Travelin Monkey

Manganaria was AWESOME.. but what was better were the 2 naked room mates of mine rubbing moisterizer all over themselves, having no problems at all that I was in there watching and talking to them! WOW! women are GREAT. last night i went out, again, and started bar hopping. I went to some bar that sold 5 shots for $5 and as soon as I walked in I?was given 3 shots of tequila by some guy who had bought too many! YAY!

I went bar hopping by myself and was told that saturday is when the greeks come out.. they had some ‘greek music only’ pubs and clubs and the only way you could get in was by being greek! so I walk by, wearing all white, and the guy tells me to go in! SO I DO! and i am in the middle of a greek tavern with the waiters in togas dancing around to greek music drinking my OUZO!! HAHHA it was AWESOME!

I stayed out until 3 or 4 am, I have no idea which, and barely rolled out of bed to make it to the harbor for my ferry to mykonos. These canadian people I met told me that one of the places I am staying at is the main beach with the rave that goes on until 11 am! WOW! let’s see what happens there! and they recommended a club called space, 25 euros to get in, but they have ridiculous shows all night long..

I have been having the TIME OF MY LIFE and definately think that Ios is the amsterdam of the cyclades! it is *not* commercialized like cancun or cozumel, 90% of the people are back packers that are all open to some great fun, and everything is set on prices for students! I haven’t paid more than $3 euros for ANYTHING.. even the drinks are awesome! 2 long islands for 6 euros and they make them STIFF!!!

Mykonos is mykonos.. I stayed at this one place called Mama’s Pension. It is owned by an old?greek couple that insists everyone call them mama and papa! Their daughter picks you up from the harbor and papa has a fruit garden for the people that go visit. They have breakfast on a terrace overlooking the beach every morning and the way you order is by going up and saying “mama I’m hungry!” HAHAHAH the people here are fantastic… and for all the dentites out there, the lady told me that a couple who are dentists moved to mykonos and are the ONLY dentists on the island, that there has been a surge in esthetic concerns and that they are making a KILLING.

Christina, the daughter, told me that her husband just dropped $12,000 euros for a bunch of fillings and crowns.. that they bought a huge chunk of land on the island and are building a mansion.. and that the dentist said that if things go on like this, they can retire in 5 years! their office is located in front of the 4 wind mills right by the beach… WOOW!!

i had originally intended to not go out my first night in mykons because i was pretty done from Ios.. but this trip is anything but standard! I ended up having dinner by myself at some italian place, wearing an italian wife beater.. when the table next to me with 2 chicks started talking to me.. next thing you know I join them, and 3 bottles of wine later we decided to go out dancing!

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MYKONOS! We got to the club at 4 am and it was BUMPING.. we ended up dancing until 6 am ish, then went out to the beach for a while.. and here I am at 2 pm trying to find out where the hell my hotel is…

I guess tonight there is a huge rave going on at Cova Paradise and I already have 2 dates ! HAHHA I dont know if I will make it because i am DEAD tired, but who knows!!!!!

So I had a fantastic last day in Santorini. I went to the volcanic island and then to the hot springs. The water was about 15 degrees celcius warmer than the mediterranean and VERY VERY YELLOW because of the sulfur! It was alright at best, I probably wouldn’t do the volcano tour, but the hot springs were amusing. I met a guy from Germany and we swapped some stories during the cruise. I ended up taking the donkey ride up Fira to a magnificent view and a more amazing sunset, enjoying a fantastic baklava & ice cream with a tropical smoothie overlooking the ocean, it was the same cafe I had visited my first time in santorini!

From there I went home and took a nice nap. At night I walked my way out to the main port of Fira, where they said all the night life would be. But, it turned out to suck BIG TIME. I was looking for a traditional tavern with an old greek playing his bouzuki and me drinking my Ouzo, and all I found was hip hop & eurotrash clubs that charged a cover to get in. So, I mossied my way back home and had a good nights rest for the trip to Ios in the morning!

I woke up with 1.5 hours to the ferry, when everything started to go downhill. The hotel didn’t offer a ride back to the port, which was 5 km away, and the buses were sparce and sporadic in time. I waited at the wrong bus stop and they refused to pick me up! So I had to hike uphill 200 m and wait for another bus. I was set to leave at 11:15 am and it was 10:25. The next bus came at 10:51 am and I thought FOR SURE I would miss my ferry. I made it to the dock at 11:06 and low and behold, my ferry was LATE! YAY! So I made it on and on to IOS I went.

Paradise is a 3 letter island called Ios. There are 3 main areas that have people living on the island, the port, the village, and the mylopotas beach. I was transfered to the village where I am staying in a hostel. I got grouped with 2 canadian guys and 1 girl on the ride up and we ended up chatting for an hour while they figured out our room situation. I had booked a double for $100 for myself because it was the only thing available. I go in and the owner, Francesco, looks at me and says in a greek accent “We have too many people. You want dorm with women? I charge you $15 a night” I looked at him and started laughing and said “Did I with the lottery?” HAHAH Soooo they put me in a room with 3 girls and saved me $70!! The guy looked at me and said

“Are you from brasil?” and I said

“No, Uruguay”

“Ahh.. Uruguay.. Whats your name?”

“Travelin Monkey”

“Ohh.. Roberto from Uruguay”

“Si, si francesco, for you I am roberto from uruguay!”

HAHAHAH

The beaches here are AWESOME. The sand is GREAT, the water is crystal clear, and the WOMEN oh my the WOMEN are ridiculous! Picture 15-25 year old women, all topless, mainly from scandinavia and italy. Everyone is always wasted and the beaches have some ridiculous parties during the day. Unfortunately, they have a summer long sausage fest, and I’m not talking about the fantastic shnitzels from Vienna!

At night my hostel has a bar where everyone meets up at around 10 pm and they have a welcoming shot for the new people. Everyone drinks and then goes to the Blue Note, which is also owned by Francesco. I spent the night talking to Judy, the bartender, when Francesco walks in and says “Roberto from uruguay! You drink shot?” and i said “yes, I drink shot!” and the guy invited me to a shot! HAHAH I told him “Salute!” and he said “No, today you are greek.. YAMMAS!”

I can’t remember the rest of the night, except that I had one too many long islands.. and somehow I wound up back in my room. One of my room mates, the cute bratty british girl, woke me up walking around topless in her undies… which was an interesting surprise. Earlier in the day I was napping and she stormed into the room and started to break things because she was left alone and couldn’t handle not talking to people.. *shrugs* another girl is canadian, but she spends the nights elsewhere.. and the other is australian (I am staying far away from her!)

I met this guy, Chris, who is from Toronto but lives in Tokyo, and we went exploring to the southern beaches of Manganaria. The only people there were the ones that went on the boat with us! We had lunch at some greek grandmother’s house, no menu.. they served what she had made! it was fantastic! and on the beach there were 3 women, topless, then fully naked, taking glamour shots… this place is INSANE..

we just got back from a beach party and are gearing up for the nights festivities…

OK! I finally left vienna… sundays SUCK in europe. The entire city was, for the most part, calm my entire stay there, but still with a huge hustle for shopping. Sunday, my last day, was EMPTY.. DEAD.. not a soul in sight, and then it started to rain! I couldn’t WAIT to get the hell out of there…My flight was ok.. I landed in Athens at 2:30 am and all I found were a bunch of people sleeping on the floor! There was one bus that was active that took you to Syntagma square, but the metro wouldnt open until 7 am and there were no trolleys until at least 6 am. I found a luggage check in and left the 2 suits I bought in Vienna for 10 days in the airport, hopped on the bus I had taken just 3 years prior.. and made my way to Athens at 3:30 am!

I got to the square at around 4:30 am and had to walk about 2.5 km to the hotel. It turns out that the Apollo Hotel is in the shady side of town, there was a ton of activity at 5 am for an area, especially with all the porn sales and drug sales going on. But hey, I made it! and laughing my ass off! I ended up having some left over salami in my back pack and fed the stray dogs so that I had a group of them following me wherever I went and they would bark at people when they approached! hehe smart traveler!

I ended up getting sick and spent the next day with a slight fever in bed. I woke up around 6 pm and made my way to Plaka and the Acropolis. I sat around and enjoyed the view from the backside of the acropolis with some greek guy playing Sinatra songs on a sax, then made my way down to a resteraunt I saw with a spectacular view of the acropolis to watch the rest of the sunset while enjoying 1 liter of Mythos and a fantastic set of lamb chops! After the acropolis lit up at night, i paid my dues and stumbled my ass back home. I had placed my map under the table to stop it from rocking and half way home I realized I had no idea where I was… and I had no map… again! HAHAH

From there, it was off to bed and to Santorini the next day!

The lady at the front desk was hilarious.. she reminded me of the lady from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the aunt.. and would make me laugh every time i talked to her.. the last day there she looked at me.. came and gave me a hug and started to sniff me and said “you smell good.. you smell very good” HAHAHHAH she was definately on top in terms of receptionists.. but the huge and jolly guy in Austria who sounded EXACTLY like AAAAAAAAAnold is a close runner up!!

The trip to Santorini was about 3 hours longer than what they told me. I ended up getting to the port at 11:30 pm, which sucked because the driver from the hotel was supposed to meet me at around 9:30 to a transfer. There were no buses or taxis and I had no idea what to do, until this greasy greek came up to me and said “Anny Hotel?” and i said “YASSOU!!”

He drove me 5 km to the hotel, and honked at 3 chicks walking in the streets and said "girls" with a stupid smile on his face. I got to the hotel and straight CRASHED. The next day I awoke and rented an ATV. I drove from the middle of the island, where I was staying, to the southern most point to the Red Beach, so named because it was created through volcanic activity and has red sand. This was, in retrospect, the best beach on the island. It was full of locals, beautiful women, and very exclusive. You had to hike through a mountain to get there. My only regret is that I didnt charter the boat to the opposite White beach.

A swim and some relaxation later, I hopped on the ATV and made it down the coast, stopping at every beach on the way and doing the same thing, a mythos, a dip, some relaxation, and off on the road. Sorta like the Greek Che Guevarra… Perissa Beach was the biggest of them all and actually had some sort of life around it..but it was infested with The Gringos…Kimara beach was awesome because it was full of locals (they only spoke greek).. the women in greece have much much smaller breasts than the american counter parts, but they are 100x hotter….

The lady at the front desk was hilarious. She reminded me of the lady from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the aunt.. and would make me laugh every time i talked to her.. the last day there she looked at me, came and gave me a hug and started to sniff me and said “you smell good.. you smell very good” HAHAHHAH she was definately on top in terms of receptionists.. but the huge and jolly guy in Austria who sounded EXACTLY like AAAAAAAAAnold is a close runner up!!

The trip to Santorini was about 3 hours longer than what they told me. I ended up getting to the port at 11:30 pm, which sucked because the driver from the hotel was supposed to meet me at around 9:30 for a transfer. There were no buses or taxis and I had no idea what to do, until this greasy greek came up to me and said “Anny Hotel?” and i said “YASSOU!!”

He drove me 5 km to the hotel, and honked at 3 chicks walking in the streets and said “girls” with a stupid smile on his face. I got to the hotel and straight CRASHED. The next day I awoke and rented an ATV. I drove from the middle of the island, where I was staying, to the southern most point to the Red Beach, so named because it was created through volcanic activity and has red sand. This was, in retrospect, the best beach on the island. It was full of locals, beautiful women, and very exclusive. You had to hike through a mountain to get there. My only regret is that I didn’t charter the boat to the opposite White beach and the water caves.

A swim and some relaxation later, I hopped on the ATV and made it down the coast, stopping at every beach on the way and doing the same thing, a mythos, a dip, some relaxation, and off on the road. Sorta like the Greek Che Guevarra… Perissa Beach was the biggest of them all and actually had some sort of life around it..but it was infested with The Gringos…Kimara beach was awesome because it was full of locals (they only spoke greek).. the women in greece have much much smaller breasts than the american counter parts, but they are 100x hotter…..

from there I drove up the eastern coast to the little town of Oia to watch the sunset.. then cruised back home to drop the ATV off… the day exhausted me so I couldnt enjoy the nightlife in Fira, the old port (which is where our cruise ship dropped us off the first time I was here, where you take the donkey ride up the 566 steps).

The island is called Thira is greek but called Santorini after a Saint Irene of Thessaloniki that passed away here in 304 AD.

I was supposed to take an island excursion through smaller islands left over after a massive earthquake that used to be part of the island, but the asses at the hotel gave me the wrong time to get ready at. So, I took a bus out to Fira and charted a smaller cruise to the volcano and the hot springs. Fira is more of a lovers place than anything else and everything they have here is 20x cheaper in Messaria, 3 km away where I am staying.

I had the best gyros of my LIFE with 1 liter of mythos for 5 euros!

Santorini is definately a lovers island.. and being single .. on a lovers island.. HAHA.. its weird!

This chap needs his own update..

I’ve spent more time than what I have wanted in Vienna, all for a cheaper airfare to Greece of course. Today everything is closed and there is jack-shit to do here, especially since I’ve seen it all already.

Two days ago, the aussie girl left to go shop some more and I crashed in the hotel. I woke up around 10 pm and she wasn’t back, so I decided to go out. I met a couple of uruguay guys and chatted with them for a while, exchanging stories. Then came Jimmy from Texas. This guy was a work of art. We ended up going to a bar to have a couple of drinks, and he started off by telling me how he was going to go to slovakia and gamble because it was cheaper there and explained his weird roulette method to me.

In the middle of this conversation, he looks at this table with 2 guys and a girl and says “she is a prostitue.. the way they looked, they are her pimps, i am SURE of it.. I sometimes pay for it” .. I just smiled back. Then, he got up and walked to the table and ASKED the guys how much for the girl! I was in SHOCK.. this guy had MAD balls.. he was your typical “America, Fuck Yeah” texan, asking some random guy in Austria how much to screw his wife/gf/sister (we never found out what she was because THANK GOD they didn’t speak english!)

This table next to us saw that and started laughing their assess off, and so we started to chat with them. They were, for the most part, assholes and tired talking shit to us about America (like I cared) and tried to start shit. The main guy talking told Jimmy he could take him to a club where the women throw themselves at him, all he needed was a hotel room .. my red flag shot up because I had seen similar shit in Brasil… people trying to take you somewhere dark and closed, etc etc.

So, then the guy asks Jimmy what he does, and Jimmy says “I am a math teacher in Elementary, for the kids” and the guy tells him “ohh.. so you give good grades because you butt fuck kids?!” and jimmy starts to laugh and says “do you say that because you got butt fucked as a kid” .. i started LAUGHING MY ASS OFF.. but at the same time.. i wasnt going to help this moron out if they attacked him..

They ended up being from Israel, jumped ship to Austria because they got called from the reserves and didn’t want to serve. Jimmy and I ended up trying to figure out another bar to go to, then realizing that there is nothing happening in a Vienna night scene, walked around and looked for something to do. Through out the night, he kept on asking women “how much” and getting yelled at. Then, at the end of the night he looks at me and says “I don’t know why I think all women are prostitutes”

and that is why the world hates traveling americans….

I spent all of yesterday by myself because this aussie girl is UBER annoying, and I planned my trip out to greece and the islands, with hotels and everything. At night, we decided to hit up a couple of bars (me and the Aussie), and all I heard was “my feet hurt.. i am so tired.. it is so hot.. why can’t we just sit down here? i am about to faint..” and all I could think of was how to rid myself of such an annoying person. I made the mistake of booking a hotel with her in Athens, but on the 25th I go to the islands by myself, and I made sure of that!

High maintenance people should NOT back pack through europe!!! Plus, she was insulted that I made friends and went out by myself, and that I don’t pay enough attention to her. It’s funny that she is this annoying, considering that I first met her in Feb and have traveled 3 days with her, and we aren’t even dating, and she has been traveling the world for 6 months now!!

Why is it that I always get stuck with such wonderful company?

so…. everyone ended up leaving, but not without destroying the bathroom in the hotel. Imagine 3 guys taking 2 days backlog of shaistas in one single bathroom. Something was definately festering in there, and it got so bad that I took a can of Axe and a lighter to the bathroom to see if I could kill the beastial creature that was being born in those fumes.

From there, we went out for the final night. The guy at the resteraunt refused to give us desert until we finished all the food on our plates, which was hilarious. We went walking around and drinking in paris; every section of the city is different, but I am glad I have left france.. too much time there with the rest of europe to explore..

I ended up meeting a hommie from Australia and charted a flight to vienna. We got in last night and are spending another day in vienna (which is A CHILL ASS CITY). The people here are GREAT, the food is fantastic (schnitzel heaven) and the shopping is SUPER cheap. All the world cup jerseys are on sale in H&M for 5 euros!! i spent 200 euros on clothes today … and i dont really shop, so imagine how cheap stuff is..

I hate brand names and don’t wear things that are flashy, but some of this stuff was so cheap I couldn’t help myself. Diesel jeans were going for 10 euros, but they had nothing in my size (king kong that is)…

Tomorrow we go to salzburg for one night, then the 23 we fly to greece and I go to barcelona on the 3rd of august to meet up with poppa….

That’s about it, nothing too major or exciting yet, except that when I tried to hop on my flight from Paris to Vienna, they had shut down the entire airport with cops everywhere and no one knew why.. but here i am!!

1. In Rome we stopped to eat at a pizza place.. the waiters kept on gawking at the women and would actually leave the resteraunt to pick up on them on the street..which made me laugh.. but the best was how nervous they got when a good lookin woman sat down.. and all the cups and plates they would break picking up the table.. that sent me roaring and one guy kept on asking me “que te rie” ” que te rie” haha and i told him that he was a clown, so while laughing he brings the broken plate and throws it on the table in front of me.. then he said “i want to go party with you” and i said “lets go get some bambinas” all in italian of course
2. in prague.. the guy that told us to “taka da trem” and the 7 days we spent m
3. in amsterdam at a cafe.. some guy started talking to me about SF and his passion for it.. then he started singing to me for like 45 minutes HAHAHA i was CRYING when he started “i left my heart in san francisco” .. then kursh looks at me and says “you are crazy” then looks at the guy singing and says “but you are crazier”
4. in the red light.. running into a mexican who was torn between getting another hooker or buying gifts and telling us “my mom gave me this money and this is how i spend it.. i told the hooker last night that i needed to buy gifts and she gave me the used condom to give as a gift”
5. the guys from guatemala i met on a train back to paris who told me “they say our country is third world, but we at least have AC in our trains and bathe..”

koko in rome looks at a waiter dead on, him holding like 5 plates of food and him asking “do you serve food here” .. the look of the guys face was priceless.. btw he asked 1001 stupid questions the entire trip!!\n

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humor de el viaje:

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1. en roma fuimos a comer a una pizzeria y los mosos se cargaban a todas las minas, hasta salian de el boliche a decirles cosas en la calle!! lo mejor fue el quilombo q armaban cuando se sentaba una buena en el lugar.. y todos los platos q rompian tratando de limpear la mesa.. yo me em?se a cagar de la risa y el tipo me em?esa a deicr “que te rie que te rie” mas cuando una mina lo mando a la mierda… y le digo “sos comico” y me empiesa a putear y me tira el plato roto en frente .. yo ya llorando y sin poder respirar..el tipo me dice “vamos a algun lugar hoy” y le dije “dale a buscar bambinas” y me tira un bafangulo!!hahah \n

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2. en prague un tipo nos dirijio a el tren con un ingles tan espantoso q lo cargamos por 7 dias despues “taka da trem” hahhaha

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3. en amsterdam paso de todo, en la zona roja nos crucamos con un mexicano a nos dice “no se si voltear de vuelta, mi madre me dio esta plata y mira como la gasto!! a noche le dije a la puta q precisaba regalos y me da el forro usado!!!” hahahah \n

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4. en un cafe de marijuana en a,sterda, un tipo completamente LOCO me empeso a cantar por 45 min de san francisco y lo tanto q ama SF.. yo ya llorando de la risa.. y un amigo mio me dice “vos sos loco” y le mira a el otro tipo y dice “pero vos mas loco q este” \n

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5. en un bar en amsterdam, raffi tuvo q mear y entro cuando en uno chico se ve y habia un tipo cagando.. sale con una cara tan triste y nos empiesa a contar todo y el tipo de alado dice “fui yo hijo de puta” y yo largue las carcajadas como loco… y de ahi dice “no puedia creer a estaba pagando para mearme los championes3 y me quede sin respirar por un buen rato.. los hijos de puta de canada no creian q era doctor!!! \n”,1] ); //–>
6. koko in rome looks at a waiter dead on, him holding like 5 plates of food and him asking “do you serve food here” .. the look of the guys face was priceless.. btw he asked 1001 stupid questions the entire trip!!
7. At the sisteen chapel, kok asked where the first brush stroke was. I thought he couldn’t get any stupider, until we his the colloseum and he asked where the first stone was laid.

We got here from Rome and spent the day resting. This is the order of consumption (for just myself) at night time the first night (the other 2 guys had right around the same):

- Hamburger & fries with 1.5 liter of beer for dinner
- 5 ’space’ cakes while cafe hopping
- one chocolate waffle
- one cone of fries
- 2 more waffles
- 6 more pints of guiness
- slice of thick spicy chicken pizza
- one more waffle
- one more side of fries
- one banana milk shake

That is basically from around 8 pm until roughly 3 am.. The space cakes hit HARD I have no idea at what time, which is when we decided to go to the red light district. I was in sheer AWWWWWWWWw of the entire place. I felt like pinocchio (sp?) when he went to that one island to become a real boy. There were women in the windows wearing lingerie, knocking, saying stupid shit. The whores looked like toys, except they were real and you could play with them!! I got yelled at a lot because I would just stand there and stare in disbelief. Then when a loser actually went in AHHAHAHHAHA the pathetic walk of shame on the way out. It’s funny that they always go in with such pride and come out wearing caps and running away…

tsk tsk..

I ended up yacking on the corner of some place and all I heard was people yelling. Later on I found out it was because there was a couple hooking up and I puked on the girl’s legs. The guy was so tossed on ectasy that all he wanted to do was continue. I laughed SOO SOOO much that night, every bar we hit something funny happened. Raffi ended up walking in on some guy in the bathroom in the bar and he was telling us the story when the guy next to him says “that was me!” .. then he continues on telling us how he was pissing on his shoes because the bathroom was so small and all he could think of was “I cant believe I had to pay to piss on my shoes” HHAHAH

No one got up until about 5 pm the next day. No one remembers what time we got home, nor how we got home. It was awesome. And every 5 steps there is a black guy yelling “pst pst pst.. coca coca.. ectasy.. ectasy” its funny.. Kursho got mad and said “shit we could steal money from the tourists also” and started doing the same thing after putting on his hoodie… HAHAHHA

The next day we went sight seeing and Amsterdam is a really neat little town. I then realized why I was in so much awww of the place at night. The buildings curve and make it look like they are either from a cartoon or falling down on to you, or both! Sort of like toon town from Roger Rabbit.

During the day though, this place reminds me of Diagon Alley from Harry potter. We found Transvestite Alley (the rooms with a red light with a lower blue light means they are she-men), Fatty-Fat-Fat alley, and the infamous Black Circle… it’s amazing, just freakin amazing..

Yesterday, we rented bikes and went riding all around the city, up until the suburbs, which was awesome. It really is hell on earth here though.. so much.. nastiness .. it is incredible..

Sorry, no pics or vids. We tried the first night and ended up being followed by some guys in a boat. They hotel gave us a pamphlet that said “if you take pictures, expect someone to take your camera and break it”

Now we are off to France once more.. the guys have tickets to a formula 1 race in Nevers and I am going to try to see if I can get in.

What can I say to sum up the last 24 hours?? Not much.. we have about 2 gigs worth of videos from last night and when we get back, we are going to splice everything together and make a DVD of this ridiculousness that we have lived…

It all started with 4 guys renting a car, following the games from country to country. No one thought much of anything when Ger beat Sweden. We all didn’t think much more when Argentina beat Mexico. But, then France won when we were in Strausberg, Italy won when we were in Milan, and we started to see a trend here…

Next, France beat Brasil in Nice` and we were on FIRE!! Paris saw Portugal and Germany’s defeat to the hands of the finalists, and I immediately looked at koko and said “Buddy, we HAVE to go to Rome. There is no doubt that ROME is the place for us!!”

And so we did as we felt proper. 2 days of tourist activities later, the big day was upon us. In sheer Romanesque activities, we feasted on pizzas, pastas, beer, wine, fruits, and ice cream in prepapration for the debauchery that would follow. A nap later, out came the 1 liter bottle of grey goose that would make its way with us to the Circo Massimo (circus maximus). The trains were packed, the people were ready… at MINIMUM 100,000 spectators (later we found out it was a grand total of 200,000 people) were all in front of 3 huge TVs. Standing up, all around the grassy fields…

Then it started… No one could believe that at minute 6 France already had a penalty kick in. But what a come back!! We all knew that it HAD to go to penalties. That would be the only way to settle this right; no cheap calls, no cheap goals. Just straight one on one….

We have every goal on video, with about 200,000 people chanting, screaming, and dancing. Like a herd, we made our way down the streets of Rome, past the Colloseum and to the major center where we found a 3 story water fountain. We hung out with the Italians and made friends with some girls, all of us drunk of our asses because grey goose was no more. The girls were dripping wet and we had no idea why, when they said “go to the fountain”

About 20-30 men and women stripped down to their underwear were splashing away, partying like they rightfully should!! And within a blink of an eye, all my clothes were off… thrown to raffi to hold and koko was to follow… splashing, partying, yelling off the top of our lungs in the Republica water fountain. We climbed up to the second story of the fountain and began to do more of the same. After a while, kok left leaving just me, rockin out with the Italianos…

Eventually, we all got clothed and continued through the melee of people looking for more action. There were a couple of problems:

1. we had no map (again)…
2. there were no buses, no taxis, and no metro..
3. somehow we had to walk our way from the colloseum to vatican city (picture walking from pier 39 to mount sutro) and then find the hotel!!
4. at around 4 am… we were all tired of walking, tired of partying.. and luckily found a taxi..

He screwed us hard with the price, but we still had about 10 km left in our walk and we gladly paid everything…….

And that is how the Road to the World Cup 2006 came to an end… When I graduated high school in 1998, I saw France beat Brazil in Paris, and with envy I looked upon the streets of Paris at the party and riots that were to follow. In 2002, I graduated undergrad and spent a month watching all the games from 6 am until 11 am. In Las Vegas, for the Fra vs URU game, at the bellagio sports bar, at 2 am I looked at sayat and said “in 4 years I will be a doctor and you will have your masters, lets celebrate with style, Germany 2006″ … 4 years later, here I am…

what an adventure!

next stop…. Amsterdam! WOO HOOO

soooo…. France is in the finals eh? When this whole thing started in early June, I never expected to see France vs Italy.. they took out some very strong teams, but I still don’t agree with that penalty kick on Portugal. How many francs does it cost to get you to the finals?? Ask Zidane… Benny boy, I bet you are happy

Imagine being in the Charles Stadium in Paris with 50,000-60,000 fans erupting when Zidane made that goal, then having the riot police show up 45 minutes after the game ended. It was RIDICULOUS. That same day, we booked flights to Rome from Frankfurt, went to bed at 1 am because the stupid hotel we chose had a curfew and it wouldn’t open the doors until 5 am, which was too late for us because we needed to drive 500 km to Frankfurt in the morning to make the stupid flight!!!

So, we burnt the day traveling, but Rome, ROME here we come!! OHHH and we made it on French TV rioting in the stadium. That’s the third time we made it on tv rioting, but you guys would never be able to see us..

Thats all France has from me. Now it is the buffangulos and the bambinas all the way !!! By the way, we have guessed right for 5 straight games on the winners, atteding the country who we thought would win the match I guess Italy already owns the title!!

It just gets crazier..

We left Nice towards Marseille and were looking for something to do, when 2 asses decided to car jack us. We were driving around when I noticed a guy wearing a white Armani Exchange shirt in a bad part of town, who crossed in front of our car really slowly. I thought this was strange and locked all the car doors, but my South American experience should have taught me better. We had hit the red light because of that and some guy showed up on the driver side, trying to open the car doors. He ended up taking our hub cap off, and when I opened the door to get it, the other guy wearing the Armani Exchange shirt who was apparently hiding behind the car, went in the car and took the GPS system bag. I pulled the emergency brake, push the other kid’s head into the car and ran after the punk with the bag. I caught him thanks to a local, and start to beat the crap out of him until he let go of everything. His friend started to run away, but decided to come back and I ate a knee to the face and ended up getting a black eye. But well worth it.

From there, I ran to the car with kok sitting in it with all our stuff. People were yelling things in French, I had no idea what they were saying, nor did I care. We immediately left to Lyon. It is like milan, a big shopping center, but it had this huge amazing church on top of a mountain. We walked up there at night in a thunder storm, which was awesome!! We had an amazing view of the city below us with the river dividing the city from the resteraunt area. You could almost feel the mideivilness of it all.

The next day we came to Paris and spent the day sight seeing until the Ger vs Ita game. GO ITALIA BABY!! What a way to punk the home country!! Because of that game, we are taking Amsterdam and Berlin out of the loop in our travel. After tonight, we are heading towards Frankfurt to return the car early and bought round trip tickets to Rome (thank you RyanAir!). We are going for Italia all the way now GO AZZURRI!! and have our flags waiting for the 9th…

After that, I go off to Amsterdam, koko goes back home, but it gets crazier and crazier here…