Europe - 2005

When I graduated from college back in 2005, rather than do what normal people do and get a real job, I ran away to europe for a few months to see the world. Here are a few of the emails I sent home while I was there:

5/25/05 – god bless latin american corruption

hey everyone...i only have a few minutes before i'm supposed to meet my friend.
i'm here and alive. haven't really seen anything yet.
i guess my flight got switched and my travel agency forgot to tell me...so i showed up and my flight had already left (at like 11:30). so they weren't sure if they were going to be able to get me on the flight because it was already overbooked. they put me on standby and i went to the gate counter. there was a mexican guy working the counter who said he wasn't sure if he could get me on the plane...but
there were seats open in business class...for only 325 more. I cringed at that and he lowered his voice and said he could cut me a deal...$150 cash...inthe bathroom in three minutes (just between him and i). so i flew here in the lap of luxury. they sure do treat the business class passengers well. thank goodness for mexican
corruption!
so i'm here and safe and all of that. i'll email later.
dave

5/27/05 - Daydreaming about you...

to all (you don't have to read this if you don't want to), i have to apologize in advance for this email...neither the spacebar nor the mouse work properly on this computer...but i guess that's what i get for staying in the cheapest hostel in all of london. the city is amazing. yesterday i walked EVERYWHERE and saw just about everything the city has to offer. okay, not really, but it felt like it by the time i finally crashed in bed. i started off at Trafalgar square...this huge plaza with fountains and statues and tons of pigeons. at the top of the plaza is the national gallery and i got to see works by monet, van gogh, michaelangelo and many others. it was amazing to see the paintings in person that i've been studying about
and reading about in books for years. i could have spent a LONG time there, but i was on a schedule so i was there for a couple of hours then i walked down the street, saw the prime minister's house, then went to big ben/parliament and to westminster abbey. it's basically this huge church where all but two british monarchs since 1066 have been crowned. other than that it's basically a huge crypt. There were dead people all over the place, kings, queens, poets, scientists.
the church itself was absolutely spectacular - inside and out. After that i walked through a park to buckingham palace...which is ENORMOUS. i found this out because i accidentally walked all the way around the outer wall (took a wrong turn) and was absolutely exhausted by the time i made it back to the front of the stupid castle. as far as palaces go, i wasn't all that impressed...it didn't look all that
cool. but there were those guards with the huge beefeater (fur hats) out front. i saw some place where prince charles lives, then took the subway across the thames to the tate modern art gallery where i saw works by picasso, monet, pollack and some really whacked out people. most of the stuff was REALLY cool. a little ways down the river i saw Shakespeare's Globe theater. they rebuilt it recently so that it
looks just like it did originally. yeah, it was quite a long walk...but the chacos are holding up alright...and the subway system here is incredible. the only problem
with london is that everything's twice as expensive as it is in the states. a pound (£) is worth two dollars...but it's like a dollar to the people here...so americans end up spending double on everything. i'll be happy to be able to start using the euro.
the hostel's okay. the first day some guy in our room found out that he was staying in the same room with americans and went down to the desk and demanded that they put him in a different room. i'm in a room with three other people most of the time, though most show up late and leave early so we dont' see much of each other. last night there was a brazillian living in italy staying here and so i got to
chat with him for a bit. every morning they serve us breakfast of cereal with nasty boxed milk and some kind of orange juice that leaves a horrific aftertaste. other than that, hostel life isn't so bad. today we went to oxford. if i had it to do all over again...i'd go to oxford. the city is AMAZING! besides being BEAUTIFUL, everything's like a thousand years old. okay...not quite, but most everything was
built in the 13th and 14th centuries so it's REALLY OLD. we toured christ church college/cathedral. parts of harry potter were filmed there. so i got to go into the great hall from the movie and walk up the grand staircase or whatever. the city was amazing, the colleges and grounds and spires and everything are absolutely incredible. I spent the entire day in awe.
tomorrow: stonehenge...i think.
sunday: church and some R&R
monday: dublin!
i hardly feel like i'm in a foreign country since everyone's white and they all speak english. were it not for the driving on the wrong side of the road and the funny accent, i'd think i'd wandered off somewhere on the east coast or something.
ok...that's about it. just thought i'd fill y'all in on what's going on with me.
take care,
dave

6/2/05 - a quick update

hello all,
yeah, this is going to be one of those lame-o group emails again...sojust send it to the trash can if you don't want to read it. this one isnt' going to be particularly interesting...so feel free to skip it.this is mostly for mom...letting her know i'm still alive. i have a few minutes before my train shows up. right now i'm in a town called tralee in the southwest of ireland. i can't really remember where i left off. i think it was last Friday or saturday. friday i went to oxford where everything's ridiculously old and beautiful. they have something like twenty colleges...all
founded in the 13th and 14th centuries. they all have their own grounds and they're spectacular. i visited christ church college (one of the biggest). they filmed some of harry potter there. i got to go into the great hall (the same one from the movie) and some staircase that they used as well. saturday night i went to les miserables in london. it was absolutely incredible. i cried like a little girl. sunday was the singles ward in london. i think the majority of the people there were byu and uvsc students doing the study abroad thing. monday morning i slept through my alarm and missed my flight to dublin. that cost me another £40...but i paid it and was glad to be out of london and away from the accursed pound (£). dublin is a cool city...lots more old stuff. the history of Ireland is so interesting - with all of the catholic/protestant issues they've had. in my hostel i met some italian guy who lives on the tip of the boot. he said i could stay at his house when i'm in italy. People here are so friendly - every day i meet new people. i also went to the national gallery and got to see some picassos and monets along with a bunch of other famous paintings. it was nothing compared to the london gallery, but there was hardly anyone there, so i got to see the paintings up close...it was so cool!
today i'm touring the irish countryside. it's amazingly green...but I think that's because the sun never shines to burn the grass. seriously, since i've been here i've caught maybe two glimpses of the sun...other than that it's been either cloudy or rainy. The countryside is gorgeous. everywhere you look there are cows and sheep
and lots of green. yesterday i visited Blarney Castle and kissed the Blarney Stone. For those of you who don't know, the myth behind the blarney stone is that if you kiss it, it gives you the gift of gab. as if i i didn't talk enough already, it's only going to get worse from here. the castle and grounds were awesome. it was so peaceful walking around the grounds in the middle of the woods.
ok, i have a train to catch. i'm still alive and loving every minute here. i won't be on line for a while. tomorrow i'm sailing to france...then from there, spain and portugal.
love you all,
dave

6/7/05 – what day is it?

wow...what a week. it´s really easy here to lose track of time...so I can´t remember when i last emailed. i figured it´s time for another...so my mom knows i´m still alive (hi mom...i´m still alive!). so...after the whole blarney stone thing, i took an overnight cruise (complete with gambling and entertainment) across either the irish or the celtic sea into france. i met some cool girls from new york and we hung out on the train from roscoff to paris. later on that night I took another train from paris to bordeaux. now before i tell you how big of a mistake that turned out to be...let me tell you how i might have been wrong in my blind hatred of the french that i´ve harbored for all of these years. i spent a few hours in paris and about five hours admiring the french countryside...and even though they may be
(in the immortal words of homer simpson) ¨a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys¨...they´re nice surrender-monkies, the cheese is EXCELLENT and the country is BEAUTIFUL.

(note to mom: skip the entire next paragraph).

so i arrived in bordeaux at about midnight. now for some reason...whenever i show up in a city really late, the train station just happens to be smack dab in the middle of the red-light district. i left the station and couldn´t go fifteen yards (though since i´m over here they were probably meters...they looked to me like yards
though) without seeing what they call in france a ¨sex shop¨. i´m not sure what the exact english translation would be...and i figured it might not be the best idea to go in and find out for sure one way or the other...so i´ll leave it to the french scholars to fill me in. I finally made it out of the red light district and found myself in the
middle of a drunken saturday night college town. the only problem was that i was also on the wrong side of the proverbial ¨tracks¨. by now it was about 1 am and i wasn´t finding anywhere to stay. on the upside, i did make some french friends. at least i think they were. i was walking along with my monstrous backpack when a very drunk french guy came up and started talking to me in what i can only assume was french. luckily his more sober friends got him away and he left
me alone. so by this time i was getting a bit (as the french say) ¨freaked out¨. the train station was closed so i couldn´t sleep there (i tried until the police kicked me out of my urine-soaked corner). I finally found a commercial construction site that seemed quiet and safe...so i broke in and found a nice dark corner, laid out two wooden pallets and ended up getting a decent (relatively speaking) night´s sleep. after that i wasn´t a huge fan of bordeaux. oh, and i found out when i woke up, that there´s not a single mormon church in bordeaux (a city of almost a quarter of a million)...so i didn´t get to go to church either.

(mom - you can start reading again.)

well, after all of that i was done with bordeaux. i caught the next train out to madrid having learned my lesson: always book your hostel BEFORE you get into the city. of course when i got on the train i had no idea where i would stay that night in madrid. and we were going to be in around midnight. so here´s the happy ending. i met some really cool people on the train to madrid. they took me to the place they were staying and they ended up having an extra room (with the sweetest old spanish woman you´ll ever meet...her name was guadalupe and she doesn´t know how to stop talking once you get her started). since then it´s been a party. i hung with them yesterday, we saw some cool parks, art, buildings, the first statue ever dedicated to the devil, and more prostitutes than you can shake a stick at (not that you´d want to shake a stick at them, but you get the idea). we actually had to walk down ¨prostitute lane¨ to get to our hostel in madrid (this is after the train broke down for a couple of hours and we didn´t get in until about 1:30am.
anyway...long story short. madrid´s been fun (if a bit dull), the kids i met on the train were awesome. when they left i found some new kids at the hostel to hang with today...and some other ones to go to morocco with me later this week.
tomorrow i´m going to a bullfight. i hear i´m going to hate it...but can´t go to spain and not see a bullfight. from there it´s morocco, portugal, then barcelona.
mom...i was wondering whether or not to send you the full account of my adventures, or an abridged version. let me know which you´d prefer and i´ll edit out any material that could lead to one of your famous worry-spells. i´m safe and sound. please don´t worry about me.
love you all,
dave

6/11/05 – greetings from the mullet capital of the world

yeah yeah...i know what you´re thinking...not ANOTHER email from this kid. doesn´t he have anything better to do than email us...i mean he´s in frickin´ europe? answer: no, not really, and don´t say frickin´.

now for those of you who haven´t been here...or at least haven´t been here in a while...here are some fun facts about europe: in england...under no circumstances should you use the word ¨fanny¨. if that happens to be your name...change it. just trust me on this one. i bought a ¨fanny¨ pack and when i started telling people about it, they looked at me as if i had peed on big ben or flipped off the queen or something. fanny is in fact a very bad word that doesn´t really mean fanny at all. so just a heads up. if you ask for the bathroom, they´ll give you a blank stare...the word you´re looking for is TOILET (let´s face it, that´s what you were really looking for anyway). mullets are HUGE! you come to europe to see the history and the art and architecture and what not...but the mullets are the icing on the
cake! i´m currently working on mine. hopefully it´ll be ready by the time i come back to the good ol´ usa. chips are not really chips...they´re french fries. they call chips ¨crisps¨. don´t question it...it´s one of those things that youwouldn´t possibly understand. the french aren´t THAT bad...except for that they DO speak french quite often.
morocco - not worth it.
if you´re a big advocate of free refills on your sodas...don´t come here. fyi: drugs are NOT legal here...and from what i hear, pretty soon hoodies won´t be legal in the center of london either. you know how dangerous those hoodies can be...what with those drawstrings and what not.
do you guys feel like you´re in europe yet? i sure do.

i saw my first bullfight last week. it was one of the most interesting and disturbing things i´ve seen here. i´d write about it, but we really don´t have that kind of time. it was pretty hard to watch...and absolutely fascinating. after that i caught a train to algeciras (right by the rock of gibralter on the southern coast of spain) and then caught a ferry to morocco. when i stepped off the boat i felt like i was in another world. there were minarets and moroccans all over the place. everything was either in french or arabic (two languages i don´t do well with). the phone in our hotel room rang at like 6am for no apparent reason. we think it was our call to prayer. i bought one of those muslim robes...it kinda looks like a nightgown with a hood. if
figure i´ll wear it on the plane home because nothing says welcome back to america like a full cavity search. i wasn´t a huge fan of morocco. everyone knew we weren´t from there...so we couldn´t go five steps without someone trying to get money from us or sell us drugs. the food scared me to my very core, so i found a pizza hut (so much for arabic hatred of western culture). so now i´ve been to africa...which means i can never ever ever give blood again.

the temple in madrid is absolutely gorgeous. i did a session this
morning and i was amazed.

tonight i´m off to lisbon. sleeping on trains really isn´t that bad. it´s better than abandoned construction sites anyway.

love you all (most of you anyway...haha),
dave

6/17/05 - lisbon and lagos and breasts, oh my.

well kids, i´m back in madrid for a quick layover so i figured i´d let you all know that i´m still alive and well. the train to lisbon was NOT comfortable. the seats decided they didn´t want to lean back at all...so i spent the night sitting ramrod
straight trying to find a comfortable position. if you want a real european experience, this is one that you can have from the safety of your own home: get one of those dining room chairs...the wooden ones that are really straight backed, put it about 8 inches (or the equivelant amount of centimeters) in front of the wall and spend 10 hours trying to sleep. it was absolutely marvellous! i found the church in lisbon and didn´t understand a single word those blessed portuguese people spoke. you´d think that living in brazil for two years would prepare me to survive in portugal...but you´d be wrong. dead wrong. see...i think it´s because there are so many hills in portugal that the people are too tired to prounounce the
WHOLE word they´re trying to say. they usually settle for half of the word...then kinda mumble some nondescript ending...if we were to try this in english it would sound a little something like this (note, put as many marshmallows in your mouth as you can fit, then read the following...they can either be the big marshmallows or the small ones...it doesnt´matter): s...whry fra? hady li-th hllllsnprt? (translation: so where are you from? how do you like the hills in portugal?)
by some stroke of luck we got to the city on saint antonio day...so there was a city-wide party that involved a lot of sardines and a carnavalesque parade/dance without any of the nakedness of Rio (but never fear...there will be plenty of nakedness if you keep reading).

monday we headed off to lagos (on the south-western coast of portugal) and slept on the beach (i used the tent for the first time...yeah!) I should clarify (for my poor mother´s sake) that WE doesn´t involve anything remotely female. i know you were concerned about the two man tent and all...but it was just me and a peruvian/japanese/American from fountain valley. i met him on the train to lisbon and we hung out for a few days. by the third day i wanted to strangle him...but i
didn´t.

*parental warning: the following section of the email would definitely be rated PG-13...
so we woke up and hit the beach. it was me, juan and about forty senior citizens (turns out they´re the only ones on the beach at 9am). luckily for us, up to this point, it was still a PG morning.after a couple of hours, a younger crowd got over their hangovers and stumbled out to the beach...and that´s when i learned that the beaches in portugal...while not necessarily top-LESS are definitely top-OPTIONAL. juan and i were both topless...but we were both rather surprised when some of the non-males decided to join us in the liberation of our upper bodies and defiance of tan lines. before long, there were breasts all over the place...and that´s when i decided it was time to leave the beach and get some lunch. so i guess it was one of those cultural experiences. it was definitely weird for me. after another night on the beach (by night-time it was breast free) we headed off to seville which was amazing and amazingly hot (over 100 degrees until about 9pm). the cathedral there is one of the biggest in the world and is said to MAYBE hold the remains of Christopher columbus. i took a picture of the possible remains. we also went to some palace...and some other historically significant places...though i can´t remember why they were.
the next day was granada and the last muslim stronghold in spain - alhambra (absolutely spectacular). along with granada i also got a sleepless night because i was too cheap to pay for a hostel (my train left early in the morning so i figured i´d tough it out). i ran into a friend from madrid and tagged along on a tapas tour with his hostel. tapas are basically little plates of appetizers that come free with drinks...so we went to a bunch of bars, i made a lot of new friends and had to explain about thirty times that i don´t smoke or drink. cecilia (some girl from denmark) upon learning this new information, eyed me incredulously and asked: ¨then what DO you do?¨ on the tapas tour i did find a $2.50 glass of sprite and tasted octopus for the first time. our guide described it as tasting like ¨chewing on
babies´ fingers¨ (not that he´s ever done it). so we went to a series of bars and clubs and i made it (very soberly) through the night. i was dubbed the ´designated walker´ to help everyone find their hostel when it was finally time to call it a
night.
since then i´ve been a zombie. i slept on the train to madrid and sleep-walked my way through some famous museum with all kinds of priceless works of art (i swear if i see another priceless work of art i´m going to vomit). i finished my evening with a traditional Spanish meal at burger king (they don´t have any taco bells here or i would have gone there). in a couple of hours i´m on my way to Barcelona (pronounced barthelona).
so...as the spanish say: !devuelva mis pantalones! (translation: havea great night!)
love you all,
dave

7/6/05 - better late than...something else

hey all,
and you thought you were done with these corny group emails. yeah? well think again. they're just going to keep on coming until you all eventually block me from sending you emails. mwahahaha.

i'm in venice and this is the first time in a couple of weeks that i've actually had time to sit down at a computer and send a decent email. i'll try to give you the highlights.

the last you all heard from me i finally sent some pictures from barcelona. from there i went to the south of france where i visited nice (pronounced nothing like it's spelled...those zany french), cannes, and marsaille. in marsaille i braved the dive-bombing seagulls to visit the chateau d'if (from the count of monte cristo).
i've seriously never seen such crazy birds. these guys redefined kamikaze if you got anywhere near their nests. but never fear, I escaped the birds and lived to tell the tale.
i had to leave the south of france early because the italians all decided they were going to strike on the day i was planning on going through italy...but it all worked out for the best. after a really long ferry ride (21 hours) i made it to Patras where i met some really cool guys who i ended up traveling with for the past week and a half.
two of them were mormon...the other one was bipolar...and could make a sailor's ears bleed with some of the language he used. they were a LOT of fun to hang with.

we made it to athens, saw the amazing parthenon and everything else up on the acropolis. when we went back to the city for a sandwich we ended up in a square where all the druggies hang out. some guy started talking to me in spanish (after i turned down the proffered heroine) and told me his life story after which he went and picked the pocket of one of his passed out colleagues (who may or may not have been dead...when we decided it was time to leave, a group was gathered around him performing cpr). after that experience we decided Athens wasn't the place for us so we caught a boat to a wonderful little island called santorini.

santorini was wonderful. it's a small volcanic island with black sand beaches and clear water. we rented motor scooters for a day and got to see the whole island. but after a few days of the island life it was time to get back to travelling so we headed off to rome.

rome was incredible. i could have spent a lot of time there. we saw the vatican, the colloseum, the parthenon and all that. Surprisingly enough, we also saw tim mcgraw, faith hill and depeche mode. Turns out that they were having a live 8 concert in rome on the day i was there...so we wandered in (it was free) and went right up to the stage for tim and faith. the poor italians had no idea what to do with
country music. most of them sat staring at the stage wondering what these americans were trying to do up there. we saw some Italian groups too. my favorite was the one that sounded like a mix between the beastie boys and n*sync. i'm definitely looking for their album when i get home.

we left rome and played frisbee on the lawn in front of the leaning tower of pisa. spent a couple of nights in a train station before and after an amazing hike between five little coastal cities, then i left my newfound friends, spent a day in monaco and now i'm in venice.

whew. just typing all of that makes me tired. but there's the report. i'm still alive and well. hope you guys are all doing well. i can't believe i only have a month left. it really doesn't feel like i've been out for six weeks.

ok...i'm off
dave

7/13/05 - italy and everything after...

well well well...

we´re going to play a little game in this email. i know you´re all as excited as i am. it´s a little game i like to call ´the germans sure can make cars...but not keyboards´. turns out some zany character over here decided to play a joke on the country and switch the y and the z...so if i were to type zany like all of you at home...it would come out yanz. so instead of remedy this...i´m just going to type
normally. remember from now on if zou see a z it should be a y and if zou see a y it reallz should be a z. this game is a lot like the one i like to call ´david is a layz punk´ but slightlz modified for international rules.

ok...so last we spoke i was in venice...aka disnezland italz. The citz is absolutelz beautiful, but just like disnezland, everzthing costs about 347 times more than it´s worth. it still amayes me that thez built the entire citz on the water...and then managed to turn it into an enormous tourist trap.

k...now a side note so you understand the next few days... while i was in london visiting danielle, i met one of her flat mates who was also there on a studz abroad. i´ll spare the details of our first meeting so she doesn´t slash mz tires or something...let´s just saz it was...unforgettable. so when i ran into her in bari, italy, on mz waz back from greece, i recogniyed her immediatelz. she was heading to greece, so we decided when she got back, we´d travel together for a bit since we were going in the same direction. so we planned on meeting on FRIDAY in florence and then going to vienna. (so now when i say ´we´ you know that it´s not just me and my imaginarz friend.
ok...now where was i... ah zes...venice.
well...i never made it to florence (another story for another time) and so we ended up meeting in vienna instead. now vienna, as you may know...is the birthplace of pretty much every cool, smart, mucisally talented person who ever walked this earth. Or at least that´s what it seems like when you hear that strauss, mozart, freud, goethe and others lived and worked in vienna. ok...enough of the history lesson...the city was absolutely GORGEOUS!!! it made it through wwII virtually unscathed and all of the buildings are BEAUTIFUL and everything was so CLEAN and it didn´t even have that dirty european smell that tends to find me everywhere i go in europe. so in this city, so full of culture and history, tricia and i decided to go see ´batman begins´ because we found a theater that was showing
it in english. one great thing about europe is that you don´t pay for a general movie ticket. you pay for the ROW you want to watch the movie on. first row is cheaper, rows 2 and 3 are a bit more expensive and from 4 up is full price. so we decided to be cheapskates and pay for row 3...then got yelled at (though, in our defense, she might not have been yelling...almost everything said in german sounds like yelling) for trying to be sneaky and move up to row 5. the movie wasn´t bad...even from row 3. the next day after wandering around in a daze at how amazing the city
was...we went to prague. now for those of you who didn´t know (this email´s turning into a history/geography lesson) the eiffel tower isn´t just in paris. oh
no...there´s one in prague too. that´s right. i´ve been to the eiffel tower in prague...though it might have been called something else. one of the things i learned in prague is that i don´t understand a lick of czech...imagine that.
also in prague - when you´re done seeing the eiffel tower, make sure nobody decided to borrow your wallet on the metro. someone decided to try to borrow mine...and my trip almost came to a sudden, unexpected and depressing end. luckily, he got the zipper open and that´s as far as he got.
and finally...when in prague...carry an umbrella. it pretty much rained the entire time we were there. however, all that rain does make for some amazing cycling. tricia and i rented bikes and rode through a monsoon. it was probably the most fun i´ve had on the trip. that night (while drying off from the bike ride), i cried like a
little girl when i had to say goodbye to tricia. she had to catch a plane home on tuesday...so she went to munich (along with a bunch of my stuff that i really shouldn´t have brought) and i went to Krakow poland...with a heavy heart...and a much lighter backpack. now for the serious part of the email...in i went to krakow to see auschwitz and birkenau (auschwitz II). after touring both camps i´m no closer than ever to understanding how human beings could do that to other human beings. birkenau was the largest death camp built. it´s estimated that anywhere between 1-1.5 million people...jews, homosexuals, gypsies and other political undesirables) were killed at auschwitz. just walking through the camps you can feel a sort of heaviness in the air...especially near the ruins of the gas chambers
and incinerators...and the ponds that are still full of human ash and bone. it´s hard to explain my feelings in an email...i hope i never forget what i felt there...and i hope that the world never forgets the atrocities that were perpetuated in the middle of the trees, under the polish sky.
um...yeah. so i left poland and i´m in berlin now. in the next two weeks i´m going to try to visit about 13 cities...then after a week in paris, i´ll be home. crazy to think it´s coming so fast. so if you don´t hear from me, don´t cry (and don´t rejoice too loudly either)...i´ll be home trying to get you to sit through a slideshow
sooner than you know it.

dave

7/30/05 - ...the end...

most of you will be relieved to hear that this is the last of these impersonal group emails you'll be getting for a while...at least until something really interesting happens to me that you all need to hear about...like if i end up walking on the moon or winning some international yodeling competition. to the loyal ones who have faithfully read every word of these emails...i thank you for your time and exhort you to get hobbies.

hemingway called Paris a moveable feast. i wasn't sure what he meant until i found out that he was so poor at one point that he actually unted pigeons in the park...so there's another one of life's mysteries explained. i only mention hemingway because i'm actually living in a bookstore right now...oh, and i guess hemingway lived there too at one point. i always said i could die happy at a place
like barnes' and noble...so i guess now i can die happy. no mom...i'm not planning on dying...you'll have your grandchildren soon enough

Across from the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, there's a little bookshop called Shakespeare & Co. It's been around longer than anyone can remember and for decades the owner has let writers stay there. the shop is one of those magical places that don't seem to exist anymore. it's a tiny store packed with more books and bookshelves than you would think possible. towards the back of the store is a
small, rickety wooden stairway lined with books that leads to the second story library where it's rumored that Hemingway once stayed and wrote. Crammed into every available nook and corner are beds and benches stacked with books. every night after midnight, those of us lucky enough to stay at Shakespeare & Co clear a place on a bed or a bench...or even on the floor...and are lulled to sleep surrounded by books. oh...and it's free. the only payment is to work for a couple of hours each day in the shop and to write a short autobiography for the owner.

Paris is one of those places that captures your heart in such a way that when it comes time to leave, you wonder how you can ever be happy living anywhere else. i'm not quite sure how it happened to me. since i can remember i've hated everything french but the fries and the toast...and maybe the kissing (not really mom). i don't know whether it was the quiet city streets or crowded plazas, the museums, parks or rainstorms...but somewhere between the crepes and croissants,
i fell in love with Paris. And now when I walk down the streets surrounded by the magic of the city, i only hope that some part of it will remain with me when i leave.

wow...i can't believe the trip's almost over. For those of you who miss me tremendously (ie: mom) I'll be home on Thursday night. Please feel free to have cake and ice cream waiting. My flight gets into LAX at 8:15 pm...so Nate, if you want to be waiting at my house with a Stawberry Pie, that's okay too. i'll probably be there before ten...and i have a little something for you too that i'm pretty sure
you'll love.

I feel like i should finish off with something profound to try to explain what this trip has meant to me...and yet i know that i could never find the words to make you understand the impact the last two months have had on my life. I came to Europe to find myself...and yet i had no idea what i was looking for. i knew that some lessons can only be learned when you sail away from the safe harbor of home and face the violence of the sea...and find the beauty in its depths. so i left my safe harbor and faced the violence of the world. I found beauty in her mountains and towns, in ancient churches and newborn babies. the world has so much to offer. it can be scary and dangerous, and at the same time so beautiful that you wonder why your cheeks are wet and why you can't seem to catch your breath. Europe opened my eyes...and the world came pouring in...and i don't know how
I'll ever be the same again.
i love you all. thank you so much for your support and friendship,
dave