Zemmer

I spent the last two days in the huge sprawling city of Zemmer. I was never told how small it actually is, and I found that the Reichertz's store is where the town revolves around. Everybody knows them since they are the only store in the town now that two old ladies stopped their butcher shop. It was very nice staying with the family that is the Piggily Wiggily for the Zemmer region. Constant BBQs and continental breakfasts. It seems all we did this weekend was eat and drink. AMAZING. The kids played soccer in the yard, and we just ate and ate and ate all types of german meats cooked outside. Last night I went out with Katja and Britta to a Horse Festival. The strangest thing, but very fun. There was a very talented band playing Southern Rock songs sometimes with German dub but for the most part they were just songs like Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama. The people all knew the songs and we all sung along which was really surprising and comical. The bar was made out of hay bails and I should have brought a cowboy hat. Thank you Katja and Britta, it was very fun meeting all the people of Zemmer in a genuinely American atmosphere, and yet it was very German because "bitte ein Bit" was the phrase most spoken.
Today, I took a trip down memory lane so to speak or Waldstraste for those who had visited 15 years ago. I saw my old house, and visited with Oma and Opa who didn't know that I was in town. We surprised them and then the neighbors all came over. Just about everybody that I had heard stories about ended up in Oma's dining room. This was followed by more BBQ and a nap. I think I could definitely get used to the summer weekend life in Zemmer. Food, Drink and actually a 90 year old great grandmother visited us today. I'm actually very sad to be shipping off to Copenhagen in my next stage of studies. The weekend unfortunately is over.

Deutschland! I have arrived in the beautiful town of Gerolstein home of Gerolstein Wasser thanks to Britta. On the way there, I missed my train in Cologne, but it was a great excuse to visit the Dom. Held back for three hours I was simply blown away by the size of this Cathedral. The Dom might be the most impressive building I have ever seen, and the fact that it was started in 1268 makes it even more amazing. From there I trained across the hills and woods that lie between Cologne and Trier. Britta met me at the small cement pad that makes up the Gerolstein train station and from there she gave me a tour of the small town. The town is a hodgepodge of ethnicities; she told me that by 2011 there will be more immigrants (Russian, Thai, Turkish and Dutch) in the town than Germans.
From her house the view is absolutely amazing. Her house has a completely open view looking down into the valley surrounded by green mountains and topped with spinning windmills. The town is below and is mostly made up of white square houses with different color roofs, and even a small castle can be seen from the window where I sleep. Her eldest daughter just learned a couple words in English so I tried to talk to her, but she was too shy and went back to fooling around with the bubble wrap with her brother. The window view makes all of the internet work that I had to do today organizing meeting times with doctors and prosthetists a lot easier, and it didn't help that my browser temporarily switched to German. Anyways, we are off to see the city of Trier where Britta works and hopefully Ill be able to get some more work of my own done there also. Later on today we will surprise Oma and Opa because they do not know that I am here in Germany, should be fun. Ill keep you updated on the going ons of this weekend since I have the chance to catch up with old friends before heading off north to Copenhagen in my health-care rat race. Auf Wiedersehen!!

Netherlands

It feels good to be in a country that walks on the right side of the road. And by right I mean both the direction and as in correct. I can't even count how many times I almost stepped into traffic blindly looking the wrong way amazed by the tall red buses and even taller brick buildings. I went for a run over to St. James Park and around the palace two days back. While running, it was even more confusing to cross the road listening to my headphones and automatically looking over my left soldier while concentrating on the run. On my last day in London town, I decided to strictly be a tourist walking around the city with my huge backpack on visiting the likes of the National Gallery and the Science Museum. Yes, you read that right, I went to an art gallery, and it was actually very cool. Since Iceland, I haven't been able to find Wifi except at pubs where I feel extremely lame sitting there with a computer trying to get some work done. Especially yesterday due to the finals cup being played and everybody getting extremely rowdy in support of Manchester United. I couldn't even find a seat in a pub because they had been reserved for days in advance. Since Barcelona won that match two to nil it's probably a good thing that I got off the English Isles.
To get to the mainland Europe, I took a train to the town of Harwich and then boarded a ferry for an overnight trip across the English Chanel. From there I took a train through the Belgium countryside, through the windmills and sheep farms into the Amsterdam Central Station. ACS is one of the oldest stations in the world from the mid 1800s, and looks more like a castle than a station. Amsterdam is too focused toward tourists and a couple otherwise illegal activities, but despite, it is a very pretty and organized city. The canals form a perfect grid, and the overall city is a cleaner and better smelling place than London. From the short time I've been here, I am afraid that this city is simply crawling with hippies. Well, it is time to go see the city. I appreciate the emails from somebody, it is nice to hear from everybody!
Cheers!

London Town

Well, I am here in London town. The flight was 4 hours and had free movies and foods, so life is good. I'm staying in a hostel called Piccadilly Backpackers and is actually a hostel designed for packing students. Unlike the salvation army where it was full of older poor people, Piccadilly has blaring techno when you enter and people promoting their clubs just outside. London is definitely a billion times bigger and more alive during the day than Reykjavik. Where as in Reykjavik nobody goes out until 2 or 3 in the morning and then stay out on weekends through the 9 or 10 in the morning, London was very lively at 10 when I arrived. This might have to do with the fact that the sun never actually goes down in Iceland during the summer. Today in London I spent about half the day at the London Prosthetics Center and about half the day seeing all the sights. So work is definitely being accomplished, but I am still able to see enough to know that London is a pretty cool city. I walked down Abbey Road listening to the Beatles, kind of cliche, but still fun. I've already seen enough of their prosthetic care to know that the US has a lot of work to do if we ever want to be on the same level, but then again our taxes are only a small percentage of what they pay so no complaining yet. London is almost if not more expensive than Iceland, If prices don't fall as I move south and east, then Ill be broke before mid June. Its kind of ridiculous how much food is here. RAMEN TIME I guess. I thought I would be able to find a fish and chips place here, and after searching all day... settled for pizza. There are more pizza places here, and for the matter in Iceland also, than anywhere I have ever been in the US. I guess Europeans love pizza, we'll see if that trend continues in Italy. Haha.
Backpacking is kind of like urban camping. I live out of a sleeping bag, and pay for a locker and a bunk to live in. Other than sleeping I try not to spend a whole lot of time at the hostels. The people are all hippies and kind of strange.

Its pretty easy to make friends here in the Salvation Army hostel, and in Reykjavik as a whole. Some people live permanently in the hostel as a way of dealing with the recession, but most are young summer visitors. An Israeli buddy and I have made it around the town trying all of the weirdest foods (fear factor had a whole Iceland eating special). I room with a genetic engineer who is relocating to Norway. I cant figure out why he isn't staying in a real hotel because he dresses really fancy and eats well, but who cares, he's nice and he always brings back drinks and snacks for our roommates.
Ossur is a very interesting company that is located right next to the brewery headquarters of Iceland. I was told that they have inspiration lunches at the brewery weekly. 80% of the workers there are Icelandic. This might be why prosthetics are so expensive because we are employing people in one of the most expensive places to do all of the work and import all the carbon and then export out the products. They put 35 million dollars into research last year and spent a fifth of that in legal battles protecting their research rights which has been piggy backed by Freedom feet and others. Icelandic people get free prosthetic care and are supplied with as many products as they want to "test". They do pay a lot in taxes though, but they still come out ahead. Ossur really favors the Icelandic people. Ossur seems to be the only company in Iceland not phased by the economic downturn. I guess people like me have to pay the high price of a prosthesis regardless of what the global economy is sitting at.
This is my last night in Reykjavik, and I recommend to all to visit. Very cool, isolated little city with a lot to do and a lot of really nice and good looking people. Ill write again when I don't have a band blaring 90s rock songs in the cafe/bar where the internet is. Adios!

Reykjavik Iceland

Iceland is a very strange, and yet very fun place. It is an expensive place. Expensive enough to second guess buying/eating/or doing anything, but afterwards it is usually worth it. Reykjavik is a city that opens really late and closes really late. 65% of all Icelanders live in this city of 170,000 and nothing here opens until 11 in the morning. I found a salvation army guest house to live in for 3000 ISK a night (about 22 dollars). It is in a good location near a bus stop and in the heart of the city. The rooms are 4 to a room in bunk beds that you sleep with a sleeping bag in.
By being near the bus stop and aimlessly riding the bus around, I have figured most of the city out. It wasn't very hard since it really isn't that big. Figuring out the city is like finding the landmarks and just remembering where they are. Street signs are not a big help because they are in Icelandic which looks like a bunch of k's and j's that don't ever seem to form any sort of word. By aimlessly riding the bus I found the ossur plant that I came here for. It looks like some sort of company from the future, and surprisingly is run mostly by women. Very good looking tall blond women. Ill write separately on the ossur plant sometime soon because it was interesting enough to publish a novel about.
I think that the reason for all the beautiful women here is the lagoons that everybody spends the days at. All year round the Reykjavik city beach is open where people lay around in the geothermal hot tub style salt water and put this silly mud on their face to improve their skin. They say that is why they have the highest percent of miss world winners per capita in the world.
Up until the 1940s the people here were so poor that they lived mostly in mud and moss huts. After the war, they took the US base and slowly built themselves into the very hedonistic Iceland that sits alone in the north today. I have never said thank god for a recession, but the current economic state Iceland is in has made it a possibility for me to have fun here. Still very expensive, but within budget. If the economy continues to collapse, they might go back to eating the traditional Icelandic dishes. I went to a restaurant famous for serving their national dishes which include, seared lamb face, puffin, pickled ram testicles, and putrefied shark. I ate a lambs face today, the eyeball, gums and tongue weren't bad, but the skin was just chewy and disgusting.
I have learned a lot about prosthetics here, and will write again later. Enjoy your summers, and I will call home probably tonight.

HERE IS THE ITENERARY

1 May 18
Reykjavik 5
1 May 24
London 2
1 May 27
Amsterdam 1
1 May 29
Trier 2
1 June 1st
Copenhagen 5
1 June 7th
Berlin 3
1 June 11th
Munich 1
1 June 13th
Venice 3
1 June 17th
Florence 1
1 June 19th
Rome 5
1 June 25th
Anacona 1
1 June 27th
Split
1 June 28th
Sarajevo 4
2 July 3rd-July 4th
Sofia 4
2 July 9th-July10th
Istanbul 2
Home on July 13th