The long hard road to Belgium

Well here I am in Belgium, but many of you are probably wndering
exactly how I got here, well if you really want to know please feel
free to read on, if you don´t really care then read it anyways because
it will enlighten you. (No garentees.)

Well we left off in Freiburg Germany where I was at the edge of the
black forest, if I remember correctly the weather was horrible and I
was doomed to a day inside. After Freiburg I made a series of hops
through the black forest over a couple days, never moving mre then a
handful of kilometers but just attemptng to see as much as I could.

On my fith day of the Black Forest hop I did not know where to go, so
I heqded up to Hiedelburg, a lovely city with an even lovelier ruined
castle and apparently one of the best zoos in Germany, I spent my two
days there getting lost among the hills and te city, Imet a couple
Canadians and that was about it, rather low key, but much more
pleqsent then the empty hostels of te Black Forest I had been staying
in the nights before.

When I made it to Heidelburg I made the discovery tat trans nside
Germany are not cheap, 2 or 3 hour train rides can cost up to 80€. So
Being the cheap traveler tat I am I opted to hitch-hike. After about
an hour and a half of standing in one spot, with a sign that said
"Koblenz" I decided to start walking. With tat my luck changed, I must
not have been walking more then 15 minutes and a car skidded to a halt
beside me, I look up and suddenly I´m being grabbed by a German Police
woman and being thrown in the back of the car, the driver continues to
yell at me while the woman tat grabbed me strugled wit my pack. In
just a few secnds laterwe´re speeding off and I´m trying to explain
that I don´t speak any German, reassuring tem that I am an ignorrant
American tourist. After a bit they pull off the Autobahn and start
asking me questions, such as whether or not I knew the legality of
walking on the highway, surprisingly I didn`t have to bend any truths
while I was talkign to them, and in less ten 5 minutes I was teling
tem about my trip, where I´ve been and where I was going, they thoguht
it was pretty cool, and then directed me to a better spot to stand
with my sign. They let me off with a warning and drove off waving. In
another 15 mins of waiting I had a ride, it was quite nice. This
second ride of the day was a lady who was going to school n
Hiedelburg, but lived north, a bit closer to my destination, we got
talking and in a few mnutes wewere at her house picking up her
daughter, and she was pouring me a cup of coffee. It deases to amaze
me how nice people can be, and I just thought that you realy don´t
hear of this much happening back in the states. I spent a good portion
of the rest of the day makng my way to Koblenz, not as fast as I would
have liked, but pleanty speedy where I didn´t have to think about
camping off the road, which would more ten likely would have been my
second experience with the German police.

Koblenz was a qite lovely city, lots of churces, and it has te Rhine
running through it. Koblenz is also is the point where the Rhine meets
the Mosel. The Hostel, was amazing, although it is up on a hill and
almost a full hours walk from the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) it
is set inside an old War fortress from the begining of the 20th
centry, realy quite neat and as soon as I saw it from the town below I
knew I´d be staying there a day longer then I thought. All and all my
tme tere was pretty good, Imet some people there, one of which I would
later meet up with in Cologne (Maude) and a few other Americans. The
Hostel however was infected with a giant group of small screaming
children, you got used to it but it was still a headache.

After my Fortress stay I moved onto Cologne. Definately a cool city,
it´s a pretty good size and has a good bit of things to do. The first
couple days were extremely low key, pretty much doind what I´d do in
any other city, getting lost and attempting to see museums, on the
second day I hit up the Chocolate Museum where I bought over a klo of
chocolate to send ome to my aunt. The third day was when things got
good. First was that when I woke up, I didn´t have a room for that
night, so me and an Aussie I met there got to sit in the lobby until
rooms opened up due to cancelations and whatnot, we both got lucky in
a matter of hours and then we continued with our day. I met up with
Maude (from Koblenz) and spent most of the day together, I thnk we
closed down the Ludwig museum qfter ' hours there, and then we
wandered about until settlng back down at my hostel for the night. The
night went by pretty fast, Maude and I talked a good bit, with
welcomed interruptons from te random hostel goers, including two full
size rugby teams. Since Maude wasn´t staying at the same Hostel I
walked her back and didn´t get to sleep until 6 in the morning. The
next day I awaken and venture downstairs, the night before I had
talked to the rby players and they invited me and Maude to cme to
watch the rugby tourtoment, I jumped at the opportnity. That mornng
tere were a good number of rugby players milling about, the majority
of them trying to ge rid of their hangovers before the upcoming
matches. I had a bit of time before te bus left for the games so I
cecked to see if there was a room for tat night, to my dismay there
were none, I could hardly worry though and figured tat I´d just get
into one of the rugby rooms that night.

At the Rugby match the teqm discovered that I did infact know how to
play, and in no time I was borrowing some gear from some of the uys
that the night had not treated so well, it had been almost a yeqr
since I had played, but I got in there, and surprisingly didn´t do
half bad. After the matches the team was applauding me and said that I
was more then welcome on anyone of teir floors, and that were ever
they went I would have a place to stay. Getting back to town after the
match I againmet up with Maude, and we had yet another late night. As
for as logding tat night, I didn´t end up in the rugby guys room, It
was so lqte when I got back that I couldn´t easily figure out which
rooms were theirs. I opted to pull out my sleeping bag and sleep in an
empty room that was being remodeled, figuring tat I´d wake up before
the cleaning crew came through and go to Easter Mass. Well "early"
ended up being about 6:15 (giving me a good 2 hours of sleep) when a
cuple of Spaniards finaly got back from teir night of being out. It´s
moents like that when I wis I knew Spanish, just so I could have
figured out if I needed to move or not.

Easter in Germany was surprisingly subtle, really not that much going
on, everything is closed, but being sunday that´s not too much
different. After Mass I moved to Maudes hostel, where I took a nqp on
a wooden bench wile I waited for my bed to be made, it was a lovely
day to do nothing, and that was about the extent of it. Maude and I
explored a bit more, but by the time it got dark I was still exauhsted
from the nights before and was ready to it the hay.

The next day Maude and I made our way to the Hauptbahnhof, where we
split ways. We´ll meet up again in Lubeck (where she lives) in a
couple of weeks but tat was the end of tat adventure. I took a train
to Brussels, with a couple of difficulties, but in the end I was there
safe and sound, and with a decent bed.

And well here I am still, over the last couple days I have been
running around attempting to get my Visas for Cina, Khazakstan, and
Russia. I am having no luck due to awkward hours of operqtion at the
consulates, and it appears I´ll have to leave my Passport here and
come back for it in a week, doable, but bloody annoying.

Well I´ve speant pleanty of time on this update, I sould do it more
often realy...

=Logan, Belgium

P.S. Don´t you feel enlightened?

The Swiss Experience

Well, once again I must apologize for my lack of update, but here it
is, so all you complainers, and people worried about me no longer have
need to lose sleep.

My last update came from the Swiss city of Lucerne, very pleasent and
low key. (You will soon notice that saying it was pleasent is almost
pointless due to the fact that the entirity of Switzerland is
pleasent.)

After Lucerne I took 3 days in Interlaken, it was a good bit of fun. I
met up with some Americans the first night I was there and continued
to have some dinner with them, from there my tree of contacts spread
out and I was never at a loss of someone to play chess with or even
talk to back at the Hostel. On the second day I went sledding with a
guy named Ross. It was really rather entertaining since we got to the
top of a really rather large mountain (it's the alps mind you) and
pretty much didn't know where to go. We talkin to some other Swiss
sledders and then decided to take the ski runs. I'm not much of a
skiier and didn't quite realize that the red and black runs in
Switzerland are the more challenging routes. Anywho I found my self
speeding down a rather steep mountain on a rail sled with very little
controll, going quite a bit faster then I have ever gone before
without aid of a motor and wheels. So yean it was a blast, I believe
the best part was that when you bailed, you did not lose speed but
just kept sliding in a rather hopeless route as you attempt to stay on
the correct side of a cliff. I took a day break in Interlaken after
that mainly to let all my sleding gear dry out.

I made it to a little mountain villiage called Gryon. Absolute,y tiny,
maybe a pop of 500. There I spent my time playing Monopoly with some
Canadians, readin under the alps, and making bread. I was there for a
total of 4 nights, but it was a very nice break from the daily travel
patterns I had become so used to.

From Gryon I headed to the Swiss capital of Bern. By this time
Switzerland had become my favorite country that I've seen and Bern
took the cookie for my favorite City. Just walking around you see a
number of little satues and other things that just make you want to
live there. While in Bern I took a day trip to Geneve and wandered
around in the pounding rain as it tool me 2 hours to find the UN.
After the photo op I looked at some of Geneve's free Museums and
headed back to the capital. During the time here I decided to see how
long I could go without purcahsing food. And thanks to the hostels
free food shelf I made my entire stay in Bern a cheap one. I may have
been eating things that didn't quite represent pancakes, but it was
good.

After the stint in Bern I headed over to the greater Zurich area to
meet up with some Swiss girls I met in Paris over almost 2 months
before, Lara and Natacsha. They were more then happy to let me stay
and I can not even begin to express how much I appriciated it. After a
day there another of the Paris gang, Julian showed up. (The same one
that I ran into in Granda, and lives in Oregon.) So we had a proper
crowd about to hangout with and do some fun things. One of the nights
we ended up in downtown Zurich, when the two girls decided to bind my
legs and wrist with the duct tape the aquired from my book bag. Anywho
after a bit of me wondering the the hell they were doing they stood me
up and I started hoping around town. A good portion of passersby
didn't seem to have too much concern with me, until Julian advised I
hop along about a block ahead of them. So there I am, hands and legs
bound hoping down a rather central street, taking break every few
yards or so. I can hear laughter about 20 yards behind me, when I see
the orange strips of a Swiss police car. As they pulled over I leaned
against the wall and waited. Not knowing what exactly was going to
happen I decided to play the stupid tourist (Hard to do with that much
duct tape all over) Finally Julian and the girls showed up explaining
to the Police it was just a joke, for some reason the po-po didn't
find it nearly as fun as it really was. The next day was actually my
birthday, sobeing in Switzerland with people I actually knew was
actually slightly planned for the event, and it was well worth it.
After the standard of a day the four of us took a walk around for a
bit before settling down next to a lake to roast some good ol' Swiss
'wurst over a raging fire. As the night proceeded the girls
reccomended we go look for a barn of hay to sleep in. Me and Julian
being the Americans we are found this only slightly strage and
suggested we head over into the Zurich city center to celebrate the
rest of my B-day. The girls weren't too sold on our idea and insisted
on the barn. Julian, and I agreed to at least look for a hay filled
barn, thinking that would end the discussion. I found myself laying on
an 8 foot stack of hay bales with Lara, Natascha and Julian, wondering
why I was there, and extremely thankful for the sleeping bag, that
could only keep two of us warm. At 5 we decided it was time to see
when my train to Frieborg Germany was going to leave, so we slowly
mosied in that direction, smelling like hay, hungry, and far from
rested. All and all it was probably the best birthday I've had for
some time, I really couldn't have made it any better.

So now here I am in Frieborg, it feels like I've been here for a few
days noe but really it's only been a day and a half. The weather was
worse then shitty Oregon weather at its best so I spent the majority
of the time inside, packing a package to send back towards home.
Tomorrow I leave, not completely sure where to, but with weather
permitting I'll be thumbing it.

Well thats been the lat two weeks for you, I'm still attempting to
figure out where I'll be durnign the next few weeks, and feel like
it's more then likely it will all be by the seat of my pants, but then
again there has never been anything wrong with that.

=Logan, Germany

P.S. Thank you to all of you that sent my birthday wishes, there were
so many of you this is easier then respnding to each personally, which
I really would love to do if I wasn't under such time constraints.