new home (sweet home)

ok, i moved in...

the street i live on is called HASENWIESWEG (i still can't pronounce it properly). it's right next to the university. i can now walk there without taking any busses, which is very nice. the downside to that is that the house i'm in is now a lot farther from the city center, which i now have to take a bus to (but i took a bus to it before anyway, so it's not too much diff).

there's good and there's bad. let's start with good. kitchen and bathroom are completely remodeled (brand new), with new toilet, sinks, tiles, mirrors, all fixtures, oven, stove, refrigerator, etc...

the bad.............

IT'S NOT DONE!!!

i am quite literally, at this very moment, living in the middle of a construction zone. mind you, when construction is over, everything will look very good and nice and clean and dandy; the only problem is, compared to my last residence, this floor of the house i'm living in with my floormates is really small. it's me and 4 girls (hooray for that), 1 from minnesota and i believe the other two are from india. there are 3 rooms up here. i get one, lannette (the girl from minnesota) gets one and the two indian girls share one. so...4 of us will be sharing a bathroom and a kitchen (which is quite tiny, but i will definitely make do).

the house itself is larger than my previous home, however, in this house the concentration of student/sq.ft. of house is a lot higher.















*making the construction workers pose for the camera in the middle of their work (i'm such an ass)

another thing (which i didn't find out until today) is that we are living with the house owner and her son. she's a very nice lady and he's a techy (hooray for that) who works for a company's IT department and manages network servers and routers, etc... they both speak english, the son a lot more and they're trying very hard to make us ISP students happy. the mom is a TOTAL MOM, always trying to make sure i'm ok, if i need anything else, etc. etc... i went to the gym today and as i was walking back home she caught me outside the house and started talking to me (at first in German, forgetting that i don't speak it) about curtains for my room (which i'd asked for), but as soon as she told me she'd get on it and was asking around for curtains for me, i started walking into the house (my legs were tired and i just wanted to sit and be in my room) when she started talking AGAIN! this time about the progress of the bathroom upstairs (the one i will be sharing with my floormates), but she doesn't just give updates or progress reports...she drones on and on and on. she's a very nice person, i just didn't know i was coming home to a mom. we'll see how it turns out, it doesn't seem like she'll be TOO intrusive for the next 3 months. but hey, this is what it is.

my room itself is nice (nicer than my previous room), although a little smaller than my previous room. the bed is bigger (a full as opposed to my previous twin), with a goose down blanket and pillow. i've finally fully unpacked my luggage from LA. everything's out of the luggage, either in the closet or on a chair or bed...or the ground. i am still not 100% settled in, as i have all that "kitchen crap" from my prevoius place just sitting in bags awaiting shelving in the "new kitchen" that is in construction as i write this (right now the electrician is doing his thing; earlier the plumber was jivin'; before that the handyman was bustin' out his skills. i met them all).

at first i had no lock on my door. i then explained that i'd like one and i'm SURE the girls will all want locks for their doors as well (which was the first thing Lannette asked me about when she put her bags down...i know. im good) and the landlord was very good about getting us some locks on our doors asap. her son called into work and said he's going to be late and then drove to the locksmith and got it done. my key is comedy; it looks like those old, cabinet keys you find in castles and anything else that's old. the internet is EXTREMELY SLOW (this actually brought a tear to my eye). it's a little faster than a 56K connection (around 200k/s), but i spoke with the son and confessed my amazement to him at the fact that for an IT guy who loves networking and works in the field he has some SLOOOOOOOOW ASS ASS internet. he said he knows and i tried to convince him to get the faster speed and he said he would but doesn't know how long it takes swisscom (the bigger mobile phone carrier and DSL provider in switzerland...like verizon in LA) to actually implement that from the time they commit to doing it. we'll see what happens there.

in other random news, after i unpacked my luggage today, i was able to admire my new north face goose down jacket i bought in LA for the cold weather here in switzerland and just wore it for like 45 min (it was actually cold, i wasn't just some idiot wearing a jacket for fun).

seacrest out

ps-life sux without a bathroom

i just had my dinner (chicken & vegetable soup), and found out that this house is emptying one student at a time. today two students left, tomorrow another leaves, and that just leaves me and another guy who lives upstairs. my friend, fred, is on vacation so he doesn't count, although he's a permanent resident of this house. so there's all these food packages, sauces, drinks, etc... in the kitchen (and they've been there since i moved in), and i found out tonight that they belong to the previous exchange students who lived in this house (they don't belong to any of the people i live with now). so when we were going over our cleaning strategy (as we have to have the house cleaned by the time we move out), i asked Chris (another university of st. gallen student who's leaving tomorrow for Geneva) who all these foods belong to, and that's when he said they belonged to the previous exchange students that never cleaned it up. i asked what he's going to do with it (since he's in charge of putting it all away and i'm in charge of cleaning the stove and countertop) and he said he's going to throw it all away. WOAH! stop right there! i'm talking about closed, packaged, new food items, like packaged cake mix, for example, or packaged Uncle Ben's rice, or bottled oil (brand new), or bottled balsamic vinegar, ground and whole coffee beans, packaged penne and farfalle pastas, salt, spices, herbs, canned tuna, canned corn, etc, etc, etc... all new. would i be so unkind to the starving children around the world as to allow Chris to throw all this stuff away. HELL NO! my friends, i'm glad to report to you now that i am the proud new owner of all this food crap that i probably won't use but am nevertheless extremely excited to own. i feel like i just went shopping. FOR FREE! aahhhh, it does feel good. the only thing now is that i have to figure out how to find a bag big enough to fit all this stuff in. ah, well, it'll come to me. this'll be good for my new home, with all new housemates; they can make brownies now and have some Uncle Ben's rice and pasta, and what not. it's a waste to put food to waste, my friends!

investment

today i made one of the smartest investments of my life. i bought an umbrella. let me tell you, if you don't have a car and must walk and take the bus everywhere, it's not fun getting wet every day, especially when it's pouring like the sky is trying to send you a message. i also got a cell phone today. it's a prepaid (pay as you go) type deal, which is very expensive, but i'm not here long enough for a 1- or 2-year contract so this'll have to do.

the day after tomorrow i move to my permanent residence, and i'm excited to see what it's going to be like. o, i also bought a couple towels today, fyi.

exciting news...check out roland's blog!

i have just learned of some VERY exciting news. the student that has been sent to LA from the university of st. gallen to study at pepperdine also has a blog. in short, roland and i have switched places in the world for the next 2.5-3 months. he is a full time student at the university of st. gallen, doing a semester abroad at pepperdine university in malibu, and i am a full time student at pepperdine university doing a semester abroad at the university of st. gallen. his name is roland and to read the things he describes to his friends in switzerland about LA and america is very interesting and entertaining. mind you, if you want to read his blog, you'll have to use google's language tools (http://www.google.com/language_tools) to translate the entire page into english because he's written it all in German. so, without further ado, please find the link on the right side of this page to navigate to roland's blog.

i don't know how interesting roland's blog would be to all my readers, but to be honest with you, i've gotten a huge kick out of it. he describes the SUVs in america, and compares them to the Opel cars you find here in switzerland/europe, and also talks about how you NEED a car in LA, and goes on to describe his new home there (as i did), with pics and all. it's really a nice contrast to compare our blogs and entertain yourself with all the differences and commonalities found in them. remember when you read roland's blog...St. Gallen is TINY. i mean really tiny, and i'm not kidding. to get a good idea of how small st. gallen is, you can walk from one side of it to the other in about 30-40 minutes. it's smaller than westwood. i'm actually having a hard time thinking of a place to compare its size to. everything in LA is so much bigger. i think westwood would be maybe the best size comparison. ya, just imagine westwood, but smaller (by the way, roland, you should go check out westwood if you haven't yet). so remember this when reading roland's blog. it is very small, cozy/intimate and everything is familiar here in st. gallen. it is the complete opposite of los angeles (which is one of the reasons i chose to come here; to try to get the most change i can for a short amount of time).

speaking of LA and how different it is from st. gallen, it reminds me of the very first conversation i had with my housemate here in st. gallen. his name is fred and he's from austria, studying here at the university. he's a cool guy and we became friends very quickly. he met me while he was kinda drunk, so it turned out to be an interesting first meeting. all of a sudden he wanted to ask me all these questions about how dangerous and violent LA is. i was telling him it's not that bad, however there are places you could go to if you want violence. but he was under the impression that all of LA was extremely dangerous (all he had to go by was all those LA movies he'd watched over the years). after a while i found out he was talking about east la, so i told him it's on the other side of LA, and if you go there looking for trouble you'll find it rather quickly. he got very excited at this statement. so he asked me if it was a place the guys could go to at night to hang out. i laughed before i answered him, but then told him it's not a hangout place for guys from the city to just go chill there for a night when they have nothing better to do, and it was very hard for him to believe that you could get very hurt in east la if you go there and start making a fuss, randomly cussing people out (that was the example of the behavior we used when we spoke). just goes to show you, we only know what we know, and we forget that people who have never been here only have few things to go by for a description. movies is a big one, that's all he knew about LA, was what you find in the movies, like "training day" with denzel washington (he asked if LA was really like that and i told him it was a pretty good rendition of what some parts of the city look like...like i'm on expert on East LA).

enough banter, it's late and i have to sleep. check out roland's blog, and don't forget to use google's language tools to translate the page. maybe i should just post his blog in the translated version already. ya, that sounds good.

goodnight...

i went to the university today so that i could use the gym, only to find out it closes early on saturdays and it's not even open on sundays. while i was there, however, i met a couple colombians who were playing ping pong. i asked if i could play and showed them what it's all about. tonight i may go out with a couple guys i met at the grocery store yesterday. they also study at the university, finishing up their bachelor's degrees.

st. gallen, day 2

today i woke up and went out to buy groceries. i found a little grocery store 20 min away (walking) from my place and bought some chicken, slamon, veggies, fruit, tissues and spices. i NEED a watch/clock. i don't know if i've mentioned this yet, but THERE ARE NO clocks in the hotel rooms in europe. there wasn't one in ireland, spain, or switzerland's hotel. there wasn't one in my room when i settled here. there isn't one in the house. WHAT THE HELL. i NEVER know what time i'm waking up (i know what time i go to bed because it's when i turn off my laptop, and that has the local time on it), what time i eat, shower, NOTHING. it's actually very annoying, so the first thing i'm going to do tomorrow is find me a damn watch.

after i got my groceries i made myself lunch from the previously said ingredients. i then called my new friend, Isabelle and met her at a restaurant that i had to take a bus and a transfer bus to get to (LA boy is taking the bus and walking everywhere now, where is his car?!). we ended up staying at the restaurant for about 5 hours (literally), talking and laughing the whole time, so it turns out i made myself another couple great friends here. AND the guy has a car. DAAAAAAAMN RIGHT!!! so they dropped me off at home around midnight and i watched some world poker tour championship episode on Joost on my laptop (joost has become a good friend when i am bored here), checked my email, blah blah blah.

st. gallen, day 1

dropped chris off at the airport at 8am this morning after checking out of our hotel. then i drove myself with the rental car to st. gallen and met with the housing manager. she gave me the key to my temp. room (which is in a house, like most of these rooms and has 1 kitchen and living room for about 10 people. everyone has their own room, but usually 2-3 rooms share a bathroom), which is clean, white and VERY empty. there is a small bed in the corner, a desk (with a little desk light on it), a cabinet (for a closet), a bookshelf and a floor lamp (which i am not using because i am instead plugging my laptop into its power outlet). oh, ya, there's also a desk chair that rolls around and swivels. the floors are hardwood. the desk and the bookshelf match each other and look like they came from ikea (there's one just outside the city, very close from here, so i think these pieces really were from there).

i made a couple friends already (i'm usually quick at that) and am going out with them tonight. my bathroom is shared with the guy whose room is next to mine. how it works is there's a door on the ground floor (where i'm located) and inside that door there are 3 more doors. one is my room, one is someone else's room and the 3rd door is the bathroom that we share. it is like that for every couple rooms, and the house itself is about 3 stories tall i believe. the sheets for the bed were supposed to be clean and they may very well have been, but it's good to double check so i washed them again in the house's washer/dryer, which took about 3 hours total to figure out, including the time it took me to argue with the machines' manager who collects the money for the machines (and who doesn't speak ANY english). after 20min of playing charades with him, i got my message through that i DIDN'T want him to add 10 more francs to my bill. this whole time i thought we'd get free laundry if it's IN THE HOUSE; but nooooooo, they have to install pay machines inside the house as well.

the kitchen looks like crap, and it doesn't look like it will be fun at all cooking a healthy meal here, but o well, what can i do?

after returning the rental in st. gallen, i took the bus to the main bus/train station and bought myself a monthly bus pass so that i can use the bus as much as i want for the next month without paying for each trip, which would also have cost a lot more. i haven't eaten anything all day, but i'm not really feeling it because i've been up to so much today. i have to go shopping for groceries and buy some soap and things like that. my house is directly across from a high schooland the neighborhood itself looks very nice and clean.

for dinner the grocery store was closed so i got some chicken from the kebab place (lots of those around, selling falafel, shwarmah, burgers, etc...) and lettuce. i walked about 30min to and from that place and now i'm just writing to u. looks like im going to be doing A LOT of walking for the next 3 months.

zurich, day 6

today we went to Liechtenstein

B-E-A-utiful!!! wow, wow, wow, is all i can say. you must see the pics and even then will have no idea what it's like to actually stand in this place and see what we saw. the most beautiful colors of mountains, water, clouds and mother nature.

we drove up a mountain, all the way to the top, but there were no elevation marks, however i know it was really high. when we got out of the car and walked around we got tired quick as the air was very thin and oxygen was not abundant. imagine Mammoth, we run around a little and we notice getting tired a lot faster because of the altitude. well this was like that, but we didn't need to run around or dance to feel it; just by taking a deep breath you could feel how high you were.

we found a little farm atop the mountain with sheep, and chris just HAD to go feed them and play around with them. so he did. it was very funny, as they were making noises at him as he got closer and closer to them. once he bent down to pick up some grass and offer it to them, they ALL came up to him....it was like all of a sudden 15 sheep just approached chris from behind the fence and started eating from his hands...it was truly hilarious, and he was a very happy boy.

afterwards we went by lake Walensee, which is a beautifully colored lake (different from any color water i've seen before) that meets the mountain, and it just creates the most beautiful sight i've ever seen before in my life.

tomorrow i drop chris off at the airport, then drive myself to st. gallen where i will meet the housing manager at the university and get the keys to my temporary home, then return the car and start living my new life in switzerland.

zurich, day 5

it was really hot today, and the streets were very quiet. it was dead today, as it's a sunday and everything's very quiet on sundays. the receptionist of the hotel said people like to visit family on sundays and so it's like this every week. since the parking is free on sundays we're NOT MOVING our car, and decided to just walk around the city and hang out in the hotel's neighborhood center (old town city). the pic above was taken later in the day (evening time), but earlier it was literally dead and we saw maybe 8-10 people in the busiest consumer street here.

tomorrow we might either go to Austria or Liechtenstein.

will update soon...

zurich, day 4

aaaahhhhh, hello blog,

i'm back on the internet, and i have some stories for u. where to begin? so much stuff to say. i guess the beginning is traditional.

let's finish up with barcelona's 6th night. i can't ever forget this night, as chris performed an unthinkable feat. my boy chris ate a TUB of paella made for a family of 4 (i'm not kidding, this thing could have fed 3-4 full grown adults or a family of 6 with 4 small children). i have posted one pic of his feat here, but if you'd like to see the entire thing with progress reports along the way, click on the photo link to the right of this blog.

there is a crap load of Pizza Hut restaurants in barcelona and they are PACKED. in america you won't find one person in a pizza hut as they deliver (not to mention their food isn't anything you need to wait around for), but in barcelona it's like a restaurant...seating area, nice tables/chairs, everything.

anyway, after chris ate himself into a coma, we left for home (hotel).

next day we had 2 flights to make, it was an entire day of flying. we got on out first flight from barcelona to london (it landed in gatwick, not heathrow), which is a VERY nice airport. then we waited 3 hours to get on a plane from gatwick to zurich. here's an invaluable tip to travelers: ALWAYS (i repeat, ALWAYS) book your airline seats in the exit rows. you can stretch out your legs fully and it is WAY more comfortable than all the other coach seeats. take a look at the pics.

we got to zurich at around 10pm (many people coming in from Israel to switzerland). we found our hotel without a hitch and also found out that this place is the most expensive place EVER. i think the gov't charges you for the air you breathed while here when you want to leave the country. i believe the going rate for AIR in switzerland is now around CHF 2.50/breath (that's around $2 give or take). this is when i disappointedly found out that internet access costs buttloads. for 30min of internet, it's CHF 5, which is around $4 give or take (for future reference, any time i quote a CHF price, just take 80% of it and the result will be in USD). so i paid for this once, as i had to check something on my credit card's website (it felt like throwing money into the trash), because 1 hour of internet access then climbs to CHF 25, and the price here for 24 hours of access equals MORE than what we pay in america for a full month's access. ok, let's not get started on this...

we woke up to find out there is construction going on RIGHT BELOW us. they are building a lounge or nightclub or something next door to the hotel and it turns out we're part of the lucky crowd that gets the best of it. there's really nothing like the heart-pounding, brain-thumping bellows of a jackhammer and the startling crashes of 1-ton stones hitting the ground from 2 stories up TO WAKE YOU UP AT 6 FREAKIN' AM IN THE FREAKIN' MORNING. now let's ask ourselves a question: is Roni going to MAKE SURE he gets what he paid for? answer: DAMN STRAIGHT HE IS!!! (mama didn't raise no fool).

i told the director of the hotelwhat we were expecting from the hotel for the price, as it claims to be one of the nicer hotels in Zurich. they had my name and the dates of my stay and never told me anything about construction. long story short, i was able to hook us up with a 50% discount on the bill AND get free internet. HELL YA BABY! by the way, this is the mark of a good manager. he really was able to keep a customer happy, and i will only say good things about this hotel.

so, if u asked yourself whether i actually paid those ridiculous fees to be writing this post right now, you now have your answer.

on our second day in zurich, i decided to visit my university here. it's only a 25min drive to get to st. gallen from zurich, and the university really is in a charming city. the air is so clean, and it's at one of the highest points of the city, atop a hill, where the view is just beautiful (take a look at the pics).

we've been told the clubs are good here, but it's like CHF 30 to get in, and it's nothing like barcelona. the bars here close at 12am and the clubs go until about 2. in switzerland it's all about the countryside. i've been to other parts of europe (italy, germany, netherlands, denmark, belgium) and i have to say, from personal experience, none of the countrysides i have seen to this date are even close to the beauty of the swiss country. take a look for yourself at some of the pics...it's just SO green and CLEAN (dublin was green too, but the air here is something else). you know that feeling you get when you look at the ocean on a beautiful day when it just looks SO refreshing you want to be able to jump into it? it's like that here, you want to just jump into the grass and roll around (i know, i laughed myself when i just reread that).

yesterday (zurich, 3) we made a visit to Munich, Germany. took about 4 hours to get there (we make day trips out of these long-drive excursions to other countries and far away cities; so "American" of us). we went to the city center and found a place that's almost exactly like Universal Studios' City Walk. it was PACKED with people and shops, and the street was very wide and almost never ending, just like City Walk. we walked around, took pics, went into some of the shops and even had dinner in Munich's city center (i don't know the name of this area we were in that reminds me of City Walk). we left munich at 7:45 for zurich. the trip back took us 3 hours (god bless the autobahn). by the way, speaking of the autobahn, i ALWAYS miss my car and wish i had it with me when i'm on the German Autobahn. we were going about 170km/h (105mph) in our little piece of crap rental (our little carriage started shaking at 180km/h, which i could only even get to once, because the thing just wouldn't go, and i didn't want to cut our vacation short so i slowed down) while BMWs and Audis (these two manufacturers probably made up 75% of the cars on the autobahn) were passing us like we were 97 year-old geezers in a triathlon. i really love speeding without having to worry about the police, it's such an experience of freedom. i'd say on average we were at 155 kph (approx. 96mph).

today (day 4) was restful as i barely slept last night (maybe 3 hrs at most) and didn't want to drive anywhere. we walked around a little, chris did a little shopping and i ran some errands to get ready for my life in st. gallen. i found out that i can drop the rental car off in st. gallen, which has just made everything perfect. i will drop chris off at the airport on aug.21, and then drive myself to st. gallen, go to the university where i will see the housing manager in charge of ISP housing to get the key to my temporary home for 10-11 days, then go to that temp. home and drop off ALL my stuff (again, i have lots of baggage here), and then finally take the car to the drop off point in st. gallen and take a cab back to my apt. without having to carry all my baggage with me. sounds like a great plan.

will update soon.

writing from the university

hi blog,

 

i am writing you now from the university of st. gallen (the school i will be attending for the next 3 months). the y and z buttons on this kezboard are switched, so anztime zou see a z, it is reallz a y, lol.

 

the school is verz nice. it has a GREAT view as it is on a hill in the citz. sorrz for all the Z but i cannot correct each one, there are to manz.

 

i came to see how it was here. it was onlz about a half hour drive from yurich.

 

seems like i will have a pleasant school zear.

 

will update soon.

roni

Zurich, day 1

Dear Blog,

shit is expensive in zurich. internet is running out, and i am for sure not paying for more access for a couple days AT LEAST, so things will be quiet here.

i'm glad people enjoyed me getting hit on by a guy, you're all very sweet.

Zurich is very very nice, charming and quaint. small, narrow, cobble stone streets adorn our hotel's neighborhood. if i get a chance i will update later on when i have internet access, but things aren't looking too good. i leave here on aug.21 and go to st gallen.

seems like i was able to work out a temporary housing situation with the housing manager at the school so that i don't have to move to copenhagen for 10 days. i would have liked to see Aris but my bags all together weight more than 80 lbs and it's just a hassle, moving so much. i've gotten enough moving in the last 2 weeks.


now i have to leave my comp and go move the car because parking is disgustingly expensive here. i almost threw up when i heard the price.

anyway, will TRY to update soon, but don't count on it.

bye blog.
-roni

Barcelona, day 6

i got hit on by a 6ft, 200+lb. gay guy last night!

we went to a very cool club that chris went to the night before and he was right, it really was a great club, better than any i've been to in LA. the music was better, the people were more beautiful, it was more packed, the lighting was better, there were more dance floors (each with different music, like a whole different club within the club), and it was just a way better party overall.

me and chris were dancing with these Brazilian girls, and i was obviously breaking it down with the hot moves as you all know i like to do (the music was really good and i was in the zone, so it was totally my night), when this big guy with a goatee (who looked like he was around 30-35 years old), really liked what he saw i guess. he comes up to me OUT OF NOWHERE, while i'm dancing with these girls and tries to give me a drink! weirdest thing ever, no "hi", no "i like the way you dance", just comes up to me, no words at all and tries to pass me a drink. i wave him off and say "no", in response to the question i thought he was asking me, "this is your drink!?"

we kept dancing with the girls, when i noticed this guy just standing by the wall right next to us, simply watching. he wouldn't leave our sight (it was creepy), and then started dancing with another guy, but still right by us. toward the end of my stay at the club, he comes up to me and says "it's hot in here", and i said "ya"; everyone was literally swimming in clothes of their own sweat, it was ridiculous. here's the home run; this guy "actually had the AUDACITY" (that's for the bird) to grab my hand and say to me "don't stop! don't stop!" (as in "don't stop dancing, i like it!!!") in spanish. as he said that, he held my hand tighter and started jumping up and down, taking my hand with him, as if to imply that i should start jumping up and down with him holding hands. i was like "hell no". i can't even believe he couldn't tell i was straight, i pretty much exude it from my pores. i'm like the "Dos Equis commercial" guy (see video below). i tried easing my hand out of his, but it turns out the guy was more aggressive than i thought, and was holding quite tightly. so i pulled that shit out and immediately exuded even MORE manliness (which i don't even know is possible) right then and there, like my beard, which "...alone has experienced more than a lesser man's entire body" (see video link above).

bottom line, i can't help it if i'm irresistible to all races, genders and species. i didn't know my moves were so provocative. now i understand; it is pure pleasure to watch me move.

after i left the club, i couldn't help but notice the crowd spread around at 4am on a late monday night/early tuesday morning. do these people work? are they all tourists? (they speak damn amazing spanish for a bunch of tourists) Do people just go to the beach during the day and club at night? what's going on? the pic to the left was taken just to show you what it looks like here on La Rambla street (the busy/popular/famous street to be on, kind of like the promenade in LA) at 4am on monday/early teusday.

before the club we had dinner...however not at the place we wanted to. that list of top ten barcelona restaurants' NO.1 restaurant was called "Cal Pep" and it's supposed to be a really great restaurant so we asked concierge how to get there and we drove there only to find out that the restaurant is closed for all of august for holiday. what the hell? so we settled for an italian restaurant right next door to it. i had steak with veggies and chris had shrimp pasta.

tomorrow we leave for Zurich, Switzerland, which shockingly enough, may or may not be the last leg of my adventure before settling down in St. Gallen for school. the problem began about 6 months ago when i realized it's FREAKIN' hard finding a furnished apt. to rent for 3 months in a city so small that it's hard to find just a furnished apt. so i waited and waited, and finally decided to ask for help from the school's housing manager, who helps find ISP students (that's the name of the program i'm in, it stands for International Studies Program) a place to live for the 3 months they are in St. Gallen (furnished and all). so she finally found me something after days of arduous searching from her end and relentless nagging and pushing from mine. the problem you ask? well, the apt. isn't available for me until sept.1. why is that a problem, you ask? well, my trip/vacation with chris ends on aug.21. aaaahhh, now you see. i must stay somewhere for those 11 days. i started emailing around to people i know may be in europe at that time, and finally got a response from a good friend, who some would call a "Greek Stallion" (not me, i call him much nastier, degrading things). the fine Aris is hosting me for these 11 days in Copenhagen, Denmark, the city he will be studying abroad in, and luckily for me will be moving into his place on aug.19.

so there you go; in case the housing manager at the university of st. gallen tells me i for sure cannot move into my place there until the beginning of sept. i have a place to live in Copenhagen, which i am sure with my host may very well be the grandest adventure of all.

Barcelona, day 5

today was even more restful than yesterday. again we spent the day at the beach (or what was left of it, since we slept more than usual). we went to the same restaurant and we ate the same thing, lol.

tonight we'll probably be going to a club chris was at last night, where there are more english speaking people. we will probably have dinner at another one of those "top ten restaurants" from the previous post.

Barcelona, day 4

today was rather restful, as we just spent the day at the beach. it was cloudy today so it wasn't as nice as yesterday at the beach but it was still really hot out. we had lunch at a nearby restaurant overlooking the sand (kind of like on the boardwalk near the beach where you can still see beach goers walking by). i had grilled sole for lunch and chris had a shrimp cocktail and some steamed mussels. the mussels were really good.

i have to say, the hotness/sq.ft. ratio here is ridiculous. EVERYONE'S beautiful! i might be going crazy but even the 90-year old grandma's are exuding that sexy vibe. (lol, jk...i've yet to see a hot 90 year-old). the pics of all the pretty people (girls) that you see in the google pics are from today at the beach. i couldn't resist; i don't want to forget how the people look here.

we just stayed at the beach for a few hours and chris got a massage from one of the massage ladies that walk around the beach (kind of like the people on LA beaches that try to sell you drinks and T-shirts, but these give massages).

today we found the new finalist for the "most beautiful girl in spain" contest (photo above).

after it started dying down at the beach we came back to the hotel where i've begun my daily blog spiel.

for dinner we went to this very good restaurant called Cuines Santa-Caterina. it is the number 5 restaurant on THIS LIST OF BARCELONA'S TOP TEN RESTAURANTS. the food was VERY good, the atmosphere was very sleek and modern, with ficus trees and good lighting in between every table. i had thai chicken curry and chris had roast lamb with potatoes.

i was tired tonight and didn't feel like going to a club again, so i stayed in the hotel and went to bed early. chris walked to La Rambla and checked on some of the clubs there and said they were really good, and filled with americans that we can actually speak with without making fools out of ourselves, so i think we'll go to one of those tomorrow night (day 5).

Barcelona, day 3

this is going to be a rather short entry, as i'm kinda tired and want to go up to my room (o wow, they just started playing some live piano music here in the lounge/bar of the hotel; WOW, and singing, operatic style. it's BEAUTIFUL). there's some randomness for you, i guess i'll stay a little while longer. i've never been here this late at night to hear the live music. i'm going to try to record it now and post it here...it is really something to here, nothing like "live music" in america, it's like being at the opera as i'm writing this.

there are three singers rotating and taking turns singing with the piano player playing their songs. actually you may even be able to hear me typing this as you're listening to the recording of the lady singing her song. it's very nice, especially considering this is in the lobby's lounge/bar/restaurant area.

if you're interested to know what i'm listening to RIGHT NOW, click the links below.
live music in lobby 1
live music in lobby 2

back to today...we took a cable car that rides along a cable in the sky from tower to tower, from our hotel's tower directly outside our hotel to the beach tower. here's where my opinion of barcelona kicks in. this place is AWESOME!!!! AWESOMEEEE!!!!! it's all about the beach here, which is also "clothing optional" we found out (very nice!). the sand is PACKED with bodies; i think i have aerial pics of the beach, and if i find them later on the camera i'll post them, but for now no pics on this post, as i haven't updated the pics yet. anyway, this beach is AMAZING. weather is EXCELLENT, people are BEAUTIFUL and it's super packed and busy. the water is not very clean as i would have originally thought it was, but rather kind of murky, surprisingly. it's no santa monica pier but it's not the clear blue i was imagining.

before we went to the sand we had lunch and we finally had some paella, more specifically the seafood paella, which has shrimp, mussels and something else in it (i couldn't identify the last type of seafood meat as it was not connected to an outer shell like the other two were). Paella was SOOOOOOO GOOOD. if you've ever had cajun gumbo, imagine that, but better, less spicy, with seafood in it. it was like a thick mixed stew of rice, spices, herbs, seafood and sauce (sauce was a little sweet and little tangy, but more sweet). you definitely can't have just one taste, so i had to raid chris' plate for second and third tastes. i would have ordered my own but after two days of eating unhealthy in each country i strap down and eat very healthy for the remainder of each country's visit. if you're actually interested, i had a Mediterranean salad, which comes with lettuce, tomatoes, egg (cut in quarters), tuna (without mayo, here it's just the tuna meat, nothing extra), anchovies and green and black olives. no dressing here, i just put some vinegar on it. it was so healthy i almost threw up. i definitely didn't finish it, i just couldn't.

at night we went to a street where we didn't see any tourists. there were a few clubs on this street and everyone was a local (we spoke to many, that's how we know). we went to this one club and pretty much stayed there the whole night. over here the night starts at around 1:30-2:00 am. people have dinner at around 10-12 and then go to the clubs really late. last call in LA is at 2...here the party JUST began at that time...it started getting REALLY busy at 3:30, but we left at around 4am. the music in the clubs here are way better (in my opinion) than that in the LA clubs. i like spanish/salsa music and that's what was playing, but with a hip hop & techno twist, like spanish songs with a more hip hop style beat to it, and louder, faster bass and faster tempo. so, it was really good, and very busy.

another thing....ALOT, ALOT, ALOT of people here are gay. i've never seen such an open, dense gay population before. this place makes LA look like "something extremely heterosexual". it's not a good or a bad thing, i just didn't know how big the gay population was here, and it is really dense.

that's all for day 3.

ps: to view all my google pics, just click the link in the task pane to the right of this blog; it says "check out my photos". additionally, you will find many pictures of the people in spain (on the beach and such), and that's because it's a waste to not share with you the beautiful people here. some photos are a little racier than others, as i already pointed out that clothing on the beach is optional. and let's be honest, i know that's what people really care about seeing in th photos...everyone's curious. i guess these pics will support the motto of my blog, found under the title. enjoy!

Barcelona, day 2

today was a GREAT day. we went to La Boqueria. it is a HUGE market in the heart of barcelona. it was on Andrew Zimmern's "Bizarre Foods" program and it truly is an amazing place. there are merchants as far as the eye can see and once you're in side it's hard to find your way out, or even to make sure you've seen everything. there's everything from meats (cow, pig, chicken, etc...), seafood (eel, different varieties of fish, shrimp, lobster, mussels, oysters, etc...), fruits (any type you can possibly imagine and a whole lot more that many of you have never even seen in america), nuts, etc... i can go on and on, but really it's a big marketplace of street merchants that sell anything and everything you can imagine in the food department. so not only do they sell these things, but they also sell cooked foods and packaged foods that are made up of combinations of what is found in the marketplace. for example, the fruit stands not only sell the whole fruit but also sell packaged fruit assortments, and also juiced fruit on ice that one can buy and drink right there in the marketplace. there are also actual restaurants in the marketplace, in the form of a bar/counter, like a sushi bar in LA, but with cooked food behind the counter with a chef and a grill. La Boqueria is really too good to describe in words and i'm realizing now that my description doesn't do justice to what the place is really like. you must experience it for yourself, but i am trying my best to put the experience into words and pics.

so we spent a couple hours in this place, just walking around and trying to see all the merchants that were there. we talked to alot of people and probably annoyed most of them, and we found the most beautiful girl in spain (i'm sure of it, although the picture doesn't show it at all, but she was), who's picture is just above. also, you'll notice in my google pictures that there is beginning to be alot of pictures of girls, and you should know this was a special request from someone, so that they could live the experience of what i told them is a place with the most beautiful girls they'd ever seen. there will be more and more of these pics as i also enjoy taking them, so i invite you to enjoy the beautiful people in spain (because they truly are).

at la boqueria we bought a couple juice cups of mango and papya juice (if i remember correctly), and then also bought some cut up coconut and i also bought some amazingly tasting salted macadamia nuts. we also had a slice of pizza (the pizza here is ok, nothing special, but the average pizza slice from an average pizza vendor is alot better tasting than the average pizza slice from LA's average pizza vendor. again, though, it's nothing compared to those slices we had in Italy a couple years ago (especially in Florence and Venice).

enough about La Boqueria; i'll just say, if you're in barcelona, go there for sure and spend a day there. i didn't need to see it on "Bizarre Foods" to know i had to go there, because as it turns out, this market is at the end of that street called La Rambla, which i said had the street performers and was a very popular street here in the heart of the city center, so i would have found out anyway just by walking that street. so if you go to barcelona and find yourself on La Rambla, be sure to walk to the very end because La Boqueria is the prize at the end of your walk.

afterwards, we came back tot he hotel for some "reset" time, which i always like to do, hang out in the hotel's lounge/bar area, which is very nice here and catch up on some internet time (i know, total geek, but what are you gonna do?!) resting until the night time excitement.

at night we wanted to have paella for dinner; people talk about this dish so much it's like if you don't have it while you're here then you've sinned. i have to admit it looks good in all the pictures the restaurants have of it, though. so we found the place we wanted to have it at, but turns out this place is a Chinese restaurant. they have outside seating where you can't tell it's a Chinese restaurant AT ALL, but their outside seating (which is also on La Rambla, for great entertainment while having dinner) was full, so we decided to have dinner inside, which is when we found out the food coming to the outside seating was being supplied by the Chinese restaurant. go figure, a chinese restaurant in the middle of barcelona. so we sat down and figured we'd order one paella (which looked really good on their picture board outside) and the rest Chinese food (i know how this sounds, but keep reading). once we got in and wanted to order the paella, the waitress said that's only for outside and inside is ONLY Chinese food, so since we were already sitting we figured why not try Barcelona's Chinese?! long story short, it was DAMN GOOD; i felt better about sitting there ordering Chinese food when i looked int he back and saw that all the chefs were Chinese (the whole time i was thinking they'd be Spanish). so, the Chinese here was awesome.

we left the restaurant and caught the end (middle-end) of a really funny guy doing his act in the middle of La Rambla. he was an Irish (or some UK country) guy and was very funny and entertaining, so we stayed 'till the end (he was swollowing stuff and doing fire tricks and all the while made funny jokes and fun of people so it was funny, what can i say).

then we got back to the hotel to get our car so that we may go out on the town and find a club or something. we found one but it was packed and the bouncer wasn't letting people in, but i convinced him to let me go in for a minute just to check it out, and he let me. WOW! it was great inside, the only bad thing was that you couldn't see through the thick cloud of smoke. EVERYONE SMOKES HERE!!! it's like a prerequisite to living in this country. it's really unbelievable the sheer concentration of people that smoke here. they are also allowed to smoke in the restaurants, which i am glad CA law prohibits becuase it's just nasty to smell that while trying to eat your Spanish Chinese food. the club wasn't like a night club in LA or cancun for those thinking that it may have been (i'm sure many of the clubs here ARE like that, but this one wasn't); it just had really nice music inside (local, not american, which was very nice since i like spanish music) and it was definitely PACKED (the bouncer was right). i couldn't walk without pushing someone out of my way.

so we left and just drove around the city, which was nice. we didn't have a map with us but our hotel is on the water, so we just had to drive back to the beach if we got lost (which we obviously did). we saw many interesting things, including a really nice style of architecture this city inhabits, as well as a street where there is nothing but prostitutes. it wasn't like Amsterdam's (or any other country's) red light district, it was just a few city blocks that were inhabited by very obviously, indiscreetly-dressed female (and transvestite male) prostitutes. so it turns out this night had many interesting things to offer the eyes, as well as some things we won't want to see again (but that's for another blog, lol).

overall, at this point, my opinion of the city has still not been formed, as it is too early, but read the next post.

Barcelona, day 1

today was overall a comedy day.

let's start from the very beginning (early, early in the freakin' morning). we woke up in our dublin hotel at 4:30am, it was still dark outside. we loaded our luggage, got in our rental and drove to the airport. the excitement starts here. we always knew we'd have a little problem (at the very least) because the rental car place opens at 6am, so we can't return the car any earlier than that, but our flight was scheduled for 7:20am. so the plan from th beginning was for us to park the car in a short term parking lot, both of us go in the airport and check-in, and then as i go to the gate chris would go back to the car and drive it to Thrifty (making it there by 6am) and taking their VERY FIRST airport shuttle back to the airport and meet me at the gate.

so we checked in, and i went for the gate as chris went to take the car back to Thrifty. at 5:45 we finished checking in. the line for security screening was very long and i started getting nervous. i got to the gate at approx. 6:10 and i start worrying that chris may not make it because he wasn't THAT comfortable getting from the airport to the Thrifty lot when we practiced it the day before. but low and behold, the boy made it, running into the terminal, out of breath, at around 6:45. we were happy. this was the high point of the morning.

next is the plane ride to barcelona. nothing really to talk about here. it was only a 2hr20min ride and was pretty uneventful.

we land in barcelona, it is really gorgeous. i'm trying to describe it the best i can but i feel whatever i say will not do justice to the beauty of this place. once we got our car, we headed into the city looking for our hotel. this was alot easier than in Dublin, we found it right away, it was just a straight drive out of the airport, to the bay. our hotel is beautiful, it sits on the oceean, it is where all the large cruise ships dock. we have a view of the ocean and the city. it's almost like looking out of a cruise ship's window when at dock; that's how ocean-y the view is. the hotel overall is very nice, but the bed isn't as good as the dublin hotel's bed. a hotel bed is the MOST important thing to me when staying at a hotel. call me crazy but it always will be the absolute most important thing about the hotel.

once we got into the hotel we went up to our room to quickly hit our reset buttons and then came back down into the city to get some food. by the way, our hotel is not only on the ocean but it is literally a 4-5min walk from the busiest part of barcelona (or that's what i've heard), La Rambla. it's a very large, wide street that goes on for about maybe a mile of on-street entertainment, restaurants and shops. we had shwarma sandwiches for lunch, but it was the bad kind of shwarma, where the beef is just one big chunk like ground beef on the spit. i like it when the beef is actual pieces of beef wen it is cut off the spit, not when they shave it off with that electric tool and the beef comes off like strips of paper. but whatever, it wasn't so bad. i've been seeing sharma places alot in dublin and here so i figured i'd try them out. nothing special. my bro is having the real experience with the shwarma probably as i'm writing this, which i am envious of (that stuff is god sent). ok, enough about the shwarma.

so we're walking down the street and watching shows and being entertained, and we come across a guy doing that "hide the ball under the cup" game, and people are gambling with him to see if they can find the ball. so he puts the ball under one of three little boxes he has on the ground, then he starts swirling them around like a maniac. he was actually quite skillful because he not only swirled them around and mixed them up, but at some points during the game he would actually QUICKLY slide the little ball from under one box to a DIFFERENT box, and he did this so quickly that i really appreciated the skill he had in it. also, i could tell there were a few people in the audience helping him out to find fresh meat to take money from. there were two other men and a woman that seemed to be "helping" him but pretending to be part of the audience like we were. they would play and win money from the guy, they would always guess the location of the ball but then when they had someone else form the audience put up 50Euro to try, he/she just couldn't find the ball. the street artist was very tricky...after you picked the box you thought the ball was under, he'd ask you to put your foot on the box and hold it there while you show him your money to prove that you can pay him if you're wrong. after you show him the money, he asks you to lift your foot and then moves the location of the box you originally chose and only then asks you if you're sure of your choice. it's this last switch that always got the people from what i could see.
for example, he has the ball under box 3, but you think it's in the middle (i saw that most people never really knew where the ball was, they only thought they did). so he would purposefully make sure u DON'T know where the ball is. now you think it's in the middle but it's really in the 3rd box. before he asks you if you're sure, he switches the 3rd box (where the ball really is) with the position of the middle box. now the ball is in the middle box, but you think it's now in the 3rd. so when you choose middle originally, he does this switch and takes the middle to the 3rd and then points to the middle box asking you if that was your final decision. of course people notice him switching the position of the boxes and so they must tell him that now it's the 3rd box, not the middle box. if people didn't correct him and just let him turn over the middle box after the switch they would find the ball. but since they think they know where the ball is, they always switched their final decision to the 3rd, which was their original "middle", which is not where the ball is. so he is openly "tricking" you in a way that you will notice and think you got the better of him. but he knows that you will notice the fake "trick" and switch your decision.

unfortunately, chris was a victim of this guy's. one of his helpers pretending to be part of the audience grabbed chris' arm and pulled him into the middle of the circle and asked chris where he thought the ball was. chris pointed to the one he "knew" it was and they asked him to show 50Euro to make sure he can play. the whole time i was watching this i wanted to tell chris not to give them a dime because i KNOW that they know something we don't and this is how this guy makes a living, so he will for sure take chris' money. sure enough, he did the trick on chris. the ball was in the 3rd, but looked like it was in the middle. so chris picked middle, then put his foot there to hold it while showing them 50Euro. then he lifted his foot and the guy did a quick switch and then points to the middle box as if implying to chris "are you sure this is the one you want to turn over?", but chris saw the "switch" and said "no, the 3rd, you switched them". of course if chris had turned over the middle box now he would be a winner, but he "corrected" the guy and made his decision on the 3rd box, saw that it was empty, and a 50Euro bill fled his pocket in the blink of an eye. they did it SO quickly that you don't even have time to calculate or understand what happened and if you really lost or not. they are VERY VERY aggressive here. i could tell that it's hard for people to say "NO!" when they pull you in the middle like they did with chris, but they do it so quickly and forcefully that many people just go along with it.

anyway, i told him later this is what the guy does for a living and that it's almost obvious that they would take everyone's money, but now chris hates the spaniards. he'll get over it.

the aggressive demeanor manifested by most of the people here remind me of being in Israel. the sort of "quickly, quickly, don't worry, just do it" rapidity that confuses tourists and makes them feel they have no time to think for themselves (and just give up and do what these locals want them to do) is very characteristic of Israel. its' actually quite a technique if you've ever fallen victim to its lure. When someone in a country you're not familiar with "knows" what to do and makes it look like you're only dragging things on and making people wait by trying to figure it out on your own tell you to "hurry, hurry, it's ok, just go, no problem" and even gives you a semi-forceful nudge, it is quite hard to resist and figure things out on your own. so, if they want to take advantage of a tourist in that moment, they've definitely figured out the best way to do so. i'm sure many people reading this have fallen victim to what i'm talking about and got ripped off in one way or another.

next on the street we saw some dancing/flipping/jumping street performers. this was LIKE 3rd street promenade but ALOT better. the crowd was alot larger, and the guys really were better skilled than the kind you usually find on the promenade.

so anyway, long story short (or extra long), this seems like a place to have your hands on your purse/wallet at all times, which i've been doing. the place just gives off that vibe of "watch your shit or it'll be gone next time you check". too bad those vibes are messing with a persian jew who knows the ropes, lol.

ok...this has been the longest post yet, and i'm quite tired. writing these posts has become quite exhausting but i guess a good amount of people are signing on to read so i'll keep it up. i don't know what we'll do tonight, so i guess you'll read about that tomorrow.

adios...

ps - the spanish here is NOTHING like how its spoken in Mexico. it sound alot more "Italian" here and it's spoken alot quicker. it's actually very different from spanish spoken in mexico, or by mexicans, but you slowly get used to it. also, this is one of the few places i've been to that finding someone who speaks english (even at the airport/hotel/rental car agency) is pretty rare.

dublin day 5

this morning me and chris were awaken by a very loud fire alarm in our hotel (reminds me of a similar story from vegas)...

as soon as the alarm sounded we both woke up (as it was very very loud) and chris jumped out of bed like a chicken without a head, running around, opening the door to the room, panicking, which i have to say made me laugh (even while the alarm was ringing). as it was sounding we didn't know it was an alarm; at first i thought it was the radio (you have to remember, i JUST woke up, so i was still half asleep), so i unplugged the radio and the alarm stopped, which made me think it was the radio. later i called the lobby and asked (because chris told me the sound was coming from outside the room as well, which made me think twice about the "radio" idea), and they told me they were testing the fire alarm but the announcement didn't come through on the PA system. anyway, it wasn't a pleasant way to wake up.

today we went to the Guinness Storehouse, which is where all the Guinness beer is made here. it is a HUGE brewery, and the tour was actually lots of fun. there is a new brew of Guinness beer coming out called North Star, and i thought it was the best tasting beer i'd ever had in my life (i even say that in the video we took of us tasting it). after we got our free pint of beer, we had lunch there in their cafe and then went down to the store where chris bought some souvenirs.

then we practiced how to get from the hotel to the airport so that we don't get lost tomorrow (since we have to wake up at 4:30 am). we didn't want any problems that early in the morning.

i guess that's Dublin's closing.

dublin, day 4

today we went to a city by the name of KILKENNY. this was the city everyone said was a party town, but it really wasn't worth the approx. 1 hr drive. just a few blocks of shops, nothing special, been there done that. we had lunch and went to the castle there, called kilkenny castle. if you've ever been to a castle in europe (let's take the versailles palace), then you won't really appreciate kilkenny castle, because it could fit in versaille's foyer. luckily we got the tour for free because we met the tourguides last night in the club/pub. so ya, kilkenny was nothing special and not worth the trip, and the castle there is also nothing to rave about.



last night we went to a club/pub and met the tourguides of the kilkenny castle there. what's interesting was that the music at the club was SOOOO different from what we're used to. it was like oldies/80's music and the guys and girls danced the same. when we go to clubs in the US the guys dance different from the girls, but the dancing here by the guys was extremely effeminate, as in they would bounce around exactly the same as the girls. just an interesting observation. it was definitely weird dancing to their music; we felt a little out of place.

tomorrow we're supposed to go to the Guinness factory for a tour that chris already reserved us online before we even arrived in dublin, and the day after we are to leave for barcelona at 7am (not looking forward to that flight time).

will update soon...

dublin day 2/3

dublin day 2-
on sunday we went to a city called Galway. it's a cool city filled with young people and it's center looks like a big third st. promenade. we had some lunch and watched a little street show of guys doing flips...(3rd st.'s shows are better)...however, the amount of ppl here and the amount of stores (not to mention the sheer concentration and density of stores) is just phenomenal...you definitely need AT LEAST a full day just to walk the entire area and quench any curiosities you may have about it.

the weather here really sucks. worst i've ever seen anywhere in my life. it's always raining. if it's not raining it starts in about 5min. we were listening to the radio in the car on the way there and the DJ was talking about how it's such a gorgeous day...me and chris looked at each other like he was crazy. there was maybe a tiny patch of blue that you could see in the air, and the rest was just the thickest, blackest clouds you've ever seen. the only bright side to that is that you see many rainbows during the day. but i want good weather, not a freakin' rainbow; what am i gonna do with a rainbow?!

the other good thing about this place is that it is EXTREMELY green. i'd say more than 90% of the country is just empty land or farm land, forest, etc... and it's just really beautiful and very very lush.

DAY 3-
today (monday) we went to a city called Cork, and it's almost like Galway but not as "happening", however it is much bigger. more stores and less pubs, but less catered toward the young crowd and more toward just the general public, so it's not quite the same. although, still worth driving to. if you're curious about how far each of these places are to/from our hotel, it's like driving from LA to SD for the day and back.

lots and lots of rain today (which is completely normal here).

overall, i'd say ireland is a place you should come to once in your life, go see what you want to see and you don't really need to come back. kinda like england, but alot cleaner. it is really clean here in the countryside, and much nicer than england's countryside.

taste of dublin

we got to dublin, got our baggage and went to the car rental place. there was lots of drama there with the reservation and some problems but we got through them and got our car...we finally found our hotel after 1-2 hours of driving around and asking people for directions, but we're here now.

im sitting on my bed writing this post, it's 3:45pm and we are going to go eat lunch soon (more like dinner, though).

i will update soon.
-roni

plane ride to dublin

As I’m writing this I’m sitting in the airplane on my way to Dublin, Ireland (of course this is copied/pasted as I don’t have internet access on an airplane). It’s about 12:20am, Los Angeles time, and outside the window of the plane is the break of dawn (it’s 8:20 am Dublin time, but we won’t be in Dublin for another 3 hours, so I’m actually not sure exactly what time it is where we are at this moment, but f I had to guess it looks like it’s 7:30am).

For the people who know me well enough, you know I didn’t sleep on the plane like every other damn person did (such jealousy I have for those easy sleepers), so I had to resort to other methods of entertainment. I busted out the laptop and actually started the continuation of my so-called Hollywood blockbuster script that some of you may know about. I wrote about 1 page in it, and I got stuck on making up a new character’s name, so I saved the file and started writing this blog entry that I will later copy and paste onto my blog for all my eager readers (don’t lie…you know you want it).

Chris didn’t sleep either, actually (he’s my friend, who I’m going to enjoy my 3-week pre-MBA-study-continuation vacation with, and will be coming back to LA the same day I make my short train ride to St. Gallen and settle into my new place that I haven’t confirmed yet (fun times). We look at each other every 2min and jus smile…and then that makes me laugh, because Chris is comedy like that, especially when he isn’t even trying.

The plane also has a cool entertainment system with a bunch of on-demand videos and some games (it’s a new Airbus 330 aircraft) but to be honest the games sucked, except for battleship which me and Chris played against each other and woke a couple angry passengers up (you know how competition + testosterone can get). As for the movies and tv shows, I could only get through one episode of Frazier, which I admit was very funny, but I couldn’t get through a movie (we started “No Vacancy” with Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale, but it sucked within the first 10min so we shut it off). All the plane rides OUT of Dublin have “Spiderman 3” on their on-demand video list…that’s what I would have liked to watch.

Ok I’ve droned on enough. Next update should be some time in Dublin, so y’all come back now.

-roni

ps – dinner on the plane was chicken w/rice and vegetables, which I must say was damn delicious for airplane food, but rather oily (which annoyed me a little).