From Croatia to Spain

Croatia

my first few days in Croatia were spent first in Split and then in Havar. I was still with some Ivey friends and then LA (another friend from school and one of the people who helped make Attainable Intelligence a success last summer) joined us in preparation for the Croatian coastal cruise which started on July 17th.

Plitvice Lakes

On our second or third day in Croatia the group of us decided to check out a National Park which turned out to be a three hour drive from split. Although that seems like a long way for a park...this part was one of the most amazing places I have ever seen. It is still hard to believe that something like this even exists and since words just can't do it justice (for what it's worth the photo's don't either), I will just provide some shots from our walk.

From Split we went to Havar and had one of the best days of my whole trip. Graham, Mark, LA, and I decided to rent a boat for the day and, after some skillful negotiation, found a good price for a 18ft boat with 90 hp. We spent the day driving from bay to bay taking swim breaks every so often and generally exploring the islands around Havar. For lunch we checked out a cool place which was recommended to me by a family friend (Renee) and had an absolutely amazing seafood stew (although it was a little bit more pricey than expected). To cap it all off we got to see the sunset from the boat and drove straight up to a beach party.

At this point LA and I split off from the rest of the group and headed back to Split before the start of yacht week. The sailing cruise was something that Kaite (Australian Kaite) asked if i was interested in joining. The trip started in Split and then moved down the coast, stopping in different villages/cities along the way.

The Cruise

Our adventure started out on slightly shaky ground when LA and I could not find the boat and the departure time was fast approaching. We finally found it with everyone else on-board and waiting...

On our first day we went back to Havar and I ended up having one of the best meals of my trip. There is this restaurant on the boardwalk in Havar which has really high-quality seafood and makes a bit of a show while they grill it right on the boardwalk with super-yachts all around. It turned out that while I was there they had just brought in a 160kg tuna and were slicing it up right there in front of the restaurant. I later went in to try it out and had fantastic Tuna carpacio.

Sunset

Dubrovnik

Evening within the Dubrovnik walls

Another highlight of this voyage was the chance to dive an old WWII German warship. This boat still has three torpedoes on it and a huge gun-turret which can still be moved around to this day (German engineering). This was my first wreck dive and I really enjoyed the experience. Other sights of note were a big grouper and a moray eel.

The German Boat

The rest of the trip was fantastic and included Dubrovnik, parties in caves, lots of swimming, and some really nice coastline. With that said though, the best part was probably simply the chance to catch up with Kaite after so long. It is cool that we can just meet up and start right back where we left off.

Partying with Kaite

After the cruise I spent a few days in Split to recover and get a bit of consulting work done. On the 27th i fly to Milan where I will have to spend the night in the airport before moving on to Spain on the 28th and hopefully meeting up with Mark Vasey again.

Positano --> Ancona

Positano - The Beginning of our Journey

The Drive

Croatia always seemed like a tough place to get to. While I was planning this segment of my trip it was surprisingly hard to find inexpensive flights; even for expensive flights the dates were a bit sporadic and unpredictable. The group and I planned a ferry from Ancona and so we had to travel from P

ositano to Ancona. Whoever did the research on this missed a pretty key piece of information, namely the distance from Positano to Ancona. Google maps suggests a 6 hour drive but we heard everything from 5 hours to 8 hours when speaking with locals.

The Drive

We left our hostel in Positano at about 10am to get a bus to Sorrento where we had arranged to rent a car from Hertz. After waiting for about 20 minutes after the scheduled arrival time we decided to ask someone why the bus was taking so long. We found a traffic officer and learned that the bus would not be coming for another hour because of a transit strike across Italy (naturally it would occur on this day). Our ferry was scheduled to leave Ancona at 7:30 and so

we had just over 9 hours to get from Positano to Ancona. Running out of time, we hopped into a cab with two other tourists who were also trying to get to a place just past Sorrento. After a windy 45 minutes we passed Sorrento and unfortunately the cab driver misunderstood our instructions and drove to drop off the other two tourists before us. After dropping them off we headed back towards Hertz in Sorrento and, after the driver got lost brieftly, we arrived at our first destination. We were coming up on t-8 hours now and rushed into Hertz. We were then informed that Hertz had some computer problems and lost our reservation. After sorting that out we rushed through the paperwork and handed over our license. I gave mine in but unfortunately it was expired...next up was one of the other people I was travelling with and she handed her license over. Hertz then proceeded to inform us that they do not rent to people

under the age of 23 (slight oversight by the organizing committee). This was our first moment of despair

After recovering from the knowledge that we had to car and only about 7.5 hours to make the 5-8 hour drive we began problem solving. In the end we learned that Avis does rent to 22 year olds and so we rushed out to find a cab to Avis (which is located on the other side of town). Once there we went through more paperwork and they told us that they only had a Fiat left. Mark went down to check out the car and noticed that it was shockingly small...there was no way we could fit 4 people and 4 backpacks (plus day bags) into this thing; Moment of despair number 2. Fortunately for us the manager remembered a Ford just in time. We signed everything with about 7 hours to go and jumped in. I was elected the driver even though it was under another persons name because I had the most experience driving standard...lucky me :s.

On the way out of the parking lot I started the trip off right by stalling across two lanes. With Italians approaching fast on either side I quickly pulled the car back together and jolted into the correct lane; good thing they drive on the right side of the road here.

Sorrento to Napoli

We drove along the winding roads from Sorrento through many construction zones and behind ever slower contingents. It took us about a 45 minutes to get to Napoli and from there we got onto the A1. As we watched the clock tick away the minutes we got increasingly more and more stressed. I was just trying to focus on keeping a good clip without endangering anyone else. We were trying to drive with traffic initially at about 150kmh and watched as several cars

wizzed by at about 160kmh. For a while we were trying to figure out whether the signs were in mph or kmh since they all said 80 and traffic seemed to be going ridiculously fast for the signs to be in kmh.

Napoli - Ancona

Once I settled in we found a comfortable average of about 160kmh and began to notice quite abrupt changes in the speed of traffic every 10 or 15 minutes before speeding back up. After the second or third time this happened Mark and I noticed speed cameras which just so happened to correspond exactly with the 40% reduction in speed; hopefully those first few don't result in a ticket....

We sped up towards Roma and then onto Florence before getting off the major highway. Once on secondary highways we stopped once for a quick snack and toilette break before moving onwards. We were only lost once before finding a sign for Ancona. Once on this road we raced through tunnels and onto the final straight away (the road into Ancona sufficiently straight to meet this cliche). We arrived at the Airport with a full hour before our ferry, dropped the car, and then went to look for a taxi. Our last moment of despair (third time's the charm) occurred here when for about 15 minutes there were no taxi's and the phone line to the local taxi company failed to provide any value. Finally a lone taxi pulled up and we pilled in for the 20 minute drive. The driver informed us that we had to actually check in at a different locatio

n than the port thus constraining our remaining time even further. It should be noted though that there are really nice fields of sunflowers on the way into Ancona.

We made it to check-in, registered, and then rushed towards the port. Finally after clearing customs (Croatia is not in the EU yet - not till 2011) we clamored through the door to our port and into the ferrry; we made it with 20 minutes to spare.

The View from our Ferry

(about the time our friends were getting into port)

Our friends

Unfortunately the other half of our contingent was not quite so lucky. They had elected to take a ferry from Positano to Sorrento, missed the ferry, took a later than planned connecting train to Rome, didn't catch the planned train from Rome to Ancona, and finally arrived in Ancona to watch our ferry sail out of the port...quite unfortunate. They were able to make a ferry the next day but at considerable personal expense.

The Ferry

Our trip overnight ferry was quite pleasant and uneventful after our previous days experience. We got to Split early on the morning of July 11th.

Morning in Split Harbor

Italy

Venice

Venice was our first stop in Italy and we had a tame few days here. We visited S. Marco's square, listened to music at the cafe's each night, and visited Murino one day to see them blow glass. Venice is a great city to walk through and we saw markets, shops, and even took a short gondola ride to the Guggenheim museum here. It was really hot though and we were happy to only be spending two full days in Venice. We left to Florence in the afternoon.

Sunset over the city

Florence

I left Malta and headed back to Milan. After a day or two I left for Florence with a big crew of friends, all of whom graduated with me. Florence was great but it is one of those cities that you can't spend too much time in unless you really know your art and history. I visited a cool palace with Mark (one of my friends from Ivey) and had a great lunch. There are lots of these little sandwich shops around with cured meats, cheeses, tomatoes, and bread. You get to pick whatever you want in your sandwich and the shop owner slices your meat and cheese and then builds your sandwich right there. I think this sort of concept would work really well back home.

The lunch spot

The picture below is of the Duomo in Florence. The Duomo here was huge and really beautiful. We went inside as well as climbed the adjacent tower which has 414 stairs from the bottom to the top.

Florence Duomo

Florence - The Palio in Siena

On our last day in Florence we were looking for something else to do. At first we wanted to do a wine tour but because of logistical issues that was out...Another option was the Palio. I didn't know anything about the Palio before this but we went to find some more information about it. As it turns out, the Palio is one of the biggest events in Italy. There are many regions around Siena and each has its own history, coat of arms, flags, and rivalries. Twice a year there is a race in the center of Sienna where 7 of the clans race bear-back on horses to complete three laps of the course with no rules. There are 50,000 standing in the middle of the circular course and another 30,000 lining the buildings and balconies surrounding the massive square.

We decided to head out to the event and see what it was for ourselves. The hostel sent a bus and we all booked a spot for the trip. We were given Orange shirts, along with everyone else from the hostel, to help us identify each other (although it would also prove a liability later on). Once inside the city we walked straight into a parade. Each clan marches its horse around the city and sings chants. We saw one clan (Lupa) with Orange in its colors and jumped on their bandwagon. We bought bandanna's and a big flag to associate ourselves with Lupa. The city was loud and everyone seemed to be jovial until we noticed that many of the marching clans gave us extremely long stares. We would later learn that Lupa is the clan with no ally's and only enemies...For now at least we decided to keep our Lupa apparel on but the looks were making us all a little bit more nervous.

We had to wait several hours before the actual event but once it started the crowd was insane. Our clan was left out of this race and we had to support the only other orange clan (the Unicorn clan). Once the race started we noticed our new rider was in second place. This didn't last long as he slammed into the railing on the first lap and flew off his horse. One the second lap that same horse (our riders horse who has kept running after losing its rider) clipped the fence on the same corner and stumbled into a heap. Unfortunately it brought down another rider and his horse at the same time. One of these horses would end up dying as a result. We were so caught up in the spectacle of all this that we didn't even really notice who won the race (I believe it was the Caterpillar clan).

After the race we pushed through the crowd and tried to find a way out. We took the first footpath and had a general idea of our direction. It wasn't for a few minutes though that we noticed a consistent path of blood on the road that we selected. We ended up in the Unicorn section of the city (entirely by accident) and were yelled at by extremely emotional Italian men to get out. When we finally got out and regrouped we decided to lay low for a while. I can only assume that the blood we saw was from their rider and that we stumbled upon an extremely emotional group of Sienese citizens. Our affiliation with the Lupa clan certainly did not help us in the situation with the Unicorn clan.

Palio Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC1fiv07Fr0

Our next stop was Rome...

When in Roma...

Although we went out the first night, I got up early to attend the morning mass at the Vatican with Mark Vasey and one of the other girls who is actually Roman Catholic. This was a very cool experience and although I didn't understand the Italian service, I am glad I experienced it. For the rest of the day I slept and recovered from the night before.

Spanish Steps at Night

Pantheon

On our second full day everyone wanted to go to the Vatican Museum. I elected to sit that one out since I had already seen it and I looked up one of the best coffee shops and gelateria's in Rome. I spent the day walking around, visiting the markets for lunch, and actually ended up seeing each of the obelisks in Rome (entirely by chance).

My Gelato Spot

From Venice to Rome was great but the part of my Italian trip that I was really looking forward to was Positano and Amalfi coast.

Positano

We trained from Rome to Napoli and then took a taxi through the somewhat derelict city to the port where we left for Positano. I can't even start to describe how amazing the Amalfi coast is. The best I can compare it to is a Cinque Terre with much more dramatic and stunning cliffs. We stayed at the top of the hill overlooking the bay. I went for a run up the side of one of the mountains one morning and when I ran out of trail I turned back to run along the curvy cliff side road. The rest of our first two days lying on the beach and kayaking along the massive cliffs and caves that make up the shoreline. One our last full day we took a day trip to Capri.

Capri is where the Caprasi salad was invented and is very similar to Positano but is an island and has even taller cliffs. We took a chartered tour of the caves, grotto's, and towering cliffs. The driver stopped in a bay and we swam in front of an amazing backdrop. The water was clear enough to see 50 or 60 feet down quite clearly. We snorkled around the cliffs for a while and then headed back to Capri. The town proper is located on the top of the island and we took a sort of gondola on rails to it. Capri is really expensive but we still enjoyed the views and shops in the town.

Positano

Capri Coastline

We left Positano after 3 nights and aimed to get to Anaconna to catch our ferry to Croatia. This travel day would turn out to be one of the most intense so far but I will save it for the next post.

Malta

Finally it is time for my next long awaited Blog post (I know I have countless followers who have been on the edge of their seat for a while now).

After Greece I flew to Milan where I met up with several classmates who were finishing up their exchange term. After a couple of days of shopping and eating amazing meals I flew to Malta with one of those classmates (Lauren Luxenburg) and a couple of her friends from Milan.

Malta is a bit of a strange place. I was surprised to find a culture which seemed to mix British, Arabic, and African influences. Everything from the buildings to the Language was totally foreign. The Maltese language is derived from Arabic but it has huge Italian and English influences. Even more interesting is that the written language uses Latin characters. While we were in Malta we sampled the local wine (left something to be desired) as well as the food such as rabbit stew (a big improvement on the wine).

Aside from this unexpected mix of cultures, the beaches and landscape totally surpassed our expectations. We spent a few days on beaches like Golden Beach and St. Peters Pool (actually a limestone formation). St. Peter's was amazing. This place has sheer cliffs ranging in size from several hundred feet to 15 or 20 feet. The smaller ones were perfect to jump into the crystal clear water from.

St. Peter's Pool

Golden Beach

One of the coolest things for me was a day trip to Comino and Gozo. The water in Comino was shockingly clear and I was able to walk over to the cliffs on the other side of the island where the building that appears as the prison in the Count of Monte Cristo (CMC) overlooks the Mediterranean. I really liked this little side trip because CMC is one of my favorite movies. When i went to Gozo I saw a pretty amazing limestone cliff called Azur's Window as well as a cool old town. The human history on Gozo runs back 7,000 years and the oldest free standing structures in the world are on the island.

Azur's Window, Gozo

To wrap up my Maltese adventure I visited the Medina (a really cool fortified city and of the oldest in Malta) with one of the other girls I was staying with. I flew out of Malta and headed back to Milan to regroup before I head to Venice, Florence, Rome, and Amalfi.

Ios to Santorini

Ios

I took off for Ios with Ben and Gavin (the two Aussies I met up with at Paradise Beach) about a week ago. Ios is a pretty small island but even given its size it is barely inhabited. Based on what I saw of the rest of the island while I ran one day it is nicely summarized as a barren, goat dotted landscape. We are pretty sure the town exists for the purpose of partying and this was illustrated by the fact that our hostel didn't even consider starting to serve breakfast until 10:30 am and this ran until the music started up again at 1pm. Ios lived up to our expectations for cheap and we stayed for an extra day or two.

A view of Ios

While in Ios I met two girls from Quebec City (Jess and Emma) and they were heading to Santorini the the same time as the Aussies and I. It turned out that us Canadians were able to book into the Pension Rousso together and so I will stay with them in Santorini.

Santorini

Luckily I chose to take the slow ferry to Santorini so that i could go out onto the deck and watch as we came into port. The view of Santorini from the water was stunning. The port is located at the base of what has to be a 500 ft cliff. The various towns are mostly located on the top of the cliffs, overlooking a volcano and the sunset.

Once on the island I was picked up by Mr. Rousso's cousin and driven up the sketchy cliff to the pension. Since we all booked into the same place, and are now a group of five, we were able to easily coordinate a rental car for 6 euro each. We kept the Kia for one day and used it to visit several beaches, one with black sand and the other with red sand, as well as a light-house on the far end of the island.

On our second to last day in Santorini we went out to Oia which is a very famous town to watch the sunset from. Although there were clouds on the horizon the sunset was still great. There was even a newly married couple taking photos right beside us.

Jess, Emma, and I on my first night in Santorini

Gavin, Ben, Jess, Emma, and I by the lighthouse

Athens

The Greek islands were amazing. I'm sitting in my hostel in Athens right now and I am about to go get packed up to head to the airport. I fly into Milan tonight to meet a few friends from Ivey.

Greece

Athens

I arrived in Athens on May 28th with several days worth of work to do. I took on two consulting projects and I am going to be completing those in the next couple days. Athens is a huge city with lots of cool ruins but once you have seen a couple sites they start to seem very similar. On the whole I didn't do a whole lot in Athens. For the most part I did my consulting work at the hostel and hung out with some of the people I met. One person (named Elissa) is working for a travel book publication and her summer job consists of hanging out in Greece and updating the guide book - not to shabby if you ask me.

One of the best memories from Athens was when two others from the hostel and I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of food to take up to a church on the highest point in Athens. We sat there with our bottle of wine and enjoyed the view for a couple hours.

The Parthenon in Athens, Greece

The View from the dinner lookout

Mykonos

I left Greece after finishing the bulk of my work and headed to the first of the three islands that I plan on visiting. The first day at Mykonos consisted of lying on a beach and by the third day it was pouring rain. The thunder storm was one of the biggest I have ever experienced (although there was no fork lightning) and some of the thunder's actually shook the room I am staying in as if it was an earthquake.

I met-up with an Aussie who I previously met in Istanbul the day after the storm. He is with a friend of his, Ben, and we have spend the past couple days drinking beer on the beach and have had one late night out at the local club. The night club here is only open on certain days when DJ's come to town but the music was fantastic and Gavin and I (The Aussie) ended up swimming in the night club's pool before we left.

Yesterday we lay on the beach and did very little. It has been nice to just relax on a beach. I am heading to Ios in a couple hours with the two Aussies and we are going to stay at another beach resport/hostel on that island. Mykonos has been pretty expensive and it seems like Far Out Camping on Ios will be cheaper; fingers crossed.

Paradise Beach, Mykonos

Turkey - From Istanbul to Izmir/Cesme/Ephesus

Istanbul

So I am going to try and do Turkey in one go; that way I will start to get a little caught up on my blog posts (my bad).

After leader I flew into Istanbul. I had never been to a Muslim country and, just as Russia was a new experience, Muslim countries are another world entirely. Everything from the sunrise prayer call to the [a little off topic but just as I was writing this sentence a guy I met in Athens who is serving in Afghanistan with the Canadian reserves just walked by my table out of the blue...small world] in-your-face style of street vending was a new experience. I met up with Jimmy (the one who I went to Russia with initially) and several other LEADER project instructors in Istanbul and most of us were staying at the same hostel. In fact, almost all of us were staying in the 30 person cave that the hostel calls a room.

We were staying right by the Blue Mosque and seeing this massive building lit up at night was incredible. All the pillars were lit up and seagulls were constantly circling the structure even into the wee hours of the morning. Other sights of note in Istanbul include Asia (this is one of the points where you can cross a bridge from Europe into Asia), the Grand Bazaar, and the Spice Bazaar.

Of particular interest to me was the Spice Bazaar. This market was incredible. There were all kinds of spices piled up high and many other raw ingredient's and fresh tea's. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the market yet because I still have to collect them from one of my friends. Stay tuned for them though.

Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Cesme

Syed and I decided that we had exhausted all that Istanbul had to offer and we flew down to Izmir where we hopped onto a mini-bus for the hour long ride to the beach town of Cesme. Unfortunately I haven't gotten many photo's from Syed (my camera has been lost at this point since Moscow...did I forget to mention that?) but they are on the way. Anyways...the beach was amazing. Just out from this sandy paradise was a rocky outcropping which had naturally heated hot springs flowing into it. We sat among the rocks with local fisherman for a solid 45 minutes just enjoying the hot-tub like water.

After enjoying the beach for a day we decided to ditch the sun a little bit and absorb some culture instead. We headed to an old city called Ephesus.

Ephesus

This old city was Greek in origin (I believe) but has been controlled by Greece (obviously), Rome, Persia, and even fell under the rule of Cleopatra and Egypt at one point. There are many influences in the city but the highlights were definitely an old library and the wealthy's houses which were located on the hillside

Ancient homes at the Ephesus

Ephesus city library

Thankfully I was able to get to a decent electronics store in Izmir and these last two photos are the first couple I took with my new camera (a Samsung).

Wrapping up Moldova

Cricova Winery

On our last Friday in Moldova our students took us to the Cricova Winery just outside Chisinau. Once inside the winery we descended 60 meters underground into the massive cellar. The winery was amazing. There were several dining halls that were richly decorated and we saw a storage area where people can rent out space for their private collections. some of these collections dated back to 1902 and Putin himself had a section of the cellar. Unfortunately our tour did not include tasting but we did try a bottle of Champaign later on at a cafe (pretty good actually).

With the students at Cricova

The end of LEADER

And so leader has come to and end for me, at least as far as teaching is concerned. I am really happy I had the opportunity to teach in Moldova. The students were fantastic and the business plans which were presented as final projects were all fantastic. I have high hopes for these students and hopefully I am able to help some of them out down the road. At the end of this project Melanie, Syed, Lauren and I became close friends and I couldn't have asked for a better group of Ivey students to teach with. Looking back on both this year in Moldova as well as last years experience in Ukraine, I can safely say that LEADER has been one of the most influential experiences of my life.

On to Turkey...

Some students at the Chisinau City Sign

Moldova - Countryside and Teaching

And I thought it was a while between my two previous posts...I have booked off a couple of days here to get back on top of my outside communications and that will include getting caught up on some important blog posts. I will try to do the past weeks in three or four installments.

Moldova Countryside

Our trip to the countryside was very, very interesting. The students took us to this valley with a ridge running right through the middle. Within the ridge there are old tunnels which were dug out by Moldovians who were hiding out (we never found out exactly who they were hiding from). On top of the ridge was an old church and a massive cross overlooking the cliff below.

After the outing our students took us to a small picnic area where we had lunch before heading back to Chisinau.

Teaching

Classes are being held from 9am to noon and we usually use half the time for a lecture and the other half for teaching the business case that was assigned for that particular day. Attendance fluctuates but the students who come are always engaged. By popular request I will teach three extra tutorials in this second week. The first tutorial will be an IFRS accounting overview, the second a modelling and proforma creation tutorial, and lastly a tutorial on valuation at a very high level.

Chisinau

So it has been a little while since my last post and that is partially due to being busy but also to the fact that my computer is in high demand among the other members of my teaching team and I don't get as much time as I would like to send out updates.

Moldova is quite an interesting place. Our accommodations are quite nice here but we have come to the conclusion that they are in no way representative of the typical living conditions in Moldova. Our students are extremely keep to learn but some of them are negative about Moldova's (and to some extent their own) prospects. Aside from being the poorest European country, Moldova is also extremely corrupt. Hopefully we can have a positive impact and instill some confidence in change while we are here.

Today we are going to visit an international fair which celebrates some sort of holiday. I expect to find foods and merchandise from different cultures at this event. Tomorrow we are planning on going out to the countryside with a couple students and I am really looking forward to this because we will finally be able to see the other side of Moldova. Up until now we have been in the Capital and, although it is very undeveloped, I am hearing that the countryside is an entirely different world.

I'll post some thoughts later about our weekend and hopefully I can get some of our pictures uploaded before then to add to the collection.

Moscow

St. Basil's Cathedral, Red Square

Red Square with May 9th decorations

So we have had a pretty great time in Moscow (round two for Jimmy and I) and I am finally taking off tomorrow morning for Chisinau, Moldova.

Moscow has been an amazing time. Moscow is a perfect city to visit if you want the true Russian experience. We have noticed many men dressed in suits standing around/sitting in cars and just generally being sketchy. May 9th is Victory Day in Russia and is a very big deal. There have been test runs on several mornings with the air force flying jets and helicopters (some spewing colored tails outlining the Russian flag) flying right overhead, tanks driving down the central street (Tverskeya Promenade), parades, and massive banners lining the streets. The plans for May 9th are truly epic and the day will be a sight to behold.

Today I visited a Russian circus and, although it seemed backwards and slightly barbaric in some ways, it was a great experience. The circus was classic...They had seals, tigers, dogs, contortionists, clowns, and acrobats.

Well, I'm off to bed now but I am going to try and make a post with my first impressions of Moldova.

St. Petersburg - May 5th, 2010

Church of the Savior on Spilt Blood

The perfectly symmetrical street

(definitely necessary as part of your palace)

I just returned from St. Petersburg tonight after a few days touring the city and a brief stint in the Hermitage. St. Petersburg is probably the most impressive city I have ever visited based on its beauty, consistency, and amazing show of wealth. The Tzar actually brought several of Europes great architects of the time and whenever someone wanted to build a new building, it was mandatory to use one of these architects. Although controlling, this has created a very consistent and amazing city.

We toured the hermitage today and St. Pete's is worth visiting solely for the purpose of visiting that museum. Its located in the Tzar's Winter Palace and the building itself is simply obsured. Some of the walls in certain rooms are entirely guild'd in goal and each room seemed grander than the last. Apparently if you spent 1 minute at each exhibit at the Hermitage, it would take you 75 years to see everything. We were only able to get a small taste of the museum but it was amazing.

We are going to visit Red Square tomorrow which should be very cool and hopefully I can make another post soon.

Hamburg - April 30th, 2010

Hamburg Port View

Munich Fountain

So this is my first blog post but I thought it might be a good idea to publically document some thoughts/events of my trip. I am currently sitting in my hostel after what was probably a top 10 worst sleep night and waiting for the breakfast to open (its 6:17am). You may be wondering why I am awake at such an ungodly hour and it would be a good first thought. I do however have a purpose...In a few hours I will be in the air on my way to Moscow.

I am very excited for this leg of the journey and I will try and make a post once I arrive in Russia tonight.