted to do the whole time I was in Europe but never got the opportunity. It was funny how all the guys played the exact same style as Beno or Dragic...great shooters, bad defenders and rebounders, and love the off foot fade away jumpers.

Spela and I at Lake Bohinj, Slovenia

     Next, I met up Spela, my other super Slovenian CS host. We had a great time together. She drove me around the country to see Lakes Bled and Bohinj, and we shared a lot of our traveling experiences. We bonded through shared passions for spontaneous adventures, the outdoors, New Zealand (and LOTR), and our old dogs. Her mom gave me a bunch of great food, for my time there and also for my next few days! Spela actually stood with me to hitch hike back to Vienna to make my ride easier- usually a guy/girl combination turns the best results.

     With only a day left, I made my way to Vienna for my flight back home. I was nervous about making it in time because of all my recent hitch hiking failures, but I got two clutch rides. My first ride took me only 30 minutes down the road into Austria, but she talked to several people at the gas station (in German) until she arranged for me to get a ride the rest of the way to Vienna- about 200 miles.
     My last half day in Vienna was pleasant. It's not hard to see how the city is listed as the best place to live in the world. I got to the airport with few problems and finally reflected on the amazing trip I had just completed.
     Quick recap- 50 days, about 4,000 miles and 80 rides of hitch hiking, 11 countries

Quick hitch hiking recap: 50 days, 1 continent, 11 countries, 80 rides for 4,000+ miles.

Thanks to everyone who helped make my trip so great. There is a long list of such people, and for fear of leaving someone out, I will not attempt to write it. You know who you are. Thanks. Please read more of my stuff, and give me some feedback of any kind.