"Shooting the Moon"

Shooting the moon is a term used in the game of Hearts for when a player collects all the possible points in a round thereby giving all other players 26 points and him or herself none. (Points are bad) When playing with a group of experienced people, it can be rather difficult to do. It is not a strategy to be attempted by novices.

A new definition for this term has recently be coined. As many of you know Jonathan is notorious for having LDZ. For those of you who do not know what this stands for, its the acronym of the Chinese word for diahrrea. In each and every country, Jonathan has contracted LDZ and we can thus say that he has successfully "shot the moon" -- an impressive feat.

It is important to note however, that all of them were natural except for the last, which must be asterisked. Jon has slowly and surely been building up his lactose tolerance throughout the trip with regular doses of milk and dairy throughout the trip so it looke like Spain (our last country) was going to be a bust. We therefore went to the supermarket and purchased 2 liters of milk. That did the trick nicely.

Sorry for the crude nature of this entry. Also sincerest apologies for the lack of picture updates. Its difficult to find computers with available usb ports that we can access our pictures from. We'll be happy to show you all pictures upon our return.

Anyhow, a little about our trip. We are currently in Barcelona, Spain - our last stop before heading back to Paris and back to California. It's a really nice city and we've been enjoying the sun and sandy beaches here. I've developed quite a nice tan. So I'm quite a bit darker now than I was before. Sadly, sleeping on the beach has also resulted in a sunglass tan. I'm going to work on getting rid of that before heading back. Who said chilling on the beach was easy work? You have to regularly turn over, etc. I'd way rather be studying for midterms or something. HAHA ok sorry, I couldn't help myself. Really though, I hope you're all doing well and enjoying spring quarter. Only a couple days left in Europe! Can't wait to be back and see you all.

ugh you guys make me sick

sorry for the double post you little babies. yuck.

mi scuzzi!

italy!

so, even before we got here... something happpened. of course. something kind of sick, but probably underwhelming if youàre expecting a herculean incident. if you will.

also, the keyboards are off here, so youàll see some weird letters sometimes.

since we decided to skip venice, we had about a 14 hour train ride from vienna ( or wein, as its supposed to be called. heh heh.. . . heh) , and we got a compartment with two grotesque old german ladies. crones, if you will. and you should. will, that is.

the seating arrangementç dave and i across from each other, and the crones were sitting next to us, each facing the other. the one sitting next to me was so fat that her boobs were indistinguishable from the rest of her body. that is, you couldnàt tell which partition was boob territory. anyways, they stunk and blew their noses and coughed and hacked up i donàt know how many replaced lungs, but it was sick. oh, it was really fun when they talked too, since their german was the kind of gutteral, slimy, gurgling type... kind of like one of them boiling cesspool, if you know what iàm saying.

dave got the best of it though, since when they thought he was fully asleep, the one next to me decided to put her feet up between the other one and dave. the other one made passing attempts to try to fence in the variously wounded, rank, and varicose feet from touching dave... but not really. so they kind of migrated slowly now and again.

dave, not being asleep, shifted immediately after foot placement. it was funny because his entire body was pointing away, and he almost looked uncomfortable. anyways, they eventually went down when she had to waddle her huge load of a corpse to the disgusting bathroom that was just a hole down onto the tracks, but he got enough of that. he told me afterwards that if she did that a second time he would have swatted her feet down. whapishhh!

anyway... dave was mean, cuz when they left we had to help them take their luggage from the top shelf of our cab, and one small luggage thing kind of grazed my head and maybe hit her, and he said he wished it had bashed her in the head. what a meanie poo =(

ok, times up, haha... i guess that was our pre rome post, even though weàre leaving here tomorrow morning at 730ù

its ok rome wasnt that great, just a few cool sights... the vatican was maaaaybe better than DCCC by a little bit, but whatevs.

chinese peepol! white peepol! every peepol!

mi scuzzi!

italy!

so, even before we got here... something happpened. of course. something kind of sick, but probably underwhelming if youàre expecting a herculean incident. if you will.

also, the keyboards are off here, so youàll see some weird letters sometimes.

since we decided to skip venice, we had about a 14 hour train ride from vienna ( or wein, as its supposed to be called. heh heh.. . . heh) , and we got a compartment with two grotesque old german ladies. crones, if you will. and you should. will, that is.

the seating arrangementç dave and i across from each other, and the crones were sitting next to us, each facing the other. the one sitting next to me was so fat that her boobs were indistinguishable from the rest of her body. that is, you couldnàt tell which partition was boob territory. anyways, they stunk and blew their noses and coughed and hacked up i donàt know how many replaced lungs, but it was sick. oh, it was really fun when they talked too, since their german was the kind of gutteral, slimy, gurgling type... kind of like one of them boiling cesspool, if you know what iàm saying.

dave got the best of it though, since when they thought he was fully asleep, the one next to me decided to put her feet up between the other one and dave. the other one made passing attempts to try to fence in the variously wounded, rank, and varicose feet from touching dave... but not really. so they kind of migrated slowly now and again.

dave, not being asleep, shifted immediately after foot placement. it was funny because his entire body was pointing away, and he almost looked uncomfortable. anyways, they eventually went down when she had to waddle her huge load of a corpse to the disgusting bathroom that was just a hole down onto the tracks, but he got enough of that. he told me afterwards that if she did that a second time he would have swatted her feet down. whapishhh!

anyway... dave was mean, cuz when they left we had to help them take their luggage from the top shelf of our cab, and one small luggage thing kind of grazed my head and maybe hit her, and he said he wished it had bashed her in the head. what a meanie poo =(

ok, times up, haha... i guess that was our pre rome post, even though weàre leaving here tomorrow morning at 730ù

its ok rome wasnt that great, just a few cool sights... the vatican was maaaaybe better than DCCC by a little bit, but whatevs.

chinese peepol! white peepol! every peepol!

pizzle and poozle

our last night in prague :<

i've come to like this town... even though its a poorer country, and thus seems scarier at first, everyone here is really friendly and its a great place. sorry everyone for the lack of updates.... this one'll have to be a quickie too, unfortunately.

prague has a lot of history... castles and churches are beautiful! we toured around a lot, saw a lot.

i also have a notebook, and i always write down when dave is being bad and/or ridiculous. ask me about it when i get back.

so until next time ....

peace on the outside!

random thoughts

-leaving prague tomorrow morning-->venice!
-ok so i just checked the northstar website and saw that its snowing! that means i'll probably be able to catch some snow when i get back and before the season ends. anyone down to go up with me in april?
-i haven't taken a shower with soap yet this trip.
-my hair is starting to get really long and puffy.
-my feet stink. can't wait to be able to wear sandles in italy where the weather is super nice right now.
-czech food is really good.
-jon and i commented on some of the comments
-most likey no internet in italy, its super expensive there

happy easter!

ok so most of our posts have been pretty ridiculous so here is something that will hopefully be a little bit more substantial.

happy easter from the medium far east side, prauge! we kicked it off late last night at a midnightish mass at a big cathedral near our hostel. i say midnightish because it was actually at around 10. maybe this is a normal time for mass on a saturday, but since i do not know the catholic tradition nor speak czech, i didnt really know what was going on. the acoustics in there are pretty awesome so a lot of the choir singing was pretty awesome. it was pretty crowded in there so jon and i stood all the way in the back. we were kind of choking cause we didnt know what was goign on. when the priest dude came by to splash everyone with water (holy?) he totallhy missed jon and barely missed me. maybe because we werent holding the lit candles that everyone else was. we finally left a little early cause we were just totally lost and really tired from standing and walking all day. if anyone knows more about mass, please feel free to edumacate me. overall it was a neat experience but definetly not my preferred style of worship.

this morning we went to a local baptist church that a dude at our hostel told us about. we went first to the local service at 10:00 which was purely in czech. it was a smaller congregation and as we were waiting for service to start the pastor came and chatted with us for a little bit as he spoke some english. friendly dude. during the service i was just trying to take in their traditions and i was praying that i might be able to understand some of it or that the spirit my kinda enlighten me as to what was being said. kind of like hearing in tounges or something like that. anyhow, it wasnt long until during a song, the paster called up this woman and told her something. she walked up the aisle and out the doors. then a few seconds later an english speaking guy came up in the row behind us and asked us if we needed translation. anyways, i thought that was pretty cool.

we left this service a little early and went to join the international congregation that happens to meet in that church as well. it was really cool to be able to worship with them and sing familiar songs, as well as being able to see a body of believers from 25-30 different countries all in the same room. i was totally feeling the spirit as i worshipped with them. i think its also been a little while since i've been to church so i've kind of been missing it. we even had the privillige to hear the testimonies of a couple people who were to be baptized after service. good times.

i hope you're all doing well back home and had a good easter.
until next time, this is dave signing out and telling you to eat more deep fried foods!

ps: right after the last service, jon partook of the ketchup which he gave up during lent. we bought a big bottle of it at the supermarket yesterday in preparation for this day.

praHA

this is how you spell prague. besides, in old country, you do not spell the word. word spells YOU!

it was actually kind of creepy when we first got into praha. it was around... 11ish, and as soon as we stepped off onto the platform, we started getting asked if we "need some accomodations?" this made getting our bearings very difficult, particularly since the various peddlers we passed started getting more aggressive as we got closer to the station exit, not to mention the few that cursed at us when we said no and/or ignored them.

in any case, as we exited central station, the first thing we saw were huge soviet style buildings. and a sort of run down park, with all the accoutrements... ie battered playgrounds, odd folk and the like. oh, and also a broken car in the median of the street. so when i say old country, i mean old country. needless to say, the walk we had through that park was kiiind of eerie.

when we got to the first hostel, it was full... as mentioned earlier, easter = booked. we didn't end up staying in the lobby of the hostel though, we found a hotel (kind of expensive for praha standards), which we checked into at around 330 AM. since we were to eager beaver we thought that our check in would be for that entire day and this night (sat night) ... but neeeeewwwwp.... chased out at noon. grump to the frump :< today we spent the day wandering around. bleh... i'm tired of writing. i must be fueled by comments, which apparently i aM NoT getTing FFFFFFery much oVV.

pic pic pic a chu!

In front of the Weiffel tower. Wolverine!
Making a deck of playing cards from really small notebook paper. Yey!
Self explanatory.
Again, self explanatory.
This is the ticket that the big black ladies 'checked' for me. I got little heart shaped hole punches in it. beh?

Well, that's that... there are a lot more pictures, with a lot more silliness, but they'll have to be uploaded later. Or probably just shown at discretion to select audiences, we'll see.

Right now we're in Prague, with no hotel or hostel to stay in, since it is Easter vacation. Apparently a very big travelling holiday. So we're going to stay in a lobby for tonight, and maybe find accomodations tomorrow. Sigh.

beruz is being bad

amsterdam was immediately very chill. this was reflected in the disorginazation and not caringness of cleanliness. dave has said much already. but the fullness of the story has not yet been told.

ok first of all, i had to delay writing this post because dave wanted me to look up a pokemon faq so he could beat his stupid game boy game that he brought along. what an iiiiiiiiiiidiot.

ok so the details dave missed about amsterdam:

on that fateful night, i said i had no idea where we were going, so dave could lead the way. i was like, dude dave, i have noooo idea where we are. dave was like dude i got this one, don't worry man... i know exactly where to go. so i was like ok dave, full power dude.

we started getting into a really busy area with a lot of bars and people running around, when all of a sudden the lighting started getting dimmer and with longer wavelengths. dave says this is a nerdy statement, but this is only because he doesn't know that longer wavelengths means red lights. he likes to discredit that which he does not understand.

then dave was like "oh mah oh mah oh mah" as the ladies beckoned him from the opening doorways. you can ask him about his almost willingness later.

munich post next.

zussamen :(

the pics are trying to be uploaded, they should be up soon. this is the PG version, just so everyone knows.

prost!

for those of you who do not yet know , prost is how you say toast. i know its been a while, but updating has been difficult at times. a lot of computers here randomly dont like to load blogspot. so i'll just give you a quick update and hopefully throw in some photos soon. we were finally able to upload some of the pictures off the camera onto this computer.

after leaving paris we ended up in amsterdam. it was a nice city even though jon and i didn't partake in the marijana. i guess that's the big thing to do here, so we mostly wandered the city. its quite picturesque and a little surreal to see buildings and small villages in the country side that seem to have come out of your old history text books. we stayed in this little hostel called bob's youth hostel. smoking was allowed in the lounge so there was a constant thick haze of marijana smoke in the air. i hope i didn't get a second hand high. that might screw things up for a drug test back in the states. (oh i got the job with FM Global, so it looks like i'll be moving to the walnut creek area) jon constantly peed in the streets. in allies, on walls, in the street. its the thing to do there. apparently taking fat dookies in the street is ok as well as we saw a few of those. in our wanderings, we also got lost several times and ended up wandering into the red light district. i had to cover jons eyes as i navigated peeking through my fingers. its a pretty bizzare place. there are prostitues standing in windows with red and black lights. and as you walk by they open their doors and invite you in. oh we also tried absenthe there. you know, the famed drink that is banned in the US and is supposed to make u hallucinate. we didn't hallucinate (unfortunately...) and the drink was actually quite tasty. i think it reminded me of basil, despite being 70% alcohol.

we are currently in munich. its a nice place and the cheapest in terms of food and hostels so far. as of yet, couch surfing has failed. hopefully we'll be able to get that going, or do some camping outside. right now its too cold for that though as it snowed quite a bit last night. greek food (falafels, shwarma) seem to be the universal food here. like mexican is to ameria. there are probably like at least 2 on every block. tasty though. today jon and i broke up. it was sad. he said things that he didnt mean and i said things i didnt mean and we parted ways. just kidding. but we did do different things. he went to this sucky museum somewhere that he said was pretty boring and i went to go see niewshenstein (sp?) castle. its the castle that the disney castle is based off of, and the one in chitty chitty bang bang if you've seen that. the snow made all the scenery pretty but it was a bit foggy.

tomorrow we're going to go check out dachau, the concentration camp near by and then party it up at night on a beer and food tour of the city. ok jon wants to make his own post to counter mine. his will include some fotographen!

-d

Finally Here

First off, we're on a stupid connection right now that is goign to time out in 4 minutes so we'll see how far we get.

after a turbluent 48 hours,

3/28
went to the airpot in sfo. our flight got delayed and we missed our connecting flight in chicago which would have taken us to paris by 30 minutes. apparently they only have one flight in a blue moon going out of there so we were rerouted to dallas. so we spent the night sleeping on the chairs, doing pushups in the terminal, made cards by hand casue we didnt have our bags, watched eurotrip on jons ipod and jon got harassed by a couple of huge black ladies who wanted to take his pants off and do a cavity search on time. exact words.

3/29
at 950 am we left ohare to dalls fort worth. had a long layover there before flying almost back to chicago on our way to frankfurt. after another short lay over we ended up in paris, about 2 days later than we were supposed to.

blahhh out of time!

edit:
3/29 con't
also, our dinner: for dinner we went to this little bakery type place, it was kind of expensive. for a sandwhich with only ham and a little spread i paid more thatn 7 US. dave and i also asked for water ("without 'air'") and we got 2 bottles of vittel water for 4 euros each (x1.33 for somettafjdal;fj) us each. meh. :( wgatever

we also went to go see the eiffel tower this day. more impressive than expected.. dave did not get to pee on it as all had staked their hopes on. too many troops with FAMAS automatic weapons. dangerous. dave made up a ridiculous dance to try to one up my FF. ok off do amsterdam goodbye out of time again


3/30
today we went to the louvre. one minute after we got in dave made the joke that it was very louvrely inside. i was not impressed. :< we spent awhile there. while i was drawing dave kept trying to sneak up on me and kill me. what does that even mean.

wassup mah nerds?

we're going to europe. hoo-ray. the bags are packed and we're ready to embark on a journey of a life time. we'll try and post regular updates here so be sure to check back often and leave us lots of comments. we like those.
-d