I'm coming home!

After almost 9 months in France its time to go home. I'm sitting now in an empty apartment where sounds echo off the undecorated walls like a voice in a canyon. As excited as I am for this moment to come and to return back to my life in the states I can honestly say I am sad to leave here. I dont think that it is the French I will miss, or the shops closing at 8:00, or even the yufkas. It is definitely the people that I have met here that make it hard to leave.

Nine months seems so long away from home and a long time to get to know people, but yet its too short of a time to do everything you wish you could or hang out with certain people enough since you won't see them much, if ever again. In the hectic days of packing up and cleaning the 'old apartment' I've tried to schedule as many "rendez-vous" as possible. With 13 hours left in Strasbourg my time is about up. I have a dinner in an hour and then party the night away. I intend to get no sleep tonight as the 8 hour plane ride will suffice!

To my family, see you all in a day!

To my ISU companions, see you in SoCal or back in Strasbourg in a few months.

To the Erasmus students that have too much fun, its been a blast and I hope to see you all in California!

Lastly, to my Italian "groupies". You'll be missed, you've made our time here a lot of fun. I'll be back in September for another hoorah! Bon-S-W-A and Ciao!

Secondary Thoughts From Portugal

You know, Europe is different. In my experiences after church I usually anticipate going out to the lobby or outside the church to visit with the people I don't see in the hustle and bustle of my work day. As I sit at a cafe in Portugal on Easter Morning eating lunch under the shade of a Carlsberg Beer umbrella Easter services have just commenced at the church next door. As I watch the people filter out I notice them heading for isolation. Not because they are not social people, but because the nicotine levels in their blood have reached dangerously lowe levels over the last hour to hour and a half. As I look at the crowd a gray haze develops over the people so brilliantly dressed on this sunny Easter morning. Young and old walk out the door with a cigarette in hand waiting for the first chance to light it up. Its not onlyPortugal, its in Strasbourg coming off the trams and its in nearly every airport I have been to in Europe. As much as the European Union thinks they are doing such great things here, there is one thing they aren't doing very well with - smoking. If you compare the labels of a pack of cigarettes from the US to those from European countries you wonder how Americans smoke less. I'm not sure how smoking can stay popular here and why it is more so than in the States. If my surf board had a label on it saying "Surfing Kills", I'm not sure I'd continue to do it.

Just some food for thought!

Happy Easter From Lisbon - Part II Surfing In Baleal

Part II: Surfing in Baleal

Happy Easter! This year my Easter Sunday was spent on my journey back to Strasbourg. I woke up today to the crashing of waves over the reef outside of my window. As I lay there with my bright red face and raccoon eyes I toyed with the idea of the catching another half hour session before I had to leave. I decided against it as the wind blew the sounds of the waves and brisk morning air into my room. Instead, I laid in bed and reviewed my weekend of surf, Baleal style.

I arrived in Peniche, a small community about 10 minutes from Baleal (a smaller city), by bus. One of the owners of the Surf Castle in Baleal, Joao picked up me up and filled me in on the history of the Surf Castle on our short trip to Baleal. The Surf Castle was converted from his family's summer home over the last year and this was its first weekend in operation. There were 5 of us staying there including a guy from Hawaii (Huls Sage) who was surfing in the Rip Curl Pro competition this weekend. The competition 'headquarters' was on the other side of the Surf Castle's property line and the first spot they wanted to surf was the reef break in front of the Surf Castle. After a bust of a surf day on Friday with small surf and high on shore winds the competition had been cancelled Friday. Once we arrived at the castle I was introduced to the other owner Pedro who put off a TV interview to show me to my place for the weekend. Upon walking in I was introduced to Sage (the pro surfer) and a few local friends of the owners. I threw my bag into my room and we all headed to the beach bar for a couple drinks and a seafood dinner.

I turned in at a decent hour, awaiting what the projected pick up in swell and dying down of winds were to actually be in the morning. I awoke at the break of dawn (literally, I forgot to set my clock back an hour!) to see the pirate flag above the castle perfectly still. I threw on the wetsuit, grabbed the 7'8'' board the camp provided me and headed down to the beach. The board was about a foot longer than I'm used to, but with 4 months of no surf behind me and barely working out (thank you ISU) it was perfect fit and made catching waves much easier. Although once I stood up I really missed my Lost sitting unused back in Hermosa. A short walk down to the beach and I was ready to dip my toes back into the Atlantic for the third time since I arrived in Strasbourg in September. As I did so I was quickly reminded that it was still April by the bone chilling water, not to mention the cool morning air that surrounded me.

The waves were great with slight off shore winds helping hold the face just a few seconds longer. The waves were a little on the small side, rarely pushing the chest high level. But sometimes size doesn't matter when you are sitting staring at peaky little beach breaks with rights and lefts just peeling one by one in front of you. The paddle out was easy and without a hair on my head wet I sat waiting for my first wave. As I saw my first gem come rolling in I turned and paddled away. The wave sucked me right in and I popped right up, although a second later from front foot just slid right off of the board and I fell ungracefully into the water. So much for that dry hair! For the next hour and a half I rode wave after wave until pure exhaustion set in and my stomach ached for some food.

I walked back up to my 'bungalow' and found a note from Joao saying there was some breakfast pastries in the kitchen and some juice in the fridge. Perfect. After filling the void in my stomach I warmed up with quick shower and washed off that forgotten sticky feeling of dried salt water. With a rest badly needed I set out to find the new location of the surf competition. It had been moved a few miles down the road to a place called Supertubos, Portugals version of Hawaii's Pipeline. On good days this beach break throws out barrels on every wave, and on bad days it still throws out consistent tubes to get caught in. I started the walk down the road and a guy I met the night before at the Surf Castle, Kidd, saw me and pulled over to give me a lift.

We arrived only to hear Sage had just finished and had lost his heat. He placed 3rd, but only the first 2 advance (out of 4). After reviewing the scores once I got home I noticed that the 2 winners of his heat had the highest scoring of the weekend, tough break. I sat around Supertubos for a couple hours watching the mainly European surfers tackle the head high and fast left and rights popping out in front of the judging booth. Feeling motivated and reenergized to get back into the water I attempted to hitchhike a ride back to the castle form the parking lot. With no success I decided a couple mile run was in order and took advantage of the nice sunny day. With a quick lunch i headed back to the beach for the day.

Mid afternoon the winds had kicked in and the waves were sloppy. I headed out anyway; when the purpose of the weekend is to surf you tend to do so regardless of conditions. The rides were still good and plenty of corners still available. An hour of paddling in and out I found myself needing another break. I headed to shore to rest up, meanwhile the winds were still blowing and the clouds had moved in. It was a bit chilly, but wrapping myself up I laid on my board and dosed in and out of sleep for the next hour or so.

Once I felt my arms had recovered I decided to take the 3rd session of the day. The winds were dying down and the waves were getting a little bigger as the tide moved in. I paddled out and spent the next hour fighting crowds of beginner surfers. Exhaustion seemed to set in earlier this time, maybe I was riding more waves or maybe I was just weak. Either way I came in for one more break so I could catch the dusk session. I took another nap only to wake up this time to calm off shore winds and no clouds, a quite sudden change in conditions. Wave had picked up in size again to consistent chest high waves, not getting much more than shoulder high at times. It must have been a little gift from above as this was probably my last session until I get to visit Hermosa again in mid-June. This last session was by far the best. Perfect sized set waves coming in at shoulder height just beyond the typical break point. Conveniently if you wait for the second wave the first would clear out all the beginners just behind me leaving an open take off zone!

My energy levels expired before the sun so I returned home to get into some dryer and warmer clothes in attempt to catch my last beach sunset for the next couple months. I passed on an offer to join the owners and some of their friends for a drink on the patio of the castle and made it down to the sand just in time to see this blazing orange disc in sky slip between the cliffs of a small island and the peninsula of Baleal. At one point it seemed that the cliffs stuck out like an arm embracing the sun as it dropped closer to the sea.

With the sun below the horizon form which today's waves came I decided to stick around on the beach to enjoy the calmness the sunset always leaves behind. I found a rock to sit on and gazed out over the ocean and the colorful sky above. To the tunes of jack Johnson's "F-Stop Blues" in one ear and the sounds of waves crashing in the other I sat quiet and admired the beauty of what our creator had made. I reminisced of the many days of doing the same thing in my last two years in Hermosa. As hectic as things get sometimes, I seem to never miss the chance to catch the sunset when I'm around the beach. It brings to me a settling calmness to evening that makes me forget any stresses of the day, at least for a little while.

My night in Baleal was as simple as the previous with a seafood dinner, a couple drinks, and an early bedtime. As I sat home reading my pricey English magazines form the airport I quickly dozed off. Of the 3 magazines I read this weekend 2 were about global warming and one of surfing. Global warming, its a popular phrase but an issue that has become interesting to me in the last year or so and I've immersed myself in reading about it and the energy problems that relate to it.

I woke up Sunday morning and said adios to my bungalow mates and Joao drove me to the bus station. With a casual styled hand shake and a smiling face from a great weekend of surf culture we said good bye. It sounds odd to mention that, but Pedro and Joao were great to me all weekend and cupped me right into their friend circle the second I got there. We bonded over beer, surf, and seafood and it created a genuine experience for me as a lone traveler.

I leave my entry with the boarding of the bus. As I foresee (and can now confirm) that nothing exciting will happen on my travels from Baleal, to Peniche, to Lisbon, to Frankfurt, and finally to Strasbourg. My surf weekend really ends here too so I feel its a fitting breaking point. Another epic weekend of surf for me, as short as it was. It took care of that itch I've had since the day I returned form Santander to go surf. Lets see if I can last till June now.

Surfing is such a new aspect of my life, but for some reason I've gotten addicted. Maybe its the relaxed atmosphere that surrounds it, or the oneness I feel with the ocean as you read every move it makes, or the ability to isolate myself from everyone and still be happy. However, one common theme I see is that it seems every great surf adventure I have had (Baja Mexico, Heavens in California, Santander in Spain, and now Baleal) leaves me in admiration of the oceans in front of me and extremely thankful of the life of which I live. I suppose being reminded of my maker and how great of a life He has given me is not such a bad way to enter back into the realities of my every day life.

Happy Easter From Lisbon - Part I

Happy Easter everyone! A couple days late, but I have good reason for the delay as my previous entry stated I was in Portugal. The following blog entry is going to be exhaustive, but I tried to detail my trip a little better this time. Not necessarily for you all to read, but so in 10 years I can look back and remember my travels here as much as possible.

I've broken this trip into two parts:
Part I: Lisbon
Part II: Surfing in Baleal

I'll tackle Part I in this entry and save Part II for the next.

Part I: Adventures in Lisbon
Thursday 05:00. Let me first start of with a little background info here. As it appears to be around here I sleep very little most of the time. Monday and Tuesday nights we took advantage of the local Erasmus student nightlife, staying out past 3 each night and up at 7:30 for school each day. Wednesday I found out that Lufthansa had cancelled my reservation and I had to take the 06:30 flight out of Strasbourg. With the loss of the morning to do last minute trip preparation and some school work I was forced to pull an all nighter. With a 40 Euro cab ride to the airport at 05:00, my body was exhausted. As many friends here have observed, a moving vehicle usually means instantaneous sleep for me and this cab ride was no different, in my mind it never happened. It was more a 40 Euro teleportation fee.

Arriving at the airport, I checked in and did all I could to stay away, awaiting my 2 hour long connecting flight to Munich. Thankfully I had set my alarm on my cell phone which woke me up about 10 minutes before boarding. Anxiously walking down the jetway to the plane so I could pass out in my less than comfortable seat, I made the mistake of confronting a girl that I say with a US passport. Two hours later I found myself with no sleep walking off the plane to Munich. The conversation was good though, she was born in DC (actually offered to sublease me her apartment for the summer) and is Venezuelan. She studies law at the law school here in Strasbourg. Its humorous to me that in going on 8 months that I have been here this is only the 4th American that I have met.

By this point I was beginning to doze in and out of consciousness when I wasn't moving. It was quite strange, but each time my eyes would fall shut I would hallucinate and picture and hear a friend sitting next to me saying random things (i.e. three letter acronyms). I must give kudos to the Germans and their unique architectural and design styles. Munich I think is the only airport to have seats without armrests! For an exhausted Masters student, deprived from sleep because he works so hard and plays even harder, it was a welcoming surprise. You can imagine what I did with the 5 hour layover I had in Munich. I was passed out on those chairs sprawled out like it was my bedroom.

From Munich to Lisbon was the typical flight experience for me. Asleep before the plane takes of and awoken to the aroma of a chicken sandwich being placed on my tray table. With some food in my stomach I was ready for another nap, to awake only just early enough to see Lisbon from the sky before we touched down. I grabbed my bags and headed out to grab a cab to the hostel. The Oasis hostel was the nicest hostel I have stayed. Leather couches in the common area and the big rain shower heads in the showers! My room was a a big open room on the top floor with 3 full size mattresses laid out. They were doing some construction so they had no frames. Fine by me, for 10 Euro I had a comfortable place to stay with a great view of the city atop the hill the hostel was on.

After settling in I set out for a quick run around the area to get a feel of things for the next day. I came back an hour later to shower up and see if anyone wanted to get some dinner and go out for drinks. Upon walking out of the shower I found 2 girls sitting on one of the empty mattresses in the room, thankfully I was fully dressed. In short time we established a quick bond as they were sisters from Maine. One was studying in Spain, the other was visiting from New York. The 3 of us went out for dinner and for some Portuguese Sangria at a little cafe next to the hostel. It sat up on the same hill as the hostel and overlooked the city and the Tejo River. With a slight chill in the air we ate and drank and enjoyed a few hours of conversation (did you know The OC was over?) and returned to the hostel before midnight.

With a solid 8 hours of sleep under my belt I was ready to head out and enjoy the city of Lisbon. After chat over breakfast at the hostel with a local about the welfare of the people in Lisbon I was on my way towards Belem, a district on the edge of Lisbon. The rest of the day I spent sight seeing. I visited monuments, parks, castle like look out posts along the river, and an old castle on one of the highest points in the city. there isn't much one can say about the sightseeing, other than the city was beautiful and it was perfect weather to be walking around. I'll let the few pictures below show you a few examples of the city itself.

I think here I will close Part I. It sums up EXTREMELY well the first 2 days of my trip. In more detail than most of you want I am sure. I have to say though it is sure nice to travel alone for a change. The ability to make my own decisions and do what I want is great. Another nice part that is with no one to talk to you seem to not say much, especially in a foreign place. Its nicethough because you tend to pick up on the finer things such as sounds of the city, conversations in languages you have no idea what it is, birds chirping, or even the street performers playing their instruments. It also forces you to meet new people on the instances you do want to converse, and by doing so you always learn something new. As in the case of this native Lisbon guy, I learned that Portugal is one of the only European countries that don't pay for college education. So there is a very small number of educated people in Portugal and life is a little tough because wages can't keep up with the implementation of the Euro. Something I would have never learned from my Lonely Planet guide. As lonely as it may sound, traveling alone is a lot of fun I think.

Czech It Out

I was in the Czech Republic last weekend (March 30-April 1) with 10 classmates. I'll elaborate more next week, but wanted to post a quick note on my latest travels!

Off to Portugal

Its Wednesday night at 8:00pm and I'm hustling through the last minute details of our team project, my US taxes, and planning my trip for the weekend. In the region of France that I live, Alsace, we have Good Friday and Monday after Easter as holidays. So to take advantage of one of my last weekends in France (only 5 weeks left) I decided to venture out on a weekend alone in Portugal! (April 5-8)

Why Portugal? First of all I've already been to Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Belgium, touched Poland, Czech Republic (last weekend), and Spain so there isn't many other places to go. Second of all, its a very different culture and language. Although I hope I can use my spanish there as well. Thirdly, there's only 3 countries in Europe that you can surf this time of year without becoming a floating chunk of ice. Those are France, Spain, and Portugal. Well, I hit the Basque coast of France in September and the north coast of Spain in November. Well I hate to leave one left unconquered.
I will arrive in Lisbon, Portugal on Thursday afternoon and will stay there to see the city through Friday afternoon. Then I head to Peniche, Portugal about an hour north of Lisbon to the Surf Castle surf camp. I'll spend Friday night and Saturday night there with about 1.5 days of surfing. Its only in the low 60's now, water temperature about the same I think but I have my wetsuit.

Its going to be a great weekend and I can't wait to get back into the water. Some links are below regarding my trip and be sure that next week I will update it with some great photos and a some good stories!

...and I'm off!

Surf Castle
http://surfcastle.pt/ing/index.html

Back from Moscow

Well I made it back to Strasbourg without any problems in Moscow, well the only problem being that I have my 8 week project due Thursday. The trip was a blast and we ended it out in good fashion.

Thursday morning we visited the Moscow Aviation Institute and saw some old Russian hardware such as the rocket engines, satellites, and the prototype Russian Manned Lunar Lander. A few of us are working with a small start up company for our personal projects and Thursday afternoon provided us a chance to meet up with 4 members of the Russian team of the company for some coffee and desert. It was a good opportunity to meet some more people from the company and for them to get to know us and what aspect of the company we are researching for our project. After our meeting we headed to the Russian Opera for an entertaining show. I'm not really sure what it was about in full, the typical love story, but we had to watch a tv for the translation and try to watch the show at the same time. Needless to say it was a little difficult. Our Russian classmate introduced us to the Russian nightlife (and her friends) Thursday night, starting at 11pm and ending at 8am.

Friday, after sleeping till 2, we toured a few more sites in Moscow and grabbed some dinner downtown. As everyone was exhausted still we stayed at the hotel Friday night and went Cosmic Bowling at the hotel bowling lanes and stayed up extremely late in the hotel. We left Moscow at noon on Saturday and arrived back in Strasbourg at midnight, a long day of bus rides and sitting in the airport.

I'll post all of my pictures sometime next week once I gather all of the good ones from my classmates and get a chance to sensor the ones that should not be shown to family. haha.

Update from Moscow

Hey Everyone, its 2:44 am in Moscow. Nights seem to run pretty late around here! haha. So far our trip has been a blast and witout casualties. We have visisted Energia and saw Yuri Gargarin's (first man in space) space capsule and got to sit in one of the russian capsules. We have been all around Moscow and seen many interesting sites. Its been an eye opener for sure. I wont go into details now, but will save that for when I return to Strasbourg. For now I will just post a few pictures from the highlights of the trip. (me in front of Yuri capsule, on plane to Moscow, cant remember the name of the building, me in front of the old KGB (secret service) building, the Apolllo and Russian Soyuz capsule docked together).

Идти к России! (Going to Russia!)

Its Friday afternoon, around 5:00. In about 24 hours I will be in Frankfurt Germany boarding my plane with 32 classmates to head to Moscow for a one week "class trip". Our professor, Nikolai Tolyrenko, woked in the Russian space industry since, well for a long time, and set us up with visits to some of the key Russian space facilities. I will attempt to post a couple quick messages this week with some pictures of our journey. But be looking for full details once I return!

Here is a brief schedule of events for Russia:
Saturday, March 10 - Depart for Moscow
Sunday - Day to explore... a.k.a Survival Day #1 (apparently noone speaks english!)
Monday - Visit Rocket and Space Company (RSC) Energia
Tuesday - Go to Star City, the Russian Cosmonaut training facility
Wednesday - Another day to explore.. a.k.a Survival Day #2
Thursday - Visit to MAI
Friday - Visit NPO Lavochkin (Russian Satellite company)
Saturday - Head back to Strasbourg

Oops, I did it again.. Another 12 hours excursion to Paris

With my last 2 exams at ISU looming over my head this Thursday and Friday things have been a little hectic. In addition to that, a project due in a couple weeks, and leaving this Saturday for a class trip to Russia I thought I would again add another element to the equation: a Dave Matthews concert in Paris. It sounds a little familiar to the trip to Paris back in December to visit an old high school friend doesn't it? I guess something with ISU Deadlines, Paris, and me that don't mix well. After all, who needs to get better than 51% when the passing grade is 50%?

I had bought the tickets last fall with hopes that Joe Henshaw (first roommate in Hermosa) was going to come and visit. The boss cracked the whip on him and said he had to stay back and bag groceries (he doesn't really). So this last weekend I find myself with 2 tickets to the Dave Matthews concert in Paris. With much contemplation and the persuading of a friend from ISU, Mariaane, to go with me I headed off to Paris yesterday afternoon. We studied on the 4 hour train ride both directions even in light of the Dave concert.

We arrived in rainy Paris (I a little unprepared) around 6:30pm, ran over to the Woodstock Hostel (how fitting for a Dave concert...) to drop off our bags and headed to the concert.
We stood outside in the rain for about 20 minutes, the concert was general admission. The venue La Cigale was beautiful. It only held 900 people, and I think tickets were sold for 1000. People were standing all over the place. I think I've thrown a bocce ball farther than this place measured in length. We found great seats straight on up in the balcony, as you will see in the pictures. I also managed to snake my way up to the left side of the stage and listen to a few songs and take some good close shots of the show.

The show was awesome. Unbeknown to me prior to yesterday Tim Reynolds, an AMAZING guitar player, was going with Dave on tour. They did a "Dave and Tim" tour back in 2004 that I got to see at Purdue as well. The concert lasted 2.5 hours and my camera battery about 2 hours. I took way too many videos and photos. I was excited to see one my more recent favorites, Stay or Leave, played. It also turned out to be a bit of an educational show for Marianne and I, as we had a good (one sided) conversation with Dave regarding Satellites which I think helped us prepare for the exam tomorrow! (For those of you that don't know his music, he has a song called Satellite, lyrics here).

Click here for the set list.

Well that's all from me. Its 3pm here and I have to study for my exam at 9am tomorrow! Wish me luck!!