I had french food, I saw french people (and some american people) and I was one in a million. I had always wondered – “What is Paris like?” – and over the course of a few days I found out.

While the other places I visited were different, Paris was the city that felt the most different. It felt like I was in a place that made me realize I was in Europe – not some Disneyland fantasy themed city. That’s not to take away from the other places. It’s just that it was a completely different sensation.
I think it was the cafes. It was a cultural thing that doesn’t exist here. Sure it rains here, but it rains there. They have covered and heated patios. They deal with it. It seems like around here it wouldn’t fly.

It was a fun couple of days. The un-fun part was that I grew to despise my fellow hostel dwellers. The room was tiny, and they were a very outgoing retired couple from Florida. They felt the appropriate length of time before freely dropping pants in the presence of others was about 2 hours.

But who am I to judge?

From Paris I boarded the Eurostar to London. It was a surreal experience. The train here goes about as fast a car on the highway. Your brain can handle the scene out the window flying by at a semi-familiar speed. The Eurostar seemed to go twice as fast. It was difficult to focus on the foreground. It also just felt fast. I do think the Amtrak Cascades’ cars are probably a little bit nicer than the Eurostar’s, but the Amtrak Cascades doesn’t go to London or Paris so they lose.

It was a fairly nice few days. I got to experience what it’s like to sleep in a small room with 7 strangers. One night a guy stayed up all night messing with his laptop. Another night four French girls showed up all of a sudden and then left just as quickly. When I left, they accused me of leaving a towel there. I did not.

I enjoyed some German beer, German cars, and German food. I tried to remember a lot of my German from High School. I didn’t do so well. Architecturally the city was quite interesting. I saw the BMW building, and also some of the old churches and city halls.

There were surfers, bicyclists, as well as beer-bikers. Towards the end of my stay the weather turned to mist and dampness. It ended a little bit better.

I remember when at the airport, which I arrived at a little too early, I thought we were boarding the plane outside our gate which happened to be a bigger plane, but in the end we entered the gate and got on a bus and were taken to a much smaller plane .

From Munich I flew to Paris, which was a quick flight over what appeared to be euro-farmland and euro-countryside.

Those details will posted… another time.

I think for me, the trip started strangely. This was exemplified by the fact that instead of flying from Seattle to Iceland at 4:30 p.m., I flew at 7:00 a.m. to New York’s JFK Airport, then waited quite a long time (I think around 8 hours) before taking off and flying to Glasgow, Scotland, waiting around 12 hours and then flying to Iceland. There were some issues there.

Arriving in Iceland about 21 hours late, I stumbled through the airport at 4am, got on the monopolistic bus to downtown Reykjavik (about 30 minutes) and got to my hotel. Got up through the small elevator to my room, dropped my bags on the unused bed (there were two) and then went to sleep. My initial idea was to get up around 9am and enjoy what I could of my abbreviated stay in Iceland, but alas… I slept until 2pm or so.

Do you see what I did there?

Though we’ve learned recently that previous versions were lacking. We are moving forward and hopefully making up for past mistakes.

The Clash – Clampdown

88-Keys – The Friend Zone

Local Natives – Who Knows Who Cares

Lightspeed Champion – There’s Nothing Underwater

Everybody was in the French Resistence… Now! – Think Twice (It’s not alright)

(note: this is mostly to test to see if this is a feasible means for video at work (i.e. – no ads).