mendoza. argentina.

chillin in the argentine desert. enjoying what they do best here. wine. drinking a lot of it. its a pretty nice little city surrounded by lots of country side and the andes are in plain view. we have spent 3 days here with in a lady´s house by the name of mabel. probably the coolest 60+ year old women i´ve ever known. we basically just living in an extra room in her house which is a nice change from the hostels and hotels. we got introduced to her by a guy named peter we met in bolivia who had stayed with her and gave us her email. he said she was awesome, so we came. we spent one day out in the vineyards visiting a bunch of wineries and the others in the city. going to go watch the USA game and then we are catching a bus to santiago, chile where we fly home from on sunday. weird.

in buenos aires

got into buenos aires last night. just in time for the classic of world cup history. were about to head out and find a good place to watch a few of todays games, including argentinas which should be cool to see here but more importantly to see the yanks vs the brits. the island was a real nice relaxing few days, the town was called morro de sao paulo. we didn´t do much other then chill on the beach most of the time. we went back to salvador to spend a night there before hopping plane to BA. all is well. LETS. GO. USA.

ps. i see that chicago won the cup. oh well. better than philly.

brasil. rio de janiero. salvador.

so finally getting this blog up to date, a truly june 5th update. we are currently in salvador brasil, a pretty cool heavily afro influenced city on the atlantic coast in the north east of brasil. brasil has really been a relief in the fact that we both had some doubts at times about being able to even get the visa and also mainly that it isnt la paz. we flew into sao paulo but then grabbed a plane right away for rio. we got into rio and spent two days and three nights there. it is definitely great city. so much different than any where we had been in south america yet, the contrast is truly amazing. but even in rio where it is very modern and clean, there is still a huge economic gap which is highly visable with the enormous favelas (slums) surrounding most of the city. but yea it is a really beautiful city with some beautiful beachs, maybe the most famous being copacabana beach. we spent some time in ipanema and copacabana along with one day heading to the top of sugarloaf mountain to get a view over the entire city. after rio we headed up to slavador which is where we are now, we have just been relaxing on the beach and wondering the city, tomorrow we are heading to an island off the coast called morro de sao paulo for atleast 4 or 5 days until we fly to buenos aires for the start of the world cup. us vs england baby. LETS GO YANKS!

la paz. amazon basin. bolivia.

la paz sucks. lets just get that out of the way from the start. im sorry if you have any ties to it or anything but it is true. the place sucks. the bus lets us off in the middle of the tourist heavy area. we´re not of the bus for more than 5 minutes (mind you we just read before getting off the bus a list of potential scams in la paz, one being where a dude spits on you and then points it out to you to try and distract you so his buddy can take your pockets) and were walking around trying to get our bearing to head in the right direction of a hostel that looks good in one of our guide books and we get stuck in a crowd. some dude starts grabing the waist strap of my bad and mumbling something, hes mumbling so hard that i cant understand or see what he is trying to point out to me. luckily natalie was walking behind me and saw this happening, she saw that the man was pointing to spit and just yelled something to me, we dont really remember but it was something along the lines of watch out, he spit on you. as she yells i turn to my other side and see a guy a few feet away walking away with my passport in his hands. we both yell and run and grab him. luckily with no trouble he just gave me the passport right away and we dipped out of there as quick as possible. now looking back on it im not very happy with myself for not decking him right in the face but it is probably a good thing i didnt. natalie is certainly happy i didnt. but yea so a close call but it worked out and we learned a pretty painful lesson pretty painlessly. the rest of time in la paz it was honestly hard to even relax. most of the food we ate sucked, the city is dirty, there wasnt much to do, and getting our brasilian visas was a pain in the ass. to be fair most of this hate is really just towards the two dudes who tried to rob me.

but as far as good things go, we had some good trips getting away from there. we spent a day and two nights in coroico, a small town in the yungas jungle, very relaxing and did some good hiking. then we also flew to rurrenabaque and spent 3 days 3 nights in the amazon in the madidi national park at an eco lodge called chalalan. it was nice because it is completely run by a jungle community as a way to make money so they can protect what has been there land since someone decided to live there. we got to see a good amount of wildlife, lots of birds, the largest rodent on the planet (dont remember the name), caimans, poisonous frogs, tarantulas, boa snakes, some other crazy insects and toads, and a bunch of monkeys.

after that we hated back to the worst city on the planet, picked up our visas for brasil, another fun 130$ visa, and got on the next plane to brasil.

copacabana. bolivia.

soooo bolivia doesnt like the united states of america. well the country that is, im not so sure most of the people really care that much. but yea on the bus into bolivia, it stops at the border, you get out of the bus and it crosses, while you have to get your exit stamps in peru then walk across and get your visa for bolivia on their side, a sweet 135$, real fun stuff. but anyways at the border you could sense mostly friendly vibes but there was def one dude that wasnt very happy. at one point he asked for a different 20$ because he thought it was fake, luckily we had 1 extra one. but yea our bus driver helped us out through the whole thing, not sure if we needed it or not but it was def a lil comforting as he basically promised us he would get us through.

copacabana is a small town on the south coast of lago titicaca which is another pretty magnificent place. its hard to realize at times your looking at a lake and not the ocean. again the altitude here was killer as your chillin around 3900 meters. one of the days here we got a boat out to the isla del sol, the largest island of the some 70 in the lake, hiked around it for the day seeing some ruins and the whole island and then spent one night on it. the next morning headed back to copacabana but not after begging for our two tickets to get on the boat back. theres no atms or anything in copacabana or on the island so when we were told that the tickets back only cost 10 bolis, we only saved 27, but the tickets turned out to be 20 each. but whatever the guy took my 27 and got us on. we spent another night in copacabana at our amazing german friend martin´s hostel and then got a bus to la paz. all of the germans we´ve meet are awesome so far on this trip. good job germany.

machu pichu

this place is amazing. honestly cant really put it into words and i wish i was able to throw some pictures up on here but as i didnt bring the cord for my computer i cant. we came into aquas calientes around noon and decided to just spend the rest of that day in the town checkin things out. stayed at a great eco lodge. the next morning we got up at about 4 am to start hiking up by 430am. we hiked up in the dark and got up to the entrance to watch the sunrise. the ruins are really something you have to see in person. its really hard to believe and its impressive how much is still there. pretty excited to read more about it and its history. of course we didnt spend the money on a guide or anything but did hitch on the side of a few tours once and awhile to pick up some good info. we spent a few hours there and then headed down to catch the train out. we cut the train to ollantaytambo, then jumped in a collectivo back to cuzco. then we opted to save some hostel money and take an overnight bus from cuzco to puno and then on to copacabana, bolivia.

cuzco

so after lima we flew over to cuzco. the altitude immediately hit us right in the face. every 20 steps we would stop and look at eachother wondering if it was for real. cuzco was a real nice city that we stayed in for two nights as a jumping off point to head into the scared valley of the incas and machu pichu. since its been a lil while since i updated this i dont really have too much to say other than it was beautiful and nice to just relax and roam around.

lima y cerro azul

landed in lima around 10am and before leaving the airport bought our tickets for cuzco. then due to talking to some fellow backpackers about going to brazil, realized that we need to secure a visa before entering brazil and unlike other countries we aren´t just allowed to grab one at the border, so we headed straight for the brazilian embassy. we talked to a great dude there who told us the whole deal and that it would take a max of 5 days there, which we didn´t have, but also mentioned to us that if we were going through bolivia on the way to brazil, we could do it there and they would be able to process it quicker than they could in lima. so as soon as he said that we smiled and relaxed a bit and figured we will go for that option. hopefully it works. then we stopped by a south american explorers clubhouse which is a pretty helpful place to get info on everything about the surrounding area and well, all of south america. after that we decided we wanted to get out of busy lima and were going to head down the coast to a small surf town. we went and caught a cab to the bus station and headed to cañete which is south of lima. when we got there we caught a cab to cerro azul. which turned out to be a pretty empty surf town as it wasn´t really the right season for it. but it was cool nonetheless, we had a room right on the beach and were able to look out over some pretty big waves and a still good amount of surfers. at dinner that night we randomly crashed a baby shower that was going on in the restuarant we ate at which was filled with foreigners who all work in the area. it was pretty amusing. the next day we walked around the beach for a bit, saw some dolphins playing in the waves next to surfers, walked out on a long pier and then went back to grab our things and head to the side of the road. we caught a little moto taxi which took us out to the entrance of cerro azul where the main highway is. from there we stood on the side of the road and just waved a buses with lima on their placards. this is very common in peru and really most of south america. after about 15 minutes a bus stopped and we hopped on and for only 8 soles each we were dropped off in lima, we definitely got some weird looks getting on it as it was a pretty local bus but everyone we talked to was great and one guy was very helpful and told us exactly where to get off once we got into lima. we got off and headed to the hostel which was this awesome house with some extra rooms in the neighborhood of barranco in lima. a very bohemian and chill area of lima, it was great. as we had to catch an early flight again, we just walked around a bit, grabbed dinner and went to bed. the next morning we work up at just before 4am to catch the plane to cuzco. i will update more a little later, natalie is pretty sick and laying in bed right now so im gonna head back to our spot. we´re currently in copacabana bolivia but yea more updates to follow from lima to how we´re here. peace.

bogota

sorry for the delay on starting this. landed in bogota around 9pm or so and hopped a cab to our hostel. it was a pretty immediate shock in a small cab flying through small streets with huge potholes and trucks a few inches a way. got the hostel and it was real nice with hammocks everywhere and a pretty cool kitchen and chill area. we spent the next whole day walking around bogota and seeing what the city was like. also jumped on a cable car which took us up to monserrat and a view over the entire valley that bogota sits in betweens ridges of the andes. not much else to say about it. a very busy city, pretty dirty but still a cool spot to see. woke up the next morning at 4am and headed to the airport to fly to lima.

south america

natalie and i are heading to south america, first stop is bogota columbia, unfortunately we need to get to the airport to catch are flight but we should be updating this as we go so check back whenever. later.

mi casa

dublin. ireland.

oktoberfest

updates coming later tonight

i think i just decided something.....

... i don´t really like writing that much. so instead im gonna do more of a picture type blog. i´ll still write alil bit, once and awhile, maybe, but i think ill just let the photos do the talking. vale.

dublin. ireland.

oktoberfest was sick and classes starting was pretty chill with them being pretty easy. mondays and wednesday are a little rough with 4 classes but there is plenty of breaks between them.

the weekend after oktoberfest i headed to dublin to visit another one of my bros from soccer at nu, D Brack. the first day i was there he had to work so i went on a tour of the countryside. it was epic, everything was so green. and there was even a lake of guiness. other all it was a good day and then that night we went out and met up with Kilkenny and some more of their friends.

next day we woke up pretty late so we went to the guiness factory, saw a couple other areas of dublin real quick and then spent most the rest of the day seeing the inside of pubs. guiness goes down like water for some reason when you´re in ireland. then we went out to some club again that night and came home the perfect time for breakfast, took a two hour nap and then headed to the airport to head home.

being short here but i gotta get going to class.

end of backpacking. start of barcelona.

soooo yea its been a little while. the backpacking trip finished up great with stops in brussels belguim, lagos portugal, and another stop back in iceland. ill try to throw up some pics soon but as i dont have a computer at this time..... long story.... it might have to wait alil bit.

barcelona has been incrediable thus far. weather is amazing. city is amazing. the people are amazing. everything is sick. the first couple days were for orientation through our program which got us up to speed with barcelona and everything that would be going down here. moved into my homestay. im living with an older lady who speaks no english which is great as it helps me to learn the language more.

we´ve done a couple day trips to some places along the coast but most importantly went to my 1st barça game. got so hooked up with free tickets that were in the 3rd and 9th rows. crazy. 5 -2 win for barça of course.

what else what else. yea its pretty much just been a vacation since i´ve been here. clase de español from 930 to 12 and then the rest of the day is free. been spending a lot of time at the beach chillin with bocadillos and cervesas. tough life. also playing a good amount of futsal at the spot we found with some locals. surprisingly we can actually ball with them. have def won the majority of the games so we´re helping to give americanos a bit of a better name when it comes to our futbolíng abilities. they were quite surprised.

oh and yea. i love siesta´ing. so yea to sum it up.
siesta. bocadillos. beach. cervesas. sol. parties til 5 and 6 am.

classes start this coming monday so that may change buuuuuut probably not.

going to oktoberfest in munich tomorrow con mi amigo from germany who played with me at northeastern.

update you after that. if i can make it back.

Auschwitz death camp

Another part of my stay in Gliwice Polska was visiting the Nazi death
camp Auschwitz which I felt a strong need to visit. To be honest,
there are really no words to describe this place and what I saw. It is
still an understatement but I will say that it is the most horrific
place I have and will ever see in my lifetime.

Salzburg. Budapest. Krakow. Gliwice. Brussels.

Gonna do a quick recap to get caught up.

Salzburg. Austria.
This was marissa's and I last stop together. The day we got in we hit
up the steigl brewery which was quick huge and had some real solid
brews. While I was there a German guy came up to me because and asked
me if I was going to "the games". It was because I was wearing a
hockey jersey and there just so happened to be a hockey tourney
starting the next day. I of course could not miss this chance so I
found out all the info I could and planned on it for the next day. The
next day I went to eisreisenwelt which is the largest ice cave in the
world. It was pretty epic. Crazy how outside it was pushing mid 90s
and then as soon as you stepped in the cave it was at freezing temps.
After this came the hockey. Such a cool experience as there were fan
sections much like you would expect at a soccer match. OK level of
hockey, it was the top club teams in Europe but it was still no NHL.
Oh and yes, the hooligans from Zurich did start trying to hit Salzburg
fans with their metal flagpoles. No big deal.

Budapest. Hungary.
This was definitely the 1st time I actually felt like I was in a real
eastern European city. Spent the day walking around and napping on an
island in the Danube river. I really enjoyed this city and will have
to go back again.

Krakow. Poland.
Almost got kicked off the train in the way here for not having the
right ticket but worked it out. Met some great people on the train.
One of which was a guy named Mateu from the Spanish island of Mallorca
whom I spent the day with in krakow as we were both traveling alone.
Had quite a good time seeing the city, trying some local foods, and of
course drinking beers.

Gliwice. Poland.
This was so great. Gliwice is the hometown of my good friend Lukasz.
He set everything up for me so that I could stay with and hangout with
his friends and grandmother. I stayed in an extra room at his
grandmothers whom was amazing to me, such a great lady. It was quite
the experience because she didn't speak a word of English but it was
nice because it really showed me that no matter how different the
language is you can really still understand and communicate with
anyone if you try. Most of the time I knew exactly what she was saying
or asking. Had great food prepared by both his grandmother and his
best friend's family, so so good. Saw the town and went out the last
night for drinks with Lukasz best friend Mariusz, his wife Anna, and
Mariusz's parents. Such great people and I can't wait to go back and
visit again.

Brussels. Belgium.
It is kind of strange that I even ended up here but I was quite happy
I got to. I landed in London and missed the flight to Lagos which I
had thought I would buy a ticket to after landing in London. I didn't
feel like waiting around in London so I looked at other options. Ended
up finding a good flight from Brussels to Lagos the next day so I went
and hopped on the train. I got in pretty late having a absolutly no
information on the city or hostels or anything. So I just decided to
get on the metro and got off at a random stop. From that random stop
and some help from a concierge I stummbled upon one of the few hostels
in the city but it was closed. So I was standing there for a few
minutes trying to decide where the best street or park would be to
sleep on when I guy opened the hostel door asking ne what I was doing.
I explained and he told me that he was the owner and had seen me
standing there and looking around on one of his cameras but more
importantly that he had only one bed left but it was mine if I wanted
it. I of course accepted, got settled and then went walking around for
some food and beer. To make this story even weirder, the next morning
I walked down to the lobby and ran into this girl Annik who had been
in my room at my hostel in Munich. Small world. So we talked a bit, I
then ran around the city seeing most of the sites and getting
chocolate, and then we went to the airport as we were both flying out
around the same time.

Can't wait

Redbullssalute.com

Found out from some random dude at the brewery today.