The 5 senses

We come to you as 4 men in need. Life here at our flat has taken a turn for the worst - our light bulb in the kitchen burnt out and we don't know how to replace it... on the bright side, at nighttime the kitchen looks a lot cleaner!! There was a "leak" somewhere in our apartment, which was luckily covered by insurance and we have been recently invaded by legions of ants.

So what am I asking for?? - should we or shouldn't we drop 75$ CAD to go to the biggest thing to hit Europe since Small Pox.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsmv_nvqyQs&feature=related

limited amounts of sleep

alright, so, egypt. I never thought i'd be happy to return to 2nd world hungary but after my recent journeys through parts of 3rd world egypt i'm quite happy to trade one for the other. its not that egypt was bad necessarily, parts were truly incredible (luxor temple at night being my absolute favourite) and should absolutely be experienced by everyone with the means to get there. Its just that its so, so, umm... different? I'm not sure how better to describe it. like, downtown cairo is heavy with car exhaust, traffic congestion, smells of decaying organic matter of various origins. but for all the filth, the people i found were so friendly, and so inviting and not just so they could try and sell me their wares. as an example, when lauren finally flew in, our first egyptian experience was to the Cairo McDonalds (one of many) for a McArabia sandwich (really tasty, highly recommended). We befriended the employees there and the next night we were stopped up the street from the same McDicks by one of the employees who mopped the floor where we sat. I was genuinely taken back, because at first i did not recognize this friendly egyptian and secondly I attempted to ignore him because i thought he was trying to drag me to his cousins shoe store, but he was just really happy to see us again.

that being said, when the discussion was around money, like how much for a cab, how much for dinner, how much for these earrings (not that I bought any, but from how i witnessed lauren operate with the jewelers), how much for this bottle of water, how much for a camel ride, on and on and on it gets really exhausting. tack on top the enormous supply of taxi drivers everywhere all offering rides and stopping and honking and following you down the street, and the same guys offering camel rides, horse rides, felucca rides, and children selling postcards, alabaster pyramids and scarabs and camels, painted papyrus, and carpets of all things (i wonder where the authentic egyptian 1000 thread count cotton sheet store was?) sightseeing Egypt can be extremely exhausting. So, it was really good that lauren and i got the temples and pyramids and museums out of the way and then on to the beach for five nights to relax. incredible.

We finally got to dahab and enjoyed scuba diving (I got my PADI), waterskiing (lauren tore it up so good we got the privilege of riding around in the owners sweet wake boarding boat while this brit did wild flips and stuff to laurens excitement), and i attempted to windsurf (though the wind was quite strong, my sail was too big, my board not bouyant enough for my size so i spent most of the time drinking salt water and drifting out to see until a blue eyed egyptian named Said from an hour south of Alexandria saved me in his dinghy). The bedouin dinner, with a camel ride, a hike up a mountain for some important deep conversation, dog chewed chicken and potatoes which i devoured was at first good, then shitty as we contemplated the safety of consuming bedouin prepared food, then (for me) marvelous when I ate an entire pot of potatoes and chicken and rice and veggies and then a pretty chill ride in the back of an 80s toyota pickup underneath the stars.

all in all: great trip. Interesting country. I don't need to go back anytime soon.

Robbery

I've been robbed. Robbed of one hour of sleep. Daylight savings is over and my biological clock is now in disagreement with the actual time. I got lucky though, because that meant the trams start working earlier, allowing me to avoid taking a rip-off of a taxi ride home. It's 5:10 a.m. right now and I just got back from Club Play. I had heard and read that Hungary is home to some of the most beautiful women in the world. The past four hours confirmed this. In the most objective, unbiased, and serious manner, I can say that Budapest is home to the prettiest women around.

And now, time to get a few hours of sleep.

ATTN: look after your coffee machines

Starbucks is a little coffee chain which originated within dogsled distance from Canada in the Northwestern United States. Some people have toyed with controversial terms such as "cult-like following" and "home away from home". This very tiny, unpopular coffee pourer made a lot of people very rich, very quickly when its stock price like totally went up a lot. Now I am no scientist, heck, I can barely make scrambled eggs, but I still think it is kind of ironic that they have been slowing making alot of people a little less wealthy, one coffee at a time...

I'll just have a coffee thanks.

So what?! it is only a coffee???? - common words for rookie coffee drinkers. I am very sry to blog that we lost a good friend on the weekend. She never complained, always cleaned up after herself and never judged us when we raided the kitchen for a midnight snack. It has been a very hard 3 days, but after a lovely afternoon at Capitalism's greatest creation, we are pleased to announce a new addition to our family.

Strength and honor.

Fifty-one-percent

That's all I need to pass my courses, and that's sort of what I shot for while studying for the three mid-terms I had this week. This has definitely been the least stressful mid-term week ever, and damn it feels good.

In other news, my 10-day trip included visits to Maastricht (4 days with a day in Brussels, Belgium), Bolsward (2 days), and Barcelona (4 days). The former two are in opposite corners of the Netherlands.

Overall, a great trip. I stayed with Ahamad (friend from Queen's) in Maastricht, met my two Norwegian friends and made one more (Norwegian friend, that is!), saw my Aunt and her family, my cousin's cute baby, an Iraqi-Dutch guy at a bar, who was wrongly imprisoned four times and now has psychological problems, and finally met Tristan in Barcelona where we met all sorts of of people, including a guy that happened to work with one of my good friends who was interning at Microsoft.

More interesting coincidences: the guy that owns the hostel and his cousin were Lebanese, and Roland, a friend on exchange in Budapest happened to be in Barcelona at the same hostel we were at.

A happy return home!

Finding your way back to PB in Hungary can be depressing. Just ask Tristan.

I encountered a similar unwelcome surprise coming back home. I WAS LOCKED OUT OF THE FLAT. My deadbolt key doesn't work, and to my surprise, our landlord had come to fix our laundry machine and turned both locks on the way out. With Mike cruising the Nile, Tristan and Rock on siesta in Spain, and the harsh night breeze in my face ... I had to call my landlord to have him let me in the next day. Instead of a putting my feet up in the flat, I had to spend the night in a hostel.

But Ireland was WORTH IT! Great country, great friends, GREEN HOLIDAY.

Here's a brief recap of what made the holiday special for me.

1. Free Titanic Tour in BelfastWe got to see where the Titanic was built in Belfast. Of course, it's not there anymore ... it's in the bottom of the Atlantic. But the guy giving the tour had some great stories - he loved the Titanic more than I love taffy ... and I'm a man who enjoy's his taffee.

2. Partying it up in Dublin.

First of all ... that's not coffee in those cups ... it's SECRET AGENT BEER. Whitty, weren't we? Dublin was an entire weekend of similar shinanagins. We were denied a "free dublin tour" because our group was too large, so Louie (below mark's crazy hat) acted as a tour guide and gave us a surprisingly accurate 2 hour tour of the city before hitting the guinness storehouse. We took over the hostel common room (40 of us, and 2/3/4 ... others), got kicked out of st. stevens green because one HERO tried to crack open a beer in front of a cop, and brought life to every pub we stepped in to. Not to mention ...

3. ALMOST THROWING DOWN WITH A GANG of 16!! year old's outside the hostel on Paddy's day.
8 of these clowns thought it would be great to come from the convenience store down the street (no doubt where they were asking tourists to buy beer FOR their underages asses) and pick a fight with the 8 of us chilling outside the hostel. Pretty sure they didn't know we had 30 odd rowdy mates downing beers inside. Their grand opening? "You guys are GOBSHITES". The last time I heard that was from the old BBC show father ted. (for those of you who have seen the show, I told them to "feck off" then casually sipped my "DRINK!!")

They escalated things, slapping and shoving a few of us, then one of them took a cheap shot to the face on Craig. I'm pretty sure if some cops weren't approaching to break things up things would have gone VERY sour. The only reason we didn't want to engage was that are SMALLEST guy was around the size of their goliath.

Plus we outnumbered them 4 to 1 ... good odds for any GAEL.

Sorry for taking so long to post, but my first midterm was today. When I wasn't procrastinating preparing for that, I was too busy watching the NCAA tournament.

I love Ireland

I love Ireland. Beautiful country, beautiful culture. My belfast experience was republican. I spent time at Kelly Cellar's with Trevor and we had the absolute pleasure of drinking multiple irish beers, conversing with hilarious belfasteners (?), watching Ireland beat Scotland in the 6 Nations cup, listen to real irish folk music from people who aren't paid to play, they just show up, and doing it all in the oldest bar in belfast (est. 1720) where the floors and bar are original and it was the location where Wolf tone and Something McCracken planned their revolt against the english for which they were subsequently hanged in 1798. I heard that one of the reasons the irish weren't so successful was cause many of their revolts and uprisings were planned in pubs.

Dublin was awesome. It was great to run into pretty much everyone in Commerce in a hostel on sunday night. Tristan and i broke off to listen to live music at The Quay in temple bar and peak to some people from around the world. Tristan and i have this tendency to cozy up to little old ladies at bars. haha. not sure why, i guess cause they're just really excited to talk to young men. We did this at legends on St. Patty's day to great success. they all bought us beer and got us pissed. we couldnt' handle the crowds for the parade so we peaced out to Malahide for the day and drank cappucino and talked about one day owning yachts from money working this summer. i left dublin today and took a bus to Galway on the west coast cause my flight to cairo was moved back. I got here, checked into a hostel, bought the Canon G10 I've been obsessing about, rented a bike and travelled all over Galway taking pictures of the countryside, the ocean, the cliffs, and the people out on a bright clear day in usually rainy Galway. I'll upload my favourite shots later. My dad BDAY is today, I think hes like 52 or something incredible like that. I went out and got him a score card from the Galway Golf Club, as requested ;)

You won't hear from me for a while. egypt is coming soon and i cant wait.

Hello from Maastricht

I'm in the land of the dutch enjoying a cold Guinness with Ahmad at Shamrock, an Irish pub. I'm on my Nokia E71 and managed to pick up some free Wifi. It's Maastricht till the 16th, Bolsward for two days to visit my aunt, and then I'll be meeting Tristan in Barcelona on the 18th for 4 nights - no St. Patty's in Dublin for me, thouugh I hope the guys have a blast there.

I am a Dreamer

"It wont be easy, you'll think it's strange when I try to explain how I feel..."

So "whats up" with this Twitter thing anyways, all I keep hearing from these dodgy gossip websites that Mike checks regularly is Twitter me this, Tweeeeter me that... so I joined. Don't worry I am not a follower, nor am cheating on you guys - Twitter is in a totally different area code, so you can forget about writing me all that hate mail. But if you must, plz put "My faather levt me Biliones, I neede yur help" in the subject line, so they go to my special "urgent inbox". I am just doing some "research" on how this silly little backyard operation we call the internet is radically changing the life of lego and lemonade that I once used to enjoy - without virtually telling everyone about it.

So Twitter, "what are you doing" is the potentially life non-altering question it poses to all the brave and noble laureates is has so tactfully recruited. So I pondered... for about 2 minutes, while I was making my instant coffee... who on earth cares about, "what you are doing", why would I ever want to know, or even bother to ask... what a silly question!! - wait, stop the press, hehe, I mean, someone bend the fiber optic cable that sits miles under the ocean, I just thought of something...

What do you say to someone, after looking at the floor, pretending to talk on your cellphone or yawning at critical points has failed you!!! - Oh Hey!! Whats up?? - Hmmmm I was born at night... but it wasnt last night - isn't "Whats up?" interchangeable with "Hows it going?", "Whats shakin?", "Hows life treatin ya?", "Is that spinach in your teeth?" - and if those all equal pi, then pi must be equal to "What are you doing??!!!" - so we have a verdict, mail it in, hehe, publish the post - Twitter allows you to outsource the tedious task of being involved in peoples lives - brilliant.

Tweet. Tweet.

If any of you read this far and are still wondering what is up with that picture... you should have read my Twitter.

Some thoughts on facial hair...

I really really really don't want to write this essay on a presentation I did in The Art of Persuasion. I had to give reasons why Barack Obama's Inauguration Address was of an influential nature. Though I LOVED creating and presenting my findings I can't stand this two thousand word paper I now have to write. Factor in the test for E-Commerce, another essay for Globalization of World Politics, assignments I have neglected to do for Corporate Environmental Management and that I will be taking two weeks away from school to drink heavily in Ireland and frolic amongst the pyramids of Egypt I am much more inclined to write a blog post about this than actually do something about it. My behaviour seems weird to me because of all the e-books I've been skimming over on how to be more disciplined, and focus on tasks, and commit to the finished product, and self-motivation blah blah blah that I'm not able to push myself through, jack myself up, and get this shit over with so I can focus on more important things, like friends and Slovenian blueberry liquor and Jim Rohn videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2AyudSJl_s&feature=related). Its not so much that I'm not learning, I am, or that I don't like learning, I do, its more that I don't want to waste time doing stupid stuff. I honestly feel like I gain more out of it by putting it into a blog post. Perhaps this will be homework of the future. Perhaps its not so much the information you retain but how much you let that information shape your opinion of things, your attitude toward life, and the impact of those things you are taught on your feelings that is really important. Really though, I'm just trying to justify writing a blog post when I should be working diligently on a couple reports that will be skimmed over, and marked half-heartedly for a report card that means absolutely nothing.

It took this presentation though to make me really believe in Barack Obama's "Yes we can" gambit. The words in his Inauguration speech were chosen very deliberately to evoke emotions in his audience at home and around the world to the real and imposing challenges facing everyone today. There were many things that, after studying it, I really appreciated but my favourite excerpt would have to be his little bit where speaking of the young age of America, he says, "...in the words of Scripture, the time has come to put aside childish things." To juxtapose Borat: Wa-wa-wee-wa! Obama basically just slandered... no, umm... disciplined the behaviour of the entire American populace and used God to do it. It says more than just You have been immature but that This behaviour is no longer acceptable and will not be tolerated anymore. To me, that's just awesome. It's more uplifting than it is demeaning and I believe it is exactly what the world needs to hear and what it wants to hear. In a world where so much is changing so fast (if you don't believe me, check this vid out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY) I do think its time for everyone to buck up and grow some facial hair, figuratively speaking (though for the last couple weeks I've taken this literally). I guess you could say he's persuaded me. And for those who might be wondering, the beard is staying.

In the news

As you might have read, seen on TV, or heard of, two separate shootings occurred today that left 25 people dead - 10 in Alabama and 15 in Winnenden, Germany (not including the lives of the two shooters). Could you imagine losing someone in a shooting like that? The thought of alone makes me cringe - my heart goes out to all the families affected. For more info check out CNN.



On a lighter note, check out this funny article:

On the market: Teenage Gypsy girls glam up for annual bride sale"

Dressed in their finest clothes and gold jewellery, thousands of teenage Roma girls were paraded around by their parents this weekend - at an open-air brides market.

Wearing lots of make-up, the teenagers came to the traditional annual market in Bulgaria, hoping to find a husband - and preferably one willing to pay a large amount of money for his future spouse.

Read the rest..

Laundrymat

So our washing machine broke down a week ago. No laundrymats in Budapest. I am forced to do laundry "as the gypsies do".

Well, actually I'm pretty sure a wash in the Danube would only soil my clothing more, so I had to resort to doing a load in the bathtub.

We have some fine sponsors now, thanks to them we may be able to afford a new washer.

the day the boys sold themselves out

if you havent noticed, there are now advertisements on the blog. AdSense is an application that allows average joes the ability to make money just for the amount of traffic they pull through their website. So now, just by viewing our website we profit from you. And if you were ever so inclined as to the prices of a very, very nice bed and breakfast in Cologne, or a hostel in Munich and should happen to click on the link, we make even more money. So far we've made just enough money to buy Lehman Brothers, Inc. Our goals are set high for this first of many internet money-making schemes: one cheap hungarian lunch for the four of us. apart from the shame that comes from selling yourself out to a corporate giant like google comes the ensuing rush of opportunity from connections made on the internet. Guess how much money the creator of the Pink Ribbon application on Facebook made. A million dollars and counting. In a week. Look it up. Atleast we're not profiting (I wouldn't call it profiting yet, we need your help!!!) off of charities. Just our own philosophical and experiential ramblings. And the love of friends and family. So if you love us and want us to be fed, please just check out the price of a hotel in Milan (wait... this is kind of creepy. Its only mentioned places we've actually stayed. Consider this. We stayed in a hostel in Munich, a budget hotel in Milan and a nicer, but no more expensive hotel in Cologne. What is being advertised??? How do they know??? what if i recommend buying the totally awesome, totally cool rechargeable Phillips hair trimmer i bought to buzz my hair off into a new euro style? The internet may be bigger and more connected than I thought. lets wait and see)

The Watchmen

This movie was good! I'll go again actually, anyone interested?

The Watchmen

The Watchmen was bad. Go see something else!

Total Quality Management

I am here today to ruffle a few theoretical feathers if I may. I am going to propose something so shocking that the good folks down at craigslist wouldn't let me post it in the rants and raves section for fear of e-riots, e-embargos, and e-bricks-through-e-windows.

"Life is simple."

There!! I said it, somebody had to say it... so when I go for my mid-morning walks through the park, I hear the birds asking - "with 4 guys living in a flat, how on earth do you keep it neat and tidy, it must look like the Maginot Line after it filled with squatters when the French decided to pretend they never built it." - cute fuzzy bird in tree

After a sly smile and another lap around the park, I had my answer - TQM.

Total Quality Management in its fundamental form is a revolutionary way of thinking for the new era of managers, to bring conscious thought and awareness to the quality of ALL processes within a system. Accountability - ie instead of making a factory that produces canned tuna fish by setting up the assembly line with the right pieces and hoping the delicious, mercury-tinted wonder fish comes out perfect every time, it is taking conscious thought for every process to ensure this result. Make sure the cans are perfect, the light saline solution is perfectly balanced, the fish were perfectly massacred and hung, the timing of each station, the quality, the look, the feel, the taste, the smell... you get the idea - when you make sure that every last input to meet an end is perfect... the chances of having a perfect product is greatly increased - simple!!

So where am I going with this???

Approximately 17 days 23 hours and 14 minutes ago we implemented project TQM in an effort to keep our flat visiting-mums-friendly.

Lets discuss the results together. Although the evidence against certain indivuals is overwhelming, for training and ego purposes we have kept the names of the accused in our minds and not on the internet.

The lamest things i can think of

saturday morning. 10am. splitting headache from a night of hard drinking. the damage done: 2 bottles of red, 4 pints of beer, a broken chair, a litre of yop busted open and oozing out on to the floor the sticky peach compound speckled with bits of brown 100% recycled toilet paper the irony of a cleanup procedure gone awry, two Russians, two Americans, two Hungarians and four Canadians, a threesome of upset Gypsies on the tram (Excuse me Gypsy, Would you like to sit down? - spoken in true Borat fashion) and one doner kebab.

soothing my battered brain cells with a large helping of water, Tylenol, a bowl of Breakfast of Champions, and an entire thin crust pizza over an Israeli film of Rock's collection while side stepping the the dry crusty yop on the floor allowed me to successfully get to the mall, purchase some sandals and arrive home without a headache.

the sandals I needed for a spa party, cleverly named Sparty. every month at the oldest Turkish bath on the planet, about a thousand young adults gather to get wasted, dress only in their bathing suits, and dance to disco balls, laser shows, and tribal beats. the evening was marked by me getting punched. A girl told me her name was Pregita and she said it means pregnant and made a large, round arm motion that would indicate pregnancy. so i brilliantly asked "are you pregnant?" before i realized what i in fact had just asked i found her fist had made its way sharply into my stomach, her friends' eyes were cast furiously on mine, and then felt at once both a crushing sense of embarrassment and a deep desire to laugh that can only come from being punched in a pool during a laser show by a girl named Pregita. Needless to say the comment jolted her emotions in such a way that she followed me around the rest of the night. girls are weird i guess. I think she stole my right sandal.

Would you like to waltz?

Yesterday morning I made my breakfast and sat down to watch a movie I've had for a while, but had yet to see. I started playing it and Mike joined in after watching only the first scene. Waltz with Bashir is an Israeli movie by Ari Folman depicting the Israeli-Lebanese war, mainly the Sabra and Shatila massacre that occurred in 1982.

The movie won a Golden Globe for best foreign film, and rightfully so. It's animated, but quite differently than the average animated film - you'll have to watch it to understand. From a Lebanese point of view, the film was neutral enough, though the Israelis were portrayed in a slightly better light than should be.

If you're looking for some insight into the conflict, or simply a good movie, I recommend you check this one out.

Second Life

In my E-Commerce lecture today we learned about Web 2.0. This is like the internet where everyone can contribute to what everyone else is doing. Its basically things like comments on YouTube, customer's book reviews (not actual critics), blogs, and online games. Have you heard about Second Life? Essentially, people create their virtual alter ego and play "life" on the internet with other people's virtual alter egos. You can be a smokin' hot babe, a judge, a rockstar or even a cat (which is apparently a really popular one). I was completely taken back by this. Why would you want to spend time online talking to virtual animals that are really people who want to be animals? Then I learned that Barack Obama campaigned in it on billboards. Billboards? Are their other advertisements? Wait a second... People actually make money. They host club meetings at their virtual houses and charge admission. Who brings the snacks? Then I learned that some people own property and sell it or rent it out. What??? Who controls this? Are their laws? Regulations? Can you commit murder and get away with it? What if its accidental? What if you're a giraffe driving a virtual bus you just bought from a virtual bus dealership and you're on your way to your giraffe club meeting after you went to Diets of Large Mammals class at giraffe university and you run over a virtual cat named Sam-Sam and kill him? Can you take his money? Do you go to a really tall, thin prison cell? I'm trying to understand what need this fills in people's brains. Books are imaginative but maybe restrictive (some would obviously argue differently), Choose-your-own-adventure books offer greater liberation but less interesting characters, the people you meet everyday are nice but not that interesting, certainly not as interesting as talking to cats and pornstars and landlords on the internet, but maybe thats just it. Maybe a lot of people want to be something they're not. If everyone in the world was something different, but knew it, then who's going to call you out and make fun of you for it? They would just call you out for being something totally ridiculous and then the whole world would come crashing down. I'm going to stick to becoming something I want to be (not sure if thats a cat, pornstar, or landlord) and if it doesn't pan out, I'd watch out for bus-driving giraffes if I were you.

Oh, a cool video we watched today. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE.

I would avoid thinking about ourselves as machines though. We're more like the breeze that creates ripples in a global flag.

Milan

Hello all,

After a week long hiatus from blogging its time to resume the exciting story of my Budapest experiences.

Milan is a large city. It has wonderful people. In Hotel Greco you can enjoy prepackaged Melba toast, cookies, chocolate filled croissants, honey, nutella, apricot jam, butter and all the espresso shots you can consume included free in the price of the room. As awful as it sounds, I loved getting up for breakfast. They would open the doors and let the morning air in. Mixed with the smell of espresso and episodes of The Fresh Prince of Belair dubbed over in Italian is a surpisingly stimulating experience. You also get to hang out with the coolest ugly dog on the planet, Diablo, a smug pug. I would recommend the Greco to anyone who is budget conscious. For a one-star joint we got four individual beds (a real plus, though the cot's mattress I think was just a big pillow case filled with beach towels) our own bathroom, and a door out to a courtyard.

I read The Miracle at St. Anna in the courtyard. It is set in the hills of Tuscany, which is close enough (though its still about 4 hours away by train) to make reading the book much more real. I loved the book because of how it tied in various elements of history to various characters from multiple cultures in its brash-poetic style. His explanation of why old Italians in small villages don't like to talk about the war makes the war seem horrible and brutal and fragile all at the same time. I could only put it down in between designer stores and gelato.

I'm too big to fit into European clothes. I bought a sweater in Munich two weekends ago. XXXL. No joke. Armani doesn't make clothes this big and if he did the shoulders would still be tight, the waist far to big and the arms about 3 inches too short. I stuck to purchasing a belt and a pair of sunglasses, a cheap Milan zip-up (XXL, very tight, very euro) and scarf for the soccer game. I wanted to buy some hand-crafted Italian leather shoes, but I'd need a pair of scissors instead of a shoe horn to fit into them.

This carnival thing Europe does is a lot of fun. I bought some confetti from a bag because everyone but the Canadians were covered in this confetti stuff. I opened it and threw it on the guys but they didn't think it was so amusing and spent the rest of the day shaking it off themselves. In retrospect, it was maybe a silly purchase (2 euro) because two seconds away were these big vents you find in the ground that pump air out from some sort of underground ventilation system and kids were throwing handful after handful of the recycled paper into the air covering everyone.

The Duomo is the third largest church in the world and it was stunning. Actually breathtaking. The scoops of bacio, pistachio, nougat and biscuit gelato in my mouth dribbled down my chin. Fortunately these nice Senegalese guys came up to Trevor and I to offer us free bracelets. I finished my gelato, wiped my face and after initially saying "No thanks," they said "Oh come on, its free. It's our gift to you." After another "No thanks, its nice of you to offer," he smiled wide and asked "Where you from? You have a girlfriend? Babies?" and before I knew it I had two bracelets around my wrist to which he said "Can you spare some money for Africa?" At this point I know I don't want the bracelet, I don't want to donate to some undisclosed charity in Africa, but its already on my wrist, the guy was really friendly and whats a few euro cents, right? "Oh come on, man! Five euro." I want to tell him that beggars can't be choosers, that you can't offer "free" things, then ask for a donation to something, then demand five euros for some shitty bracelet. "That's all I've got," I lied and handed him one euro twenty. I still had a few euros in my pocket and he knew it, he could probably hear it in my pocket, but fuck it, I wanted more gelato. From the four of us, two guys made about five euros collectively in about 4 minutes. It pays to be insistent.

If the outside of the Duomo is breathtaking, inside you can't breathe. It's damp and dingy and dark and cold and somehow a room the size of the inside of the third biggest church in the world manages to choke you, engulf you, squeeze something inside you so that when you leave the huge metal doors you feel instantly like the weight of 700 years of prayer and marble are lifted away forever and you never want to go inside again. Instead, pay five euro to walk up to the roof to get a view of Milan and the incredible detail of the spires.

I really liked Milan and am eager to go back. A combination of the ritz and glamour of the fashion streets (with the Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys and Aston Martins) with wood-fired pizza, gelato, carnival, weather warm enough to wear a t-shirt, discount stores and open markets made it a really enjoyable trip.

Went to Italy, need a job.

Tickets to AC-Milan game: 35 euros
D&G party shirt: 65 euros
Extra baggage fee on WIZZAIR: 40 euros
Armani shades, handmade shoes, AC-milan gear, more handmade shoes: too many fackin euros

Rocking all this gear to a "hip" Milan club: priceless ONLY if you're into dudes (more sausages there than I saw in Bavaria). Suffice it to say, the Canadian contingent considered the cost of this night to be 35 euro, WITHOUT buying any drinks in the club AND we WALKED 7km to get home. Taxi's charge you 10 bucks just to sit down in Milan vs. 5 bucks for the whole journey in Budapest.

So we're back from Milan. It was nice to be able to spend more than 4 hours exploring a city. All of us felt like we got to know the city really well, and we needed to considering how for into the suburbs our hotel was. We used the metro to explore the entire city as various bazaars and fashion outlets lured us to all corners of Milan.

Some highlights
- Gelato was delicious and consumed daily, often twice.
- It was festival in Milan. Everybody was in full costume, throwing confetti until it covered the street.
- We all played our part to support the struggle in Africa
- Watching AC Milan blow a 2-nil lead. Great effort by old man Beckham. Ronaldihno and Kaka were sorely missed.
- Trevor replaces shoe with hole in it after weeks of ridicule. I never thought 4 dudes could have so much fun shopping

If you want to hear more about anything I posted about, or see pictures of it, please ask a question in the comments section. I'm doing this blog for you guys, so it will only improve with your input and contributions.

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Tristan wins latest poll, makes it two in a row

Congratulations to Tristan for winning the "who slept the most on the Cologne trip" poll. There seems to be no stopping him. First the gourmet chef of the flat, and now the most skilled sleeper. Proof below.



Tristan sleeping in class.