We're back on the air.

I've clearly abandoned this Blog since I got back from Europe and kind if forgot about it. Work and school happened and my life got kind of crazy. Now it's time to pick it back up for a few reasons. First is because of the little sibling post-Christmas party I had with my fake sisters. One of them mentioned she was going to start a Blog about food or something. Also, I recently got word that I might be sent back to Prague so I'll be needing this thing all over again in order to update people on the haps in the CZ. Now a normal person might change the name in order to have it make more sense to the new purpose(s), but that's just not my style. I'd rather it just make it confusing and awkward like most things in my life.

That being said, I leave you all with this picture. It is of the Carl's Jr. of the future where we no longer need people to take your order and further alienate humans from each other. A system with so many flaws it is almost all Dane and I could speak about while devouring our food, which also tasted like it was made by a machine. Is that being too critical of Carl's Jr.? Oh well.

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The Castle

So this picture needed to come up now since Kim is leaving soon. He had a small get together to get some last minute English speakers in before Ensynch sends our Director of PMO and his family off to DHL Prague for the summer. Lucky bastard gets to get out of the heat all summer and go to one of the most gorgeous cities in the world where the streets are the epitome of Eastern Europe and the beer is cheaper than water; and oh so much sweeter.

So this is one of the unique shots I was able to get on this trip compared to last time. Buns took us on the tram instead of the metro to get to the castle and you end up coming up this side instead. A gorgeous side view from which I was able to create this HDR shot. Still learning the program and how things are done, but baby steps are key ;). Enjoy this as I work on the next one.

As Promised

I finally got the pics from James and got everything sorted and uploaded to Picasa Web Albums.
I will be slowly releasing more HDR photos and just general edited photos over the coming weeks. I love playing with the pics I take so stay tuned. I have been learning about some new tools that I can use to do some cool things from Drew and I intend to continue playing with them. For now, I have to get to Photoshop to finish somethings for work. Please let me know what you think of the pics.

I'm Back

I know it's been a bit since I last posted and a lot of people are asking me about pictures. I know, I know, everyone wants to see the whole trip. The delay has been because I did not have the pictures as I was continuously dumping all of my pics onto James' laptop so I didn't have to keep deleting things as I go and not be able to keep the videos I took. I do have the snaps now and I am sorting through them so that you each of you can enjoy all of them and see what you missed out on while each of you was stuck being working stiffs ;). It's okay, anyone who wants to can rub it in for pretty much the rest of the year as I've pretty much spent all my vacation days and what's left has to be rationed in case I get sick.

And I know that I owe you all the rest of the story, but that will come with the pictures and the captions and such. To satisfy everyone for the time being, here is the first of, what I hope will be, many HDR Photos. I took a few series of these and am trying to learn how to make them as awesome, or close to as awesome, as the ones that you see online.

Enjoy!

Netherlands

Amsterdam is now finished. Nothing more should need to be said. Thank you and have a wonderful day.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

We are chilling in the common area of the hostel here in Berlin now and gearing up to leave to Amsterdam. I have a feeling most of this will end up being written on the train when I'm not passed out from exhaustion. All this travel has been a huge learning experience and I definitely have a better idea how to do this next time. At the end of this trip, I am going to post a decent sized post about lessons learned. In the meantime though, I suppose it's correct and necessary to actually mention Berlin.

The first and most important thing is my obsession. I believe I have mentioned on more than one occassion the amazingly often use of bicycles as a mode of transportation and have been emailing several people about how I want to tour Europe on my Fuji. Well, Berlin has showed me my dream and I love it. There was a ridiculously amazing bike race that got me way psyched and drooling at the thought of abusing the hell out of my body to ride around this glorious city, circling around some of the most importat historic landmarks of the 20th century in this perfect weather. The sun was shining, a perfect, crisp breeze, and just a couple scattered clouds with the sound of bikes flying by made our walk around Berlin perfect for me.

As for the actual touring of this city, it is amazing. The first day here we just wandered, one of my favorite things to do in any new place. We walked over to the victory column which was really cool since we made it just vsrely in time to be able to go to the top. That vantage point was amazing as you could see almost the entire city. Some great pictures from up top of the 300 or so stairs and a few I am going to put together for some HDR shots, hopefully. Without a tripod that can be a bit difficult but I tried to make due.

After enjoying the view for a bit, we went back down and continued to explore. We walked over to Bellevue which we later learned was the chancelor's house. Working our way around to the Brandenburg Gates, we came across the setup for the bike race sponsored by Skoda and, no surprise, I'm the only one paying mler attention to the bikes than the cars. After getting past this area, we came to the square facing the gate and were welcomed by perhaps the most significant building in all of Berlin's history; Hotel Adlon. Who can remember what happened there just a few years ago? That is correct, Michael Jackson dangled his child from the balcony. We learned the next day that our tour guide was the AP press staff on site during this event at that time yet he missed it as he was too busy getting his starbuck's coffee to be bothered with one of the top 5 most historical moments of our time. The rest of the evening was spent making our way to Nikalae Quarters for some old-style German food and a meter of beer. Yes folks, I said a meter of beer.

Day two we took a tour of Berlin to see some of the biggest sites around the city. I did this last time I was in Berlin and I'm inclined to not say much about it as most of the sites were things I ace previously seen. I will say that it gave me a different perspective on what I saw as our tour guide, Alexander McKenzie (keep your eyes open for his book in a few years about the Jeziuts of Berlin from 1773 - 1803), had a different agenda of what details he wanted to cover. It wa definitely very interesting and, mom and dad should be happy to hear this along with my uninvited, unofficial mentor, learned a lot. So much so that we went back and did a different your with him the next day.

But before I go onto that, I should finish off that day. We ended up going to one of the five museums n the muarm district. Originally, I was unsure about the idea of a museum. Especially one that didn't really have much to do with German history. However, our tour guide suggested it on the premise of it housing one of the eight ancient wonders of the world; the Gates of Babylon. The funny thing about it was that James and I actually didn't even realize that we were looking at the gates as they are more of an arch and all the signs were in German only. So we didn't even realize what we were looking at yet we were rather impressed anyways.

Day three has been the Third Reich Tour and train. I'll write more later when I get back.

Cheers.

Kutna Hora; Bone Church

Praha Castle

Charles Bridge

All Aboard

So I spent most of my Blog time in Prague recapping Dublin and I want to correct this now as we sit on the train to Berlin. In an effort to make this easier I am going to recap Prague on the train and try to keep up with the rest of our stops as we go although some of them will likely be sans pictures. The preceding posts, however, are pictures from Prague.

So our first day in Prague was pretty chill as we arrived pretty late. We had some cheap gyros and pizza in one of the many random pizza and gyro places. Then we had a couple drinks at the glorious Music Sky Bar, an underground bar that was once the cellar and now has a great disco ball.

Day two is where we did the majority of our site seeing; being dumb American tourists. We started out by taking the 22 tram up to Prague Castle. We came up the side only to be greeted by a side view of the cathedral hidden behind the gorgeous trees that make Prague what it is. We arrived at the perfect time too as they were doing the full changing of the guard ceremony with the musicians and everything, which I did not get to see previously. It's a pretty awesome ceremony and I managed to get some pretty good video on my camera which I will try to post when I arrive back in the states to a youTube or something. So after enjoying that and getting some shots of the city we headed into the cathedral. For those of you who don't know, the cathedral is the biggest building in the castle and castle essentially means town in this context. The cathedral is as gorgeous as I remember and we were able to enjoy something I did not know about my first time around; the South Tower. Arrivig at a narrow, two-way spiral stair case, a sense of excitement overcomes you. The 287 stair climb is a great cardio workout and well worth the effort. At the top we enjoyed the most breathtaking panoramic views of Prague I have been able to enjoy to date.

After that we walked our way down to the Charles Bridge stopping for pictures and a giant feast at a local restaurant. Giant skewers of happiness on top of salad with sides of potatoes, fries, and rice. We wandered across the Charles and discovered another great view atop the main entrance. 50Kc will get you in and up another 186 steps to another great view perfect to observe the passers by on the Charles and the activity of the river.

When we were done enjoying that view, we worked our way around to Stare Mesto (Old Town) and the astronomical clock. Not much for me to say here I suppose as there wasn't much new to enjoy this time around. I was glad that the large church in the square and the statue were no longer under construction which was pretty nice. The rest of the night was wandering around going to food and drinks around Prague.

The third day was pretty relaxed as we atsued up pretty late the night before so those of us who didn't feel dead headed over to Kutna Hora to see Kostnice Ossuarry, aka Bone Church. This place is amazing. Hidden in a small town of great history and a perfect rural feel, Bone Church is decorated with the real bra of 40,000 people. This being in a city of approx 23,000 is quite intriguing and incredibly beautiful and morbid. The rest of our time in Prague went to eating, at the world famous and now New York Times reccomended Hlucna Samota, and catching some sleep as the travel is starting to wear on all of us. Now it's nap time on the train to be sure I am locked, stock and ready to roll when we arrive in Berlin. Cheers and enjoy some more pics.