Quick Update...

We made it Stuttgart yesterday night and met up with Pete. He took us out in town with some local friends of his. He lived here for a summer so he knows the place pretty well. We are spending the night here again tonight and then heading to a town outside of Salzbourgtomorrow to do some hiking. Still enjoying everything and staying REAL busy.

We went to a bunch of museums in Amsterdam and Den Haag over the last couple of days. The highlight was probably the Van Gogh museum. It told his life story very well and I ws suprised how little I had known of the details.

Maybe someday I will find internet where I can download some pictures. Look forward to those!

Cheers, let me know if anything is new in CT,
Eric

Just letting you know we are still alright

As the title says...

We are headed to the Netherlands tonight and should be meeting up with Pete later in the week. He is going to be our guide through Germany. Hope everything has been well. Leave a note to say hi.

Eric

Update...

Just want to leave a quick note to let you know that we are here. Went on a GREAT hike today. Basiically went up the mountain next to the one that the tram is on. Can't find anywhere to download my pictures, but I'd bet they look just like those ones that I put up before. It is an incredibly nice place. It seems Scandinavia in general has some of the happiest people of anywhere I've ever been. Hope everything else is well with you all.

Love, Eric

P.S. Regarding the bungs on the Amistad. I only did what they told me, but since the statute of limitations is over I think I can safely laugh about the fact that every day I would start doing them the way I had been told to the day before, then someone would come up to me and tell me to NEVER do them that way, and that other guy doesn't know anything. So, I guess the good news is that it hasn't sunk yet. Right?

Headed to Bergen, Norway...

Today we're getting on a train to Oslo and will be spending the night there before heading to Bergen, Norway. Why? Because it looks great and is highly recommended, is 'one of the most scenic train rides in the world', (and we had trouble finding a hostel in Copenhagen for the weekend). Wish us luck.

New Pictures in the Gallery

I have finally been able to get up most of the pictures into the photo gallery. Check them out when you get a chance.

Staying put in Gustavsberg

Wouldn't you?

So Sweden is a great place. I got a great shot of the sun 'rising' about an hour after I had that shot of the sun 'setting' and you can see what such a beautiful place this is. Kevin's friends are being wonderful hosts and hooked us up with our own little cabin along the water.

In the morning we headed into Stockholm again and went and saw a really neat museum which is built around a ship called the Vasa. This ship sank on its maiden voyage out of Stockholm Harbor. It is 350 years old and VERY well preserved. It was badly designed so that the many cannons on board actually made the ship top heavy.

About 25 people died in the accident.

After that I went for a swim in the Baltic Sea! It was cold but I enjoyed the swim for sure. Here are a couple other pics to enjoy.

A longer post... and maybe pictures?

Well I'd like to type a lot this time (free internet will do that, despite it being REALLY late) so here goes...

I left off getting into Ireland I believe. I'll overlap the stories a bit here.

Well, alot has happened since then! After arriving in Dublin airport I got my bags and made it through customs and immigration and all of that. No big deal. I then started to check out how I am going to get around and even start to decide where I want to go. After some research I decide that the best option was a three day pass I had to use on the tour bus and the other commuter busses for three days. I took the bus into Dublin on this and decided to just hop right on the tour bus to get the lay of things. I ended up taking it around in the circle two full times. Since it was a different driver I heard different stories each time. After that I decided it was time to find my hostel and make sure I had a place to stay that night. I soon did and after taking a shower met a few guys that I went out to a pub with for food and a few beers. We saw a real gritty traditional irish band and I really enjoyed that. There was also a great charachter there. He was really drunk and was dancing and telling sotries to anyone that will listen. I can say more on that but will have to add it later when I have time (it's getting late and he probably deserves his own post anyway).

The next day I headed out on my own and walked through Trinity College, saw the Oscar Wilde monument, went through the enitire National Gallery, which had some real neat paintings and a focus on Irish artists, saw the Old Guiness Factory, which is a vry well done museum and they give you a pint on the top floor in a 360 degree glass room with a view of all of Dublin. Then I was getting some potato salad for dinner in a small grocery store when I met another guy having issues with getting the label to print out. We ended up going out to a random pub (Dublin has over 800!) and saw another GREAT traditional band. He was from the US, but currently is owkring and living in Madrid. Hopefully I'll be able to stay with some of his friends in Madrid too! Nice people are everywhere.

The next day I took a tour of DUblin castle, which had some unique stories, looked around some more of the parks in Dublin, saw some manuscripts from Da Vinci that shared some very revolutionary thoughts in water, which was neat to me considering my studies have been in that area. I took a late train to rains are great! Let's see if I'm still saying that in a few weeks, but they are spacious, smooth and scenic.

I took a quick bus out to Blarney the next day and walked ALL around the grounds and in the castle there. I even kissed a stone that had been kissed so many times that it was actually worn down from it. I don't think too much is gross, but that was up there. Gave it a wet one too. This was a very interesting place and I soent almost 5 hours just enjoying myself around the countryside there, even though it was a pretty nasty day. Just wonderful history all over there though. That night I met up with some more people staying in my hostel and went out for pizza and "just one drink" with them. We stayed out until 2. One guy I met was from Ireland and was staying in Cork just for the night because he had a test the next morning. He was the one who convinced me to stay out later! The Irish are great fun all around. He told me he will never kiss the Blarney stone because 'that things been aorund for hundreds of years, and I'm telling you, they having jsut been kissing it for all those years'. I met a bunch of other people out that night too.

The next day I took a mornign bus ride up to Galway and enjoyed classic Irish scenery the whole way there. I wanted to take a bus to see the cliffs of Moher, but missed the tour by and hour and was "stuck" in Galway for the day. There were great street performers everywhere, great ocean scenery, and lots of food, so I lived it up and had to catch a train back to Dublin to get the flight to Stockholm the next day. The original plan had been to enjoy another night in the pubs before taking an early bus over to the airport. For some reaosn the earliest bus didn't even leave Dublin until an hour before my flight so I ended up going to the airport later that night and sleeping on a nice comfy couch there. Bad sleep, but could have been worse? Right? I wasn't alone by any means though. THere must have been at least a hundred other people there with the same problem as me. I'd even venture to call it a good time as well. It was only a short flight over to Stockholm and another bus ride to actually get to the city center.

From here I was able to find where my hostel was on a map and made it there my first shot. I was impressed because the words in Swedish are all very complicated and don't sound like anything in english. It was not so bad though, because most people speak English as well. I suppose only being able to communicate with other Swedes must not be ideal. It is a winderfully pituresque city. It was a cloudy day but soon I met up with Kev, we grabbed dinner and called it a night early.

Today we walked to the "old town" on a little island in sotckholm and researched what else we wanted to do and took in most of the sights. We eventually made it out to Kev friend's house and made plans for the next couple of days. In order to not be embarassed by how those never seem to quite happen I will fill you in after :-) Check this out! We are high enough North that the sun never fully sets.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed those quick stories! I'm trying to get more pictures up. Internet can be REALLY expensive and hard to use. Love, Eric

In Stockholm

I spent a couple of more days in Dublin. That was enough time to see a few more traditional Irish bands, see their national art gallery, the Guiness brewery, and Dublin Castle. From there I went to Cork and saw Blarney Castle and kissed the stone and headed up to Galway the next day and then back to Dublin. I will fill in more details later. Just wanted to let you know that I made it to Stockholm today and met up with Ferzoco. Tomorrow we are going to check out the city and meet up with his friend who is visiting his step mom here. Seeya!

Canada, North Cascades National Park, London (a little), and Dublin

I left Seattle the next day and began driving. My hands lead me North and I eventually ended up in Canada. I spent a little time in Vancouver, but nothing caught my interest. It was a rainy day as well, so I wasn't in the mood for walking around the city. I hopped back on the road and within and hour I was in Squamish. This is a cool little town at the end of an inlet. The drive out there follows the water along a cliff face and is known as the Sea to Sky Highway, or something like that. It is well named as it eventually ends up at Whistler. There are mountains all around it and the most striking of all is a cliff face called the Stawamus Chief. It is well known for it rock climbing and that may have had something to do with my attration to seeing it, maybe. I decided to take a jog to the summit and the clouds bagan to lift just in time to get an incredible view of the valley. No pictures from this hike because I ran out of batteries, but here are a few.
I spent the night in a campsite right under the chief and got up early to head back to the US. This is a view from the highway.

Since I still had a bunch of time I decided to take a detour out to North Cascades National Park on a scenic highway. It was VERY scenic. Once again, there were some low lying clouds, but they just gave the views a different eerie feeling. It sure made me want to go climb these!

From there I continued on to the airport and a long flight, that went suprisingly fast, later I was in London. It was about 10:00 pm local time so I just made my way to the hostel for the night and woke up early to make my way to London Stansted airport to get a flight to Dublin! This is the main street.

I took the tour bus around Dublin, twice, to get my bearings. Last night I went out to a traditional irish bar (they call them a trad bar) with some guys I met at the hostel, had some Guinness, and saw some local band playing. Really fun.

Made it to London

Just wanted to let you know :-)

Wandering until my flight to Dublin, which leaves tomorrow.

Love,
Eric

Seeing Seattle

I flew out to Seattle airport early Wednesday morning. After a quick shower I went over to the conference and caught up with a bunch of people I have worked with over the last few summers and I fell asleep soon after that.

I gave a presentation about the postdoc position I have taken in RI, took a tour of the facility where the conference was held, and now have until Sunday night to enjoy the area. Alan Burke and I then left for Olympic National Park. What a place! We went in through the Hurricane ridge entrance and, after enduring some pretty heavy fog on the windy road up, ended up with this view:

With places to be we soon turned around and headed back to Seattle. I got in touch with friends I knew from last summer, had a few beers in Seattle, and called it a night. Oh, but did we have plans!

We were up early, but did not get moving on the road until about 10am. The plan was to drive entirely around Olympic Nat. Park and check out a couple of the visitor centers. Heading South from Seattle we passed through Tacoma and then headed west until we got to Aberdeen on the coast. It would be over an hour until we were treated to this view of the approaching mountains:

a little further down the road:
Soon after this the road began to follow the beach. We stopped at one entrance and stayed for about an hour.

a whale jaw:and a bald eagle!I could see the mist rising right off of the ocean. This, combined with the mountains which quickly chill and decompress the air, leads to over 240 inches of rain a year on the western side of the Olympic range. Because the temperature is also quite stable year round, despite the latitude and the fact that there are actually glaciers starting at about 7000 feet, there are actually three distinct temperate rain forests in the park. The only rain forests in North America. We stopped at the Hoh rain forest and took a walk through a couple of loops.

we saw a herd of about 10 elk:We made it back to the northern part of the park just in time to check out Hurricane Ridge again. It was just as beautiful and striking, but much different from the day before.

this is the view west from the top of ridge, all I could see the day before was white:

2 Months between posts!

OK, If there is anyone who checks this thing I apologize for not having an update in 2 months. I hope to more than make up for that though in the next couple of months. Stay tuned!