Internet Pirates Arrrgh!!

If you do a google search for "dry ice bomb helmet" you get a ton of pages that have stolen my video and posted it as their own. It probably shouldn't, but that kinda pisses me off. Oh well. And just in case you haven't seen it (I'm sure most of you have), check it out on my MySpace page.

right here

I'm the cameraman. You know, the guy laughing his ass off even though he's not quite sure if his friend is still alive.

B.O. Woof

If you haven't seen Beowolf yet, DO IT.

Now.

We saw it on the IMAX screen last night in 3 glorious dimensions. It was awesome, especially the battle with the dragon. Damn! The 3D glasses they gave us were funny looking, they covered just about half of our face. I wanted to steal a pair, but they had them bitches on lockdown at all the exits. Oh, well.

Athens: Final Day

I had one mission and one mission only for our final day: Buy a kick ass brass Spartan helmet and 2 of those really cool mini brass warrior statues. Most of the shops didn't open until 9 or 10, and we had to get a taxi back to the airport by noon, so I went into a terminator-like trance until my quest was completed. The helmet was the easy part, we just walked into one of the shops we had already scoped out a couple days before. Most of the more expensive stuff (such as said helmet) usually had a price tag on it, but the person running the shop always offered to give you a "special discount" just for you. So the dude said he's knock of 18 Euros, which was pretty good since I would've paid the price on the sticker anyways.

The mini statues were not so easy. They were as much as 22 Euros in some of the shops, but I was able to find them for 12 at another. So we headed over to that shop, but for some reason it still wasn't open at 11am. Uh oh. I refused to pay 15 extra bucks for each statue, so we had to run around a little bit looking for a better deal and still get back in time to catch the taxi. We ended up finding them for about 14 Euros, so I picked my two favorites (a Spartan running with a sword and shield, and an archer on one knee with his bow and arrow ready to strike) and we were on our way.

Found a quick place to grab a couple chicken gyros, scarfed 'em down, then bought 3 fantastic sugar-coated donuts from a street vendor and we were on our way. The view of the sea and some of the 3000+ Greek islands from the plane was unbelieveable.

We've already started planning our next trip back...

Athens: Day 4

We took a bus tour to Delphi on the fourth day. They picked us up in front of our hotel and spent almost another hour picking other people up at theirs. It would've been better if they'd just told everyone to meet in the central square so we could start out earlier considering it was a 2 hour drive each way, but whatever. The drive started out kinda crappy, foggy like crazy and we couldn't see a thing. We were all worried that there wouldn't be a great view and we wouldn't get the full Delphi experience. But about half an hour before we got there, the fog vanished into thin air and all that was left was a bright sunny blue sky. The mountains were amazing, unlike anything we've ever seen before. In the distance was a snow-covered Mount Parnasus and it was beautiful.

We arrived at our destination, the Temple of Apollo. Mostly ruins spread over the side of one of the mountains. Apparently they used to sacrifice goats and other small animals to the gods there. This is also where the Oracle was located, which is kinda like that scene in "300". The tour guide said that there once was a small building where they kept her inside, with little or no ventilation, as ether fumed out of the ground. She was so jacked up that she would just spew incoherent ramblings, and that's what the elders would use to make important decisions. Sweet.

On the way back we stopped at a nice restaraunt on the side of a mountain where they served us a pretty descent meal. There was a walkway to a balcony so you could look out into the valley and see the water, but I can't remember what sea it was. We also stopped at a scenic lookout to see this small village that people come to go skiing during the winter. It was really cool because the whole village was basically built into the side of the mountain. We hit some traffic on the way back, so it took about 3 hours or so, part of which we slept during.

We got back to town, wandered around until dinner time, then went back to the restaraunt that we had eaten at a couple nights before cuz it was so damn good.

Athens: Day 3

We walked out of our hotel on the third day and immediately noticed a rather large group of police on the other side of the street. They were in full riot gear, helmets with faceshields, flak jackets, batons, and full length riot shields. I grabbed my camera and took a couple of quick shots. Then we saw there was another group on our side of the street about a block down. Just when we started to wonder what they were doing there, we heard a faint chanting coming from down the road. It kept getting louder and louder. Then we saw the group of protestors. They had a large banner in front, and a bunch of them were holding black and red flags. Of course the signs and chants were in Greek, so we have no clue what they were protesting. I started to focus my camera on the crowd, since this seemed like a great opportunity to get some cool shots of something that you don't see every day. But Kim stopped me because I was oblivious to the fact that the guy who was walking about 10 feet in front of the protest was yelling "NO PICTURES NO PICTURES!!" at the top of his lungs in my direction. I really wanted to ignore him and start shooting, but I wasn't sure if this was really a peaceful protest, or the kind where one of them would grab my camera from me and either smash it on the ground, or beat my ass with it. I decided not to risk it. The protestors continued down the street, with the cops flanking them on each side. As far as we know, there were no incidents and we still have no idea what it was all about.

We spent the rest of the day checking out the other sites that were included in the tickets for the Acropolis. The coolest site was the Temple of Zeus, which is a series of huge columns, one of which was knocked over years ago in a terrible storm. We also spent some time shopping for cool Greek pottery. We ended up buying 4 plates that are handpainted with cool designs around the edges and cartoonish drawings of gods and goddesses in the center.

Got some dinner at another outdoor cafe with a great view of the Acropolis all lit up, then went back to the hotel.

Athens: Day 2

On the second day we went to the Acropolis. Unfortunately, they've been doing restoration work on it for about 7 years now and there was scaffolding all over the place. What really sucks is that it looks like they're only working on one building at a time, but they put the scaffolding on all the buildings except for one. And there were only about 4 or 5 guys working when we were there. No wonder it's taking so damn long. But even with the masses of metallic eyesores, it's still all very impressive. It took us about 2 hours or so to wonder around and check out all the cool stuff up there, then we headed back down the hill and had lunch at another outdoor cafe at the bottom. I had some fantastic baked meatballs in a tomato sauce. Mmm-mmm!

They only charge 12 Euros (about 18 bucks) to get into the Acropolis, and the ticket is good for 6 other historic sites around the city, so we went to check some of those out next. It's a really good deal considering all the stuff you can see, and I think they could easily charge twice that much if they wanted to. We spent the rest of the day at the Ancient Agora, the Roman Agora, and the Tower of the Winds. All of which are mostly ruins, with lots of cool columns and huge half broken pots everywhere. All definitely worth seeing.

Once it got dark, we just wandered around the city some more. You can see the Acropolis from almost anywhere and it's lit up beautifully at night. But like an idiot, I didn't bring my tripod so I couldn't really get any good night shots of it. We weren't very hungry since we had a pretty late lunch, so we just grabbed a little McDonald's and headed back to the hotel for the night.

Athens: Day 1 (aka Thanksgiving day)

We didn't do a whole lot on the first day, since we didn't get to the hotel until 3am the night before. We headed out sometime around noon, and decided to just spend the day getting a feel for the city and trying to figure out what sites we wanted to see and when to see them. We ate lunch at a little outdoor cafe that was right next to the ruins of the Ancient Agora, with a great view of the Acropolis. The weather was perfect the entire time, sunny and always in the mid to high 60s everyday.

We also went into about 347 souvenir shops, many of which had all the same crap, except that it was all pretty damn cool crap. There were a ton of solid brass Spartan helmets of various sizes that were so friggin' sweet that I knew I would not leave the country without one. There were also some small warrior figures that were really cool looking that I wanted. And even though most of the shops all had a lot of the same stuff, the difference in pricing was all over the place. The Spartan figures I wanted were 22 Euro at one store, 17 at another, and 12 at yet another. That's a difference of 15 bucks per figure! The pricing on the helmets were pretty much like that, too, but they were way more expensive. The tiny little ones were as much as 80 or 90 bucks, while the life sized ones were around 1000 bucks.

The guy at the reception desk at the hotel gave us the name of a great restaraunt to have dinner at, and it was so good that we ended up going back a couple nights later. Souvlaki is now one of my favorite dishes and we're going to need to find a Greek place somewhere around here. And the Greek beer "Mythos" aint too bad, either.

Our Greecian Adventure

We just got back from a 5 day trip to Athens (Greece, not Georgia) and it was the most amazing place I've ever been to. I've always loved all that Greek mythology and stuff, but I never imagined I'd actually get to see where it all came from. I bought a new 4GB memory card specifically for this trip, and it was definitely a smart purchase considering I used up the other 7GB I already had by the halfway point. I ended up taking 666 photos (not on purpose, just turned out that way).

I'm not even sure where to start. There's so much that we saw, but I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I haven't started uploading them to the flickr page yet, probably take me a few days to sort through all of them.

I'll break each day into a seperate entry and try not to make them too long and boring. Stay tuned...

Woo-Hoo-Hoo!!

Kim and I went shopping downtown at someplace called "The Stalls". I don't really think that's what it's actually named, but that's what the people she works with call it, so it's good enough for me. It's kinda like an indoor flea market. There are tons of little shops crammed together, most of which are clothing and shoes, but there are a few other random items. I stumbled upon a little store with an american flag hanging on the front and I decided to check it out. It turned out to be a little army surplus-ish kind of store. At first glance it just appeared to have a bunch of camo clothes. But I stepped in and found a gas mask hanging from the ceiling. It was ok, but not great. I was just about to ask the guy how much it cost when I noticed the bad ass mask hanging on the other side. The guy said it was 100 zloty (about 40 bucks) so I told him I might come back later, kind of hoping he would lower the price a little, but he didn't. I had already decided that I was definitely going to buy it, but I tried to barter a little when I came back 20 minutes later. He didn't bite, so I paid the 100 zloty and was on my way.

Anyways, to make a long story short: I got a new gas mask yesterday and it kicks ass.

Marine Ball(s)

Last night was the 232nd Marine Corp Birthday Ball and wow was it a blast! This was my first one and I can't wait for next year. All the trouble I had to go through just to rent an overly expensive Polish tuxedo that looks almost like a regular suit was well worth it. I'm not exactly sure how many glasses of champagne, white wine, and pomegranate juice with vodka I had, but it was just enough to get out on the dance floor and shake my groove thing. I was even able to get my little Kimmy out there for a song and a half, which is quite a feat. We had been almost dreading this thing because we thought it was going to be stuffy and boring, but we had such a great time. We are definitely going to more of these things!

STDs

There's been a ton of construction going on around town for the past few months, and all the workers have jackets with big white letters that read "STD".

Hehehehe

All Saints Day

Thursday was a Polish holiday called All Saints Day where people go to the cemetaries and leave candles on the graves. We went to the largest and most famous Warsaw cemetary, Powazki Cmentarz, to check it out and it was amazing. Candles were everywhere, most of the graves had no more room to put anymore on them. Unfortunately there were way too many people there for me to set up my tripod and get some good shots, so I went back the next day when the sun was out. I spent about 2 hours taking photos and I probably only got about halfway through the cemetary. And I only took pictures of a very small amount of graves. I can't even begin to guess how many people are buried there, it's by far the biggest cemetary I've ever seen in my life. I didn't even get to the section that has all the people from WWII and the Warsaw Uprising. Plus, there's a Jewish cemetary next to it that's about the same size as the one I was in. I'll be going back sometime in the next couple of weeks so I can get more shots, but I uploaded a bunch to the Flickr page, so check 'em out.

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewedman/)

Halloween update

I couldn't find the liquid latex at any of the stores I went into, so I had to settle for the ninja outfit. It actually worked out pretty well, better than Kim or I expected. And everyone at the party said it looked good, so I guess it was a success. But next year I'm definitely going all out. I found a place online that I can get everything I need, and I'm going to order some stuff to play around with soon.

Mmmm... pig head

Look what we found at the grocery store yesterday.

Halloweenski

The halloween party is this weekend, which should be pretty fun except that I'm having a hell of a time coming up with a costume. I've actually thought up some really good ideas this week, but the problem is I can't get any of the supplies I need here. They don't celebrate halloween in Poland so I can't find anyplace that has the grease paint that I would need for most of the cool ideas I have. I could order it online, but it usually takes at least 2 weeks for stuff to get here and it was too late by the time I figured out what I wanted to be. I guess I can take comfort in the thought that next year my costume is gonna kick ass. But for this year I'm probably going to have to settle for wearing all black and putting on my ski mask to be a ninja, which I admit is pretty damn lame. And Kim agrees. Not that I would actually do it, but she won't let me put on a dress and carry around an umbrella as Britney Spears. That's perfect since I already have the shaved head. And speaking of Kim, she's burdened me with the task of figuring out what her costume is going to be also. She won't let me refuse, I tried that.

I had a fantastic idea last night that I might be able to pull off, but it's going to require venturing into one of the many sex shops around here. That could be scary. One of them has a big 'ol vibrator in the window that looks like a corn cob. Anyways, the idea I had is liquid latex. I've never used it before, but I did some research online and that stuff is awesome. It comes in all sorts of colors, they even have metallics. I know of 4 different costumes I can use it for just off the top of my head.

So I guess I'll get some lunch in a few minutes and then head on out to the seedy pornographic underworld of Warsaw. The things I do for my art...

I need a new mask

I was sitting around the other day trying to think of some cool artsy photos to take when I suddenly decided that I wanted to buy a new gas mask. I already have three really cool ones, but for some stupid reason I didn't bring them with me and instead put them into storage until we get home. So I jumped online and tried to find someplace in town that I could find one. I found a couple army surplus stores, one of which looked alright, but the other had real potential. So I wondered on down there today, but of course they didn't have anything. The place was tiny, but they actually had quite a bit of stuff packed in there. Mostly clothing, a few helmets and canteens and stuff, but only two gas masks. One of them was ok, but not nearly as cool as the three I already have, and the other one was just crap.

I decided to skip the other shop since I'm pretty sure they won't have any, and headed to Old Town to buy my wife a christmas present (the same christmas present I had to talk her out of buying for herself by pretending that it wasn't worth the money they were asking for so that I could come back later and get it for her). I may try the other shop later this week if I'm feeling saucy.

The Polish word for...

...butt is pronounced "poopa".

That's funny.

Doggy style

The Poles love their dogs. They are so well behaved (the dogs, not so much the Poles). Technically, all dogs are supposed to have a muzzle and be on a leash when out in public, but you don't see many leashes and hardly ever is one actually muzzled. They'll just sit on the sidewalk outside the door if the owner goes into a store, it's unbelievable. But today I saw the coolest thing ever. This 50ish year old woman was walking down the street with her HUGE dog that looked like a great dane, but it was white with black spots just like a dalmation. It was actually carrying her shopping bag in it's mouth. And this bag was pretty big and looked like it was jammed full of stuff. He was slowly walking beside her and his face had this adorable, gentle look. I really wish I had my camera with me.

First visit from the 'rents

My mom and stepdad came for a week and a half, they just left saturday. We had a pretty good time, especially my mom, who bought an assload of Polish pottery. So much that there are still two big boxes that we need to pick up from the store and ship back home to her. They got here on thursday, then we took a train to Krakow on friday and spent a few days there. This was the second time in Krakow for Kim and I and we still haven't seen everything. There's a legend about the founder of the city slaying a dragon in a cave back in the day and apparently you can go check out the cave and there's a big sculpture of said dragon somewhere, we just haven't found it yet. That's going to be my priority for the next trip. But the coolest thing about the whole trip was the old town square at night. I have always really wanted to take pictures of those people that swing fireballs attached to chains, but I've never actually come across any. Until now. There were two dudes and a chick and they were awesome. I took about 100 pics in 5 minutes. Most of the time there was just one of them playing, with another one starting up just as the first's flames started to die, but I did get some shots of two of them together. I played around a little bit with different shutter speeds and ISO's to get some different looks and I think I got more than a couple good shots. There was another dude about 50 feet away all by himself that was doing the same thing, only he had two sticks with flames on each end that we was twirling around. I think he was a little newer to it then the other people since he dropped the sticks every minute or two, but he was still quite entertaining. But the other 3 were pros, not a single mistake that I could tell.

As per usual, go to my Flickr page to check out some of the pics I took. I only posted the best ones. My favorite is "fire twirlers 30". Click on the pic, then click the "all sizes" icon above it to see it larger.

We also went to Aushcwitz again, which is just as depressing the second time, if not more so. Our guide the first time was a low talker, so I only heard about a third of everything he said. Our guide this time wasn't much louder, so I only heard about half of what he said. I guess another two or three trips and I'll finally know the whole history. I'm not sure I want to know anymore, though...

The last few days of their visit was spent just wandering around Warsaw. Kim and I thought we had seen most of the city, but apparently we were way off. There's still all sorts of cool stuff to find, so that should keep us busy for a while. We went to the zoo one day and spent almost the entire day there. It was way bigger than any of us expected. And we basically had the entire place to ourselves since it was the middle of the week, so that was really cool. We watched the otters wrestle eachother for a good twenty minutes, which was hilarious. Even funnier if you've ever heard Denis Leary's bit on otters from his "No Cure for Cancer" cd.

On the way to the zoo I wanted to stop and check out the old soccer stadium that's been out of use for years. On the weekends people set up little booths all around the stadium and it's basically one big flea market. There were a couple vendors when we were there, but it looked like a ghost town. There was an old man who had a bunch of cool stuff like old cameras, Russian and Polish army uniforms and helmets, and even some random Nazi memorabilia. My mom asked how much for the cigarette holder with the nazi eagle and swastika, but the dude wanted 300 zloty (about 110 bucks). I think you can get that stuff on ebay for like 20 bucks, so we passed on that and didn't even ask him how much his other stuff was. He had a kick ass old WWII Polish sword, but I sure he wanted way too much for it. Besides, I don't think they'd let me into the zoo with it, especially since he didn't have a sheath or anything for it.

We also went to the Polish Army Military Museum, which was awesome. They had a ton of stuff, lots of old medieval armour and weapons. Unfortunately they don't allow cameras inside so I couldn't get any pics. But I took a bunch outside where they had all sorts of kick ass tanks, canons, planes, etc. They even had a 7.1 ton bomb that was found unexploded in the ruins of a downtown restaraunt. Pretty impressive.

I have lots more pics that I plan on posting to the Flickr page in the next day or two, so check it out every couple of days or so. That's all for now. I'm out!

Is there anything...

...more annoying than when someone says "preggers"?

Prague Rocks!

We just got back from 5 days in Prague and it was amazing. We couldn't believe all the insane architecture, just about every building in the entire city is a work of art. There are statues and monuments all over the place. The Charles Bridge is beautiful, with large statues on both sides every 20 or 30 feet and big towers on each end. And there's a torture museum at the end of it, but we're going to wait and see that when we go back in a couple months.

Prague also has what is supposed to be the largest castle in Europe, but I don't actually know if that's true or not. And even though it doesn't really look like a castle in the traditional sense, it's very impressive anyways. Inside the castle walls is the mindblowing St. Vitus Cathederal (that's what the pic is). We toured the inside but I didn't get any shots since I had already taken 435 pics and used up all 7GBs of my memory cards. But I'll definitely get a bunch of the inside when we go back. There are stained glass windows everywhere. Our guide told us that one of the windows had over 96,000 pieces of glass. We also got to climb up a long winding staircase into one of the towers and get a great view of the city.

Next time we go back it should be quite a bit more peaceful since tourist season will be over, although I hear that there are always tourists around. And even though the streets were pretty crowded while we were there, they tell us that it was actually slower than usual. But the streets clear out more once it starts getting dark, and I plan on getting a lot of night time shots on our next trip. I also plan on buying a bunch of souvenirs since I didn't really buy anything this time. We bought some beautiful handpainted vases and oil lamps, but not much else. There are shops everywhere and even though most of them all have a ton of the same crap, their crap is way cooler than most places I've been too.

I put a bunch of my shots on my flickr page, so go check it out!

Not for the squeamish

I guess the title for this entry could have been "Just for the guys" or "We don't need no stinking dentists!"

About three weeks ago I started getting this horrible throbbing toothache that was keeping me up at night. I had to pop asprin a couple times a day so I could eat. I made an appointment with a dentist, but by the time I got there 4 days later, the pain had finally dissappeared. I just had a bunch of dental work done right before we left the states, and the new dentist said everything looked good. She also said that sometimes you can have some discomfort from getting a lot of work done at the same time and to come back if the pain started again. About a week later it started to feel funky again, but it was more the gums than the teeth. It was most painful when I pushed on the outside, just next to my nose. So last night I pulled my lip up and saw that it was puffy and bruised. It felt kind of like a blister, all squishy and whatnot. So I decided to do a little surgery on myself. I took a knife (not just any knife, the engraved one Alan got me for being in his wedding) and cut a slit into my gum.

That. Shit. Hurt.

At first it started to bleed a little. Then it started to bleed some more. Then I pushed on the squishy parts. Now, I'm not exactly sure how much puss a human head can hold but if there was a category for it in the Guinness world record book, I would definitely be getting my 15 minutes of fame right now. After a good 20 minutes of pushing, I finally got all the creamy goodness out. And now my teeth and gums feel 90% better and it didn't cost me a thing. Now as long as it doesn't come back even worse and make my head explode, everything should be fine. I hope.

One more thing...

I almost forgot one of the best things about Poland: the ice cream! It's so much better than back in the states. So creamy. So tasty. So loaded with flavor. And they have all sorts of different flavors. And it costs about half as much. People usually get at least two scoops, and they think it's wierd if you don't get each scoop a different flavor. My favorite combo so far: raspberry and lemon. Yummy!

Pros and Cons

Things I love about Poland:

1. The sites. There are so many amazing things to see here. Tons of old buildings, statues, parks, etc. Every time we go somewhere new, there's always something unexpected and really cool. Luckily I have my camera on me about 90% of the time so I'm able to document most of what we see. I post the best stuff on my Flickr page, but that's only a fraction of the pics I've taken.

2. Public transportation. It's pretty easy to get around to wherever you need to go here. For 20 bucks a month you can ride the trams, buses, and metro all you want. That's way cheaper than taking th DC metro. We've only been on a couple buses so far, but the tram is our best friend. Our stop is just outside the apartment and the most you ever have to wait is 10 minutes, but it's usually a lot shorter than that.

3. The history. I don't know much about it, but I'm going to learn as much as I can while I'm here.


Things I hate about Poland:

1. The language barrier. Everyone told us not to waste our time learning Polish because almost everybody speaks English here. Bullshit. It's a lot harder than we expected. Even though we can get around just fine, it make things pretty difficult sometimes. Some of the younger people speak English because they teach it in the schools now, but you can forget talking to any of the older people.

2. The language. I want to meet whoever is responsible for this crazy ass language so I can bitchslap them. It's hard enough that half the letters sound like other letters, but some of the sounds in these words are humanly impossible to pronounce. "Sz" sounds like shh, "cz" sounds like ch, and there are words that start with Szcz. "Krz" and "prz" sounds like shh, too. Don't even get me started on all the letters that have little squiggly things on the bottom of them.

3. The drivers. Our car isn't even here yet and I already have road rage. These people are crazy. I've heard that it's because they've only been driving for about 20 years, but that's not a good enough excuse for me. I've only been driving for 13 years, so screw that. There are posted speed limits, but I don't even know why since the cops don't seem to care. And somehow they manage to squeeze four cars into three lanes. And they LOVE their horns. I was shocked that I hadn't seen any accidents since I'd been here, but last weekend Kim and I saw someone smash into the guy that pulled out in front of him.

4. The fashion. Lots of the females dress all nice and business-like, but the others wear the craziest clothes. They LOVE red shoes. The brighter the better, wether or not it matches anything else they're wearing just doesn't matter. Camouflage is everywhere. And not normal camo, either. Just about any color you can think of (think pink). The only one I haven't seen is hunter orange, so I'm thinking I should bring some back from the states and sell it here. I'd make a fortune!
And there are tons of people that wear shirts with English text on them, but I can't help but wonder if they even have a clue what it says...

5. The haircuts. I don't know what the hell the dudes here are thinking. Half of them have the same stupid haircut. Kinda like a mullet and mohawk hybrid. They shave the sides of thier heads, except that it looks more like when a dog chews out patches of it's own hair.

6. Movie release dates. We get most of the movies the US does, but they can take a few months to get here. The last Pirates movie was released at the same time as the US, and The last Die Hard movie was only about a week later, but we still don't know when Knocked Up is coming. But the worst thing is that Transformers isn't here yet and it's driving me effing crazy!

*Funny little FYI about the last Die Hard movie (which was awesome): It's called Die Hard 4.0 in the rest of the world because nobody outside the US would understand the "Live Free or Die" reference.

Back online baby!

Well we finally got our internet set up. It was quite a chore, and the partial language barrier didn't help. The people at Kim's work sent me to a store to pick up the wireless router which would work with the particular isp that they use. When I got there, they said they didn't have it so they sent me to another store. So I went to the other store. They told me I had to talk to my representative, who is the person who sent me to the other store in the first place. So I went back to her a couple days later and she told me that she had just called the original store and that they had some more in stock. So I went back to that store. This time they had it, except I recognized it from the last time I had been there. So they had it all along, and even though the first guy that helped me seemed to speak ok english, something apparently was lost in the translation. Whatever, I was just happy to get the damn thing so I can get hooked up and start earning some money again. Don't get me wrong, a 2 month vacation is sweet, and having a sugar mama is awesome, but I need to get more cash so we can do all the travelling that we want to. So anyways, I take the wireless router home and start to set it up. After about 3 hours last night I give it up and decide to try again in the morning. I don't even want to get into the issues of last night. But it's working now and that's all that matters. And it seems to be pretty fast, so hopefully it'll be good enough for the transfer of the huge files I be downloading and uploading for work.

Oh yea, our Vonage is working now too so I'll be calling or emailing people with my new phone number. It's a Virginia number so it won't cost anything extra for calling to Europe. And all the calls we make to the US are free, so if you wanna talk all you gotta do is give me a jingle and I'll call you right back.

Rock!

The concert was fan-friggin-tastic. The venue was really cool, too. The inside was painted all sorts of crazy designs with lots of bright colors. There are two areas outside with some dudes grilling up kielbasa and selling beer. Next time we plan on getting there early enough to test it out. We missed the opening band, but we don't even know who it was so we didn't really care.

I wore one of my KMFDM shirts thinking that I would probably fit in with the crowd, which I basically did. But I was a little surprised that I didn't see anyone else wearing one. There were tons of Type O Negative, Slayer, and Danzig shirts but not a single KMFDM. I figured since KMFDM is a European band, that I would see more here than back in the states. Then I realized something. KMFDM is a German band. Oops. I guess I forgot to take that whole WWII thing into account. I'm not sure if Polish people have a grudge or anything, but I wasn't about to find out that night so I spent most of the concert hiding behind Kim so no one could see the front of my shirt. Luckily no one yelled at me or tried to beat my ass on the way out, but I don't think I'll be wearing KMFDM shirts around here anymore...

First concert in Poland!

YAAYYY!!! I'm going to my first concert in Poland tonight! There's a club that's only about a 10 minute tram ride and another 10 minutes of walking from where we live and Type O Negative is playing. I know none of you know (or care) who that is, but I love 'em and this will be the third time I've seen them. They are the reason Alan calls me "Stewed", by the way. There are a couple other bands that I like playing soon, but I probably won't see them since they're playing in other parts of the country. I need to get Warsaw all figured out before we start venturing out too far. Hopefully there will be plenty of other great concerts soon, though.

**UPDATE** I just found out that Skinny Puppy and Frontline Assembly are playing in July and August. Anyone who knows me should at least recognize those band names as a couple of my favs!

We're here!

So after a few minor bumps along the way that kept us wondering if we were actually going to leave when we were supposed to, we set out for our new adventure to Europe. Kim's dad was able to transfer some of his frequent flyer miles to us so we could upgrade to business class. If you've never been on business class before, don't do it. You will never want to fly economy ever again. I knew it would be nice, but I had no idea the kind of pampering they give you. You get to choose from a full menu (I had filet mignon), they bring juices and alcohol around, you get a little pouch with slippers, a sleep mask, toothbrush and toothpaste, mints and some other stuff. You even have your own personal monitor that you can choose from 10 different movie channels. I watched one of them but then pulled out my laptop so Kim and I could watch The Fountain on dvd (amazing movie! unlike anything you've ever seen, I promise). But the best part was the seats. They fully reclined and the footrests went almost straight out so you could basically lie down the entire time. Huge thanks to dad for the upgrade because I can't even imagine how much the 8 hour flight to Frankfurt would've sucked ass if we were squished into economy. And with my luck on airplanes, I definitely would've been seated right next to a rather large and particularly smelly german man who thought his ticket was good for 2 seats and wouldn't give up the armrest or put his damn shoes back on (sorry, still bitter from the trip back from Costa Rica).

We arrive in Warsaw around 2pm and one of Kim's new coworkers picks us up and takes us to our apartment. Wow. Kim said it would be bigger than our condo in VA, but she didn't tell me it would be twice as big. This place is awesome! All wood floors, two bedrooms and an office, big spacious living room, and tons of closet space everywhere. We're on the 11th floor and we have a fantastic balcony that overlooks the courtyard and has a great view of downtown. There's a table and chairs out there so we can have dinner outside whenever we want. We also have a very nice fitness club with a lap pool that was supposedly negotiated into our lease, but we're having trouble activating it. They're supposed to take care of it soon, so hopefully it'll work out. I need to start swimming laps again and getting back into shape.

Kim's coworkers have been great. They've taken us around town and helped us go grocery shopping since our car won't be here for another 2 months or so. We've gone out to dinner a few times with them and even went to see Pirates of the Carribbean sunday night. They all seem like good people who really want to help us out and make the transition easier. Too bad 3 of them are actually on their way out within the next month. Hopefully whoever replaces them will be just as cool. And I'm sure we'll meet more people soon.

*side note* The movie theaters here are sweet. They play the movies in english and the screens are about 50-75% bigger than in the states. The sound is great and the stadium seating is very comfortable. You can drink beer and in some of the upper levels there are couches to relax on. When you buy your ticket, which is about $1.50 cheaper than in VA, you look at the monitor that shows you which seats are still available. Then you pick where you want to sit and that's where you go, so you don't have to worry about finding someplace to sit once you get in the theater. And the best part? It's in a huge 3-story shopping mall that's only a 10 minute walk from home. In fact, I think I may wander on over there in a few minutes to go see Pathfinder (ultra violent viking movie), since it was only in theaters in the states for about a week and I missed it.

The public transportation system is so much better than the US, too. There are buses, the Metro, and the trams. I've only used the tram so far, but it's very easy to get around as long as you know which stops you need. They come every five minutes or so, so you never have to wait long.

The only thing that is a little difficult is the lanuage barrier. Everyone told us that it wouldn't be a problem and that we shouldn't even bother learning Polish since everybody speaks English here. Not true. The younger people all know English well enough that we can converse with them, but none of the older people speak a word of it. So we definitely need to learn Polish. At least the basics, anyways. We're enrolled in the free classes where Kim works, but those don't start for another few weeks. I guess it's a good thing I bought Rosetta Stone, now I just have to remember where the hell I put it.

That about covers it for now. I'm using the computer they have for us in the apartment as part of our welcome kit until all our stuff gets here. I hate PCs, but this will do for now. Right now it's just dial up, which is pretty expensive, but we should have our broadband set up in a month or so. You'll probably see me online alot more once that's taken care of.

Goodbye, for now

The wedding was fantastic, thanks to everyone who came and made it as special as it could possibly be. A HUGE thanks to the parents, who did way more than we could have ever asked. Both Kim and I realize how lucky we are. I feel especially lucky to have the friends that I do, not just anyone would travel across 2 states to be in a wedding. Not to mention traveling all the way from Michigan to West Virginia for a bachelor party on a holiday weekend. Ed posted a nice little blog on his myspace page that almost made me tear up. Almost, I said.

The honeymoon was amazing! A whole week in a Costa Rican resort with a different tour every day. We saw a volcano erupt at night, swam in hot springs while sipping pina coladas, cruised down a river surrounded by all sorts of birds, lizards, and crocodiles. We went spelunking in underground caves, chest deep in water in some places while hundreds of bats fluttered inches above our heads. And of course, we rocketed above the trees of the rainforest on ziplines. I took tons of photos (filled up 7GB of memory cards) and I'll be posting them to my flickr page when I get a chance.

We'll be leaving for Poland wednesday afternoon and will probably be offline for about a month, so this will be my last update for a little while. But don't worry, I plan on getting back in touch with everyone as soon as we get settled in. We're going to try that Vonage thing which lets you keep your old number. That way I don't have to switch to a wierd Polish phone system where all the numbers end with "ski".

It's going to be pretty hectic right until we take off for the airport, but hopefully we'll get everything taken care of that we need to. That includes sending Ed and Joe the T-shirts I got for them in Costa Rica. I didn't get Alan one because they didn't have the only one he would've liked in his size. Besides, he doesn't get a present until Kim and I get one from him. Jackass.

So I guess I'm a blogger now...

Well I always thought blogs were kinda retarded. From what I've read of other blogs (which is quite limited, I'll admit) they've always seemed boring as hell. I mean who really cares about the daily goings on of a 37 year old dude who lives in his mom's basement playing Warcraft for 16 hours a day? Maybe that's a bad example since there are probably hundreds of thousands of Warcrafters out there that really DO care. But I think I've made my point. Maybe my general dislike for blogs has something to do with my horrible writing skills. Or my rather limited vocabulary (although my favorite word is penultimate, which I learned in spanish class but that's another story...). What I'm really trying to say is that I've never felt like I had anything important enough to write down so others could read it. Until now, apparently. I've been told by more than a couple people recently that I need to start a blog.

Anyways, on to the reason for creating a blog of my own. Pretty much anyone reading this is probably someone who knows either myself or my lovely bride to be. But for anyone not in the know, I am getting married to the love of my life soon, Miss Kimberly (that would be Kim for short). Two weeks from tonight, in fact. After that we will be heading to Costa Rica for a week long honeymoon. Once we get back, we have about a day and a half before we move to Warsaw, Poland for 2-3 years. Yes, Poland. In Europe. For real. And since it will obviously be much harder to stay in touch with friends and family, Kim and myself will be using this to keep everybody updated. And what better time to start this thing up than now, whilst I sit alone in a hotel room in VA, my fiance at a bridal shower (for one of her bridesmaids whom is getting married a week after us) and all our worldy possesions either sitting in a warehouse somewhere or in one of the four suitcases next to the bed (3 of which are Kim's, might I point out).

I'm not really sure how often this will be updated, but we plan on doing as much traveling around Europe as we can possibly do. And as some of you know, I fancy myself as a bit of a photographer. Not professional by any means, but I do like to go clicky more than most people. And I don't want to beep my own horn, but I have had 2 photos published (beep beep), so I guess I'm not too terrible. So I will most definitely be updating my Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewedman/) every chance I get.

We primarily want to use this blog for talking about our wonderful travels and adventures, but who knows what we may put up here. Like hockey, for instance. Today I watched the Red Wings absolutely bitchslap San Jose on their way to winning (hopefully) their fourth Stanley Cup in 10 years. Or I guess I could mention that I'm watching the Pistons completely obliterate the Bulls right now buy 25 points. Check that, now it's 28. GO DETROIT SPORTS!! Except baseball. Screw baseball.

So that's just about it. This is our blog. Enjoy!

Nathan