More paintball action

So last time there was about 20 of us from the American squad. This time there were 3. We should've had more, but some people (like the marine who called me for the details) never showed up. But a group of about 26 or 27 Poles were there so we just joined in with them. They were all super cool and most of them spoke perfect english. One of the guys said he usually plays at another place in town every week and gave us his card and said we were welcome to join any time. Some of them had their own guns, so it looks like I'm gonna have to take another trip to the paintball shop. It's called Mad Sheep. I don't know why.

We didn't bother with that capture the flag or VIP crap, we just played deathmatch the entire time and it was awesome. I don't wanna blow my own horn or anything, but I impressed myself with how many people I wasted. I got 2 dudes in a few of the games, 3 in another game, and I actually blasted 4 in a game. The sweetest kill of all was the dude that I rocked right in the lens of his mask. It was total vindication from when it happened to me (twice) last time out.

An Irish Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we spent 5 days with 3 of our Warsaw friends traveling all over the bottom half of Ireland. We flew into Dublin wednesday afternoon, rented a van and spent the rest of the time driving all over the place. When it was all over we had put 998 miles of road beneath us. What was really amazing was how polite and friendly the Irish people are. Quite a switch from the sneering faces we usually see around here most of the time.

Most of the first night was spent in a Dublin pub playing a drinking game with two locals. Knowing we wouldn't be seeing much of the city before going home, I left everyone else in the pub for an hour or so and ventured out to get some night time shots. I got a few, but I really wish we would've had more time, there's a ton more to see there and I would love to go back some day.

On the second day we drove to Kilkenny for a while to check out the castle. We took an hour long tour that was pretty cool, the inside was pretty cool. They actually used some of the rooms in one of the Harry Potter movies (not sure which one, since I hate HP).  After that, we hauled ass to Blarney Castle just outside of Cork. The castle was amazing, and we all (except one of us who shall remain unnamed) kissed the Blarney Stone. Then we headed for Killarney to find a hotel and some dinner. We got there just in time to see some Thanksgiving football at the hotel sports bar. The Lions suck ass.

Day three was spent driving around the Ring of Kerry, which is a beautifully scenic 112 mile loop through the countryside. We pulled off to the side of the road a bunch of times, there were plenty of things to take pictures of. There were ruins, churches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, etc. After that we took a ferry across one of the bays and went to find a hotel for the night.

The next day we drove to the Cliffs of Moher and spent a while there. Standing on the edge of the ocean looking 700 feet below as hundreds of birds fly around was awesome. Next we drove to Limerick to see King John's Castle. The castle was pretty cool, especially the severely overacted 10 minute movie they showed inside. After the tour we started heading back to Dublin, stopping at a pub on the way for some delicious lunch and rugby watching. Speaking of rugby, the New Zealand All Blacks have the greatest pre game ritual war dance thing ever. If I was standing in front of them while they did the war dance, I would forfeit right there.

We got back to Dublin a few hours later, then went out one last time to pick up a few souvenirs (don't worry, Ed I got you a damn shot glass) and get dinner. We ate at a restaurant that had a stage with a tradition Irish dance group performing. And as much as I hate the Riverdance, these people were unbelievable. I didn't know a human could move their feet that fast!

The trip was amazing and there was so much more that we didn't see, so we plan on going back someday. If not to see the stuff we missed, then to drink more of Bulmers Cider. I'm not sure how many pints I had of it, but lets just say it's a good thing I wasn't the driver. Yummy!

I'm serious now!

I loved paintball so much I ran out today and bought myself a mask. It has dual thermal lenses that are guaranteed not to fog up like the ones they provided where we played the other day. And it looks pretty bad ass, too.

Painballin'

I played paintball for the first time in my life today, and it was awesome. I was worried about two things: getting shot within the first 20 seconds of each game, and getting blasted in the back of my bald head. Neither one happened, so it was a good day. I did get shot in the mask twice, though. The worst part is I thought for sure I had the dude each time. The second time I didn't even think he knew I was there. But then all of a sudden everything turned yellow from the blast right between my eyes, so I guess he figured it out. The best part was when we played the game where one team has to protect a guy with a reflective vest, and the other team's goal is to kill him. The guy with the vest was the same guy that shot me a few games earlier who I had already blasted at least three times, but since the paintballs never actually broke on him, the cheating prick kept playing. So when he put that vest on and got in my crosshairs, I unloaded on his bitch ass. He was running for cover behind a car and I'm sure I hit him at least once or twice, but he kept going. Luckily he wasn't smart enough to get behind the tire of the car and I could see his legs, so I emptied my gun on him. I had to have hit him at least 4 times before he finally admitted defeat. I made sure he knew who got him.

The paintball place was really cool. It's an abandoned warehouse that used to be a train platform, so the middle is raised up and the sides are sunken in where the tracks used to be. There are old cars and stacks of tires everywhere, and there's a little treehouse looking thing in the middle that's elevated up about 5 feet so you can snipe people. Everyone had a great time (except apparently the dude I was talking about earlier that was taking things a little too seriously) and we plan on going a lot more. There were 18 people this time and we might be able to recruit a few more for next time.

rubble

I went to see if they've done anything with the stadium where we saw the Red Bull X-Fighters the other day, and they're starting to tear it down already. There was an aluminum fence and a few security guards all around the parking lot, so I couldn't get anywhere near it. I walked around the whole thing and got a couple shots from the distance. Not much to see except for piles of rubble and construction vehicles, but I put a couple shots on the flickr page. I also walked around the Praga district, which we haven't really seen much of. And from what I can tell, there's not much to see anyway. Except for a cool monument that nobody seems to like since it's dedicated to the Soviets. Praga is also where the old vodka factory we toured in the summer is located. The zoo is there, too, and it's really nice. I likey zoos.

I'm a demonic rock star!

I had to go to the embassy today for language class and to pay a couple bills. When I went into the office, one of the girls saw me and said "I loved your costume!". And then the three other girls were all like "Hey you're the costume guy!" and "That was awesome!". They asked me all sorts of questions about it. But the funny part is, none of those people were actually at the party. So apparently the 800+ photos that everyone took at the party have already circulated.

Hellraiser

The halloween party was at the marine house last night, and it was the best ever! There's nothing like spending halloween with a bunch of drunken marines and crazy Polish people. There weren't as many people as last year, but that's ok cuz we could barely move at that party. It took two hours to apply the costume, not including the many hours I spent turning toothpicks into nails and a wooden cube into the Lament Configuration. Everybody loved the costume, so it was worth it. I had people I've never met before coming up to me all night to get pictures with them. And I won the best costume award. They gave me a little plastic trophy and 100 zloty, which I think just about covers the cost of the entire costume, so that's cool. When we got home I took a few photos for the flickr page, go check 'em out.

And for anyone who doesn't know, I was Pinhead from the Hellraiser movies. The Lament Configuration is a wooden puzzle box that opens a gateway to hell. Whoever solves the puzzle gets their soul dragged to hell by Pinhead. And they usually get ripped apart by hooks and chains. The pic above is from one of the movies.

3 Towns, 10 Days

My mom was here for 10 days, and since both her and Kim LOVE the Polish pottery, we went on a shopping spree. We stayed in Wroclaw for 4 days, with one of those days being an hour and a half trip to Boleslawiec, the factory town where all the pottery is actually made. We were just barely able to fit it all in the car. I can't even fathom a guess at how many pieces they made off with. I got a mug.

I also took my mom to Torun for 2 days. It's a nice little town that takes less than 3 hours by train. It is famous for it's gingerbread, which I've never been that into, but this stuff is pretty damn good. It's also famous for being the birthplace of Copernicus, which is pretty cool.

I put up some pics from Wroclaw on the Flickr page, and I'll be going through the Torun shots soon.

Legia Warszawa Hokej

Today was the first game for the Polish hockey league. Warsaw has a team and they were playing downtown so we thought it would be fun to go. It was only 10 zloty a ticket, so it was definitely some cheap entertainment. The place was tiny, probably only sat about 2-300 people, but the fans were nuts. They were screaming and chanting so hard that it sounded like 1,000 people in there. I can't imagine how it would've been if their team was actually any good. But they weren't. They really, really weren't. Apparently the coach doesn't make them practice passing, cuz damn did they ever suck at it. They only lost 4-1, so it wasn't too bad but it could've easily been much worse. I looked at their website when we got home and their record last year was 10-26, many of the loses were shutouts. They actually allowed 15 goals in two straight games. So I guess they're looking much better this season...

Crap!

Kim and I went running today, and after only 90 seconds or so, she screamed "EWW!!". So I look over and see a giant glob of bird shit on her chest.

I almost tripped and fell into an oncoming car I was laughing so hard. It was glorious.

New Pics

I put more photos on the Flickr page. I took a bunch while the guys were here, and I still have some more to go through, but most of them are up now. I won't really go into what we did while the boys were in town, since they're pretty much the only ones who read this thing anyways, but they seemed to have a pretty good time. Gdansk was really cool and the Red Bull X-Fighters event was awesome as hell. I would've bought a shirt, but they weren't cool enough to shell out 45 bucks on one. Now I gotta check to see if they've started demolishing the stadium yet.

I'll be finishing with the pics in the next couple of days, so keep an eye out. I think all I have left to go through are from the Gdansk shipyards where we took a pirate ship through the canals.

sigh

Well, after 10 days of fun and excitement, the boys are on their way back to the states right now. That is, unless they did something really bad and got detained during the 20 hour layover in Amsterdam...

X-Lecia

Yesterday I went to the stadium where we'll be seeing the Red Bull X-Fighters to try and get some shots, but it was all fenced off. I saw a guy with a camera off in the distance who had somehow gotten inside, so I walked all around trying to find an open spot but there was nothing except for the area where the security guard was watching some guys install new stadium seats. I thought about asking the guard if I could go in and take pictures, but the dude was giving me the stinkeye the entire time so I think I know what his answer would've been. Oh well, I'm sure it doesn't look that much different than when I took pictures of it last summer. I just wanted to get a few more shots, since right after the Red Bull event they'll be demolishing it to start work on the new stadium for the Euro 2012 tournament. But there were some old abandoned vans in the parking lot, so I got a couple cool shots of those.

I'm super excited for the X-Fighters, it's gonna be awesome. I waited and waited for tickets to go on sale, and once they did I was the 2nd person to get there. I got us the best seats in the house, right in the front row. And I just found out that the whole thing is already sold out, so I'm glad I went when I did.

For those of you not in the know, check this out: X-Fighters

Army Day

Friday was Polish Army Day and they had a big parade downtown, so we went to see it. There were tons of soldiers and lots of cool military vehicles. There were supposed to be jets and choppers flying over, but they must have been at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where the Polish president gave his speech. We didn't get to see that part, but I did see some fighter jets buzzing over the buildings by our apartment thursday when I was outside. We got a pretty good spot in front to watch the parade, so I got some ok shots. Some dumb suka kept shoving her camera phone in front of me, but I was able to avoid it most of the time. Go to the Flickr page to check out all the military goodness.

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

Ho Lee She At

WOW.

I think I shat myself at least 8 times during The Dark Knight.

Mroczny Rycerz

Finally! After weeks of excruciating agony while waiting for The Dark Knight to be released in Poland, there's only one more day of suspense. That must be the penalty for bragging about seeing Iron Man a couple days earlier than everyone else. I've successfully avoided anything on tv or the internet that had anything to do with the movie because I don't want to know anything about it beyond what I've already seen in the trailer. And just in case someone tries to ruin it in the comments of this post (Ed), I won't be reading it until after the movie, so say what you will, bitches!

This is the first time since we've been here that they put tickets for a movie on sale 2 weeks before it's release. And they were going pretty fast. Luckily, I bought our tickets the day after they went on sale. We'll be watching it in all of it's glory on a 6-story tall IMAX screen.

I. Can't. Wait...

Polish Absinthe

Wow, I'm seeing double already and I haven't even started drinking yet. And this is the real deal, you gotta prepare it the old school way with the sugar cubes and ice water. I just hope it's good. It's Polish, so if it's anything like their vodka, then watch out!! But I'm saving these babies for when Ed and Alan come to visit. Of course Alan won't drink any, but that just leaves more for Ed and myself. 

Apocalypse

Kim and I went to see the band Apocalyptica last night. It was the anniversary of the Warsaw Rising, so it was held in the park right outside the Rising Museum. What better way to celebrate the courage of the Poles in WWII then with a Finnish band of 4 dudes on cellos and 1 drummer? And best of all it was free! They rocked pretty hard, but it's kinda funny seeing guys with hair down to their asses headbanging while playing a cello. The weather was perfect for an outdoor concert and we both had a really good time. I loved it, but Kim was even more into it than I was. She's already told me that we're going to see them again the next time they come.

One Last Fix

The Ministry concert was last night and it was awesome. For the live band they recruited Tony Campos from Static-X and Tommy Victor from Prong. I had no idea what a great guitar player Victor was, but that mofo can shred like nobody's business. The played two 65+ minute sets, the first of which was all the best stuff from their last three albums. That was great, but since this was a farewell tour, I really wanted to hear some old classics. They started the second set with some crazy instrumental stuff, but then the bass line for "So What" kicked in and the crowd went nuts. They followed that with "Just One Fix", "Thieves", and "N.W.O." and completely tore the house down. It was so kick ass, but kinda sad at the same time since this will be the last time we'll ever get to see the great Uncle Al perform. Last night was the penultimate city they'll ever play, and I got to witness it's awesome power.

It was a great 20+ years. 

RIP Ministry

Fun on the seas

For the long holiday weekend, a group of 20 people from Kim's work took a trip to the Great Masurian lakes for some fun on the water. We rented 3 sailboats, with two of them holding six people plus a captain, and another holding eight with the captain. The boats were a bit smaller than we expected, but it wasn't too bad. At least not until it was time to go to sleep in the tiiiiiny cabins. I woke up in the middle of the night on friday and felt like I was in a coffin, so I took my sleeping bag and slept up top.

The weather was beautiful most of the time, we were able to set anchor and swim around for a while until a massive storm hit us saturday afternoon. The wind and rain was coming down really hard, and then it started hailing like crazy. Luckily we were able to get to the dock before it got too bad, or I'm sure we would've had some pretty sick sailors on board. Especially with the rather large amounts of vodka/pineapple juice/cranberry juice drinks and vodka soaked watermelons we all consumed. The storm passed pretty quickly and it cleared up and turned into another great night.

We were docked at the town of Mikolajki, which was pretty small but had a few nice cafes, a place to get fresh baked waffles covered in whipped cream and chocolate (yummy!), and most importantly, a huge trampoline to jump on. I and two of the girls from our boat were the only ones who jumped, and we had a blast. Except I forgot that my green laser was in my pocket and apparently something got jacked up when I was doing all those flips because it completely died after that. Don't worry, I already ordered a new one today.

Sunday we just puttered around the lakes nice and easy, tied the three boats together, and swam for a while before heading back to home base and driving home. All in all it was a great time for everyone and we're going back next summer. But we all agreed that we're going to rent the motorboats that hold eight people so we don't have to screw around with putting the sails and masts up and down every time we go through a different canal between the lakes.

Stanley Xs Two

Most people reading this probably don't care, but the Red Wings just signed Marion Hossa to a one year contract. And if that wasn't exciting enough, they also signed Brad Stuart to a 4-year extension, and Andreas Lilja for 2 more years. Plus they brought in Ty Conklin to be Osgood's backup for next year. If that doesn't guarantee another Stanley Cup next year, I don't know what does.

Ministry!!!

Just about the only thing that isn't super awesome about living over here is the lack of kick ass concerts (although I do miss Arby's and Chipotle, too). When I was in DC, I would go to at least one a month, sometimes even three or four in the summertime. We've only been to two since we moved here. They have a couple cool venues in the city, but for some reason Poland just isn't a big draw for a lot of the bands that I love. There's one that I'd like to see this weekend, but we're not gonna be around. There's another one at the Hard Rock in October, so we'll probably go to that one.

Anyways, one of my favorites, a band called Ministry, has been kicking ass for over 20 years now and they are calling it quits with one last farewell tour. They announced the US tour dates a long time ago, but didn't mention coming to Europe so I thought I was gonna miss out. But they have recently started a European leg of the tour and they're coming here! So I went right out to the club and bought the tickets and I'm excited as hell. The tickets are cool-lookin' too, not that generic ticketmaster crap. As long as no one attacks them with tear gas (like some D-bag did at the show in France last week) it should be a great time.

I love my life!

It's a beautiful day outside, about 77 degrees and sunny, so I decided to go out to one of the close parks. There's a huge fountain where all the little kids (and some not so little kids) run around splashing each other. Since it's a weekday, there weren't a ton of people there. Still a few too many banana hammocks for my taste, but I can usually ignore those. I put a beach towel down, plugged the ipod into my head (listened to Massive Attack, the perfect chill out tunes) and went to sleep for an hour or so. I think I found a new favorite way to spend my days.

Speaking of Massive Attack, they're headlining a big music festival somewhere around here this summer, but it's just them plus the Chemical Brothers and about 40 bands that are either shit or I've never heard. So I'm not shelling out the cash for that. Anyways, check out one of the coolest videos ever, for one of their songs called "Butterfly Caught". It's wicked sweet. Word.

Polski Wodka

A large group of us took a tour of an old out-of-commission vodka factory yesterday on the other side of the river. It was pretty cool, but we were expecting a real working factory with a gift shop and tons of cheap liquor. The tour guide wasn't very informative, and it was hard to hear her even though she had a microphone attached to a speaker on her belt. And the Polish cuisine that was promised for lunch was just little pieces of bread and a bowl of tripe. I've never tried tripe before, since I'm not really into eating cow stomache, but I figured what the hell and took a few spoonfuls. It mostly tasted like chicken noodle soup, just a little chewier. It wasn't terrible, but I won't be ordering it at any restaurants. They also brought out two different kinds of vodka to try. One of them was dark red and cherry flavored and it was damn good. Five shots, one free "powered by polish vodka" shirt, and 30 minutes later we got back on the bus to head home. Some of the people weren't exactly satisfied with the provided "lunch", so we went to a Thai restaurant in Old Town for a real meal. One of the guys disappeared for a couple minutes and came back with an ice cold bottle of vodka for the 10 of us to split. We all had a great meal and a great time. Now I gotta keep an eye out for that cherry vodka next time I'm at the store...

Prague Times 3

After our trip to the Big Buda, the in-laws wanted to see Prague. This was my third time in just under a year and I don't think I'll ever get sick of it. I find new things every time I take a turn I haven't before. One of the days was devoted to shopping, so I let my three companions knock themselves out with that and decided to go to the zoo. But I couldn't find it on the tourist map I had so I asked the receptionist at the hotel. She said it wasn't on the map and gave me directions, which involved taking a tram to a metro stop, then walking to a bus stop and looking for the bus with all the animals on the side. But I had the whole day and decided to just walk, since I had a pretty good idea where the zoo was. Two and a half hours later, I arrived at the zoo. It wasn't really that far, but I got sidetracked on the way when I stumbled upon some sort of expo center/museum/sports complex/dancing performance fountain/carnival. I spent about 30 or 40 minutes wandering around that before continuing my quest for the zoo. Along the way I had to walk through a big park, and apparently it was police recognition day or something. Every 100 yards or so there was a group of Czech cops with a different display. A couple of them had games set up for kids, there were cops on horses, they were giving people rides in the police cars and on the motorcycles. The coolest thing ever though was the booth they had set up where they let people try on all the riot gear stuff. They even let people pick up the assault/sniper rifle (not exactly sure what it was, didn't get a good look at it but it was the kind with the tripod thingy attached to the barrel).

But that wasn't the end of my adventure yet. As I exited the park I had to cross the river, and as I was walking over the bridge I noticed downriver there was an area that they turned into a man-made whitewater rapid obstacle course. There were a bunch of people in kayaks so I headed over to check it out. Turns out if was the Swiss national team practicing. Why the Swiss team was practicing in the Czech Republic I don't know, but it was pretty cool to watch for a while. Then I got back on the trail to the zoo and it was only another 10 or 15 minute walk until I finally got there. The zoo was pretty impressive and I spent a good 3 or 4 hours wandering around it before heading back to meet up with the family for dinner.

We went to a great restaurant that Kim and I had been to before. And since I felt like rewarding myself for the entire day of walking and exploration, I had a pina colada followed by a liter of beer. I'm not talking about two separate glasses of half a liter each, I'm talking about a gigantic 1 liter glass that weighs about 8 pounds BEFORE they put the beer in it. And something about this particular restaurant makes me feel adventurous (last time I tried rabbit) so I ordered the wild boar with fresh mushrooms and cranberries. It was excellent.

Boo Da Peshhht

Kim's dad is of Hungarian descent (explains all the J's in the last name) and he wanted to visit the motherland while he was on this side of the earth, so we spent four days in Budapest. What an incredible city it is! I had heard that it was nice, but it was much better than I expected. And now I can't decide if I love Budapest, Athens, or Prague more.

There is a river that runs right through the city and separates the Buda side from the Pest side, both of which are beautiful. The architecture is amazing and there are statues and monuments everywhere. We saw a lot of great stuff, but there's still plenty we missed out on so we may come back sometime in the future. The one thing I really want to see but didn't get a chance to is the communist monument graveyard, which I guess is where they tossed all the old statues that used to be around. There are also some caves that you can explore, so I'd really like to do that as well.

Check the flickr page for some of the pics:

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

Stanley's back in Hockeytown!

I didn't get to see it live since we were in another country, but the Red Wings have won the cup for the fourth time in 11 seasons and Stanley is finally back where he belongs. The first thing I did when we got home was download the last game on iTunes and it was awesome. That last minute and a half was gutwrenching.

So Kim and her parents and I all took a nice lil' trip to Budapest, Hungary for four days, then back to Prague for my third time. We had beautiful weather for the most part, and it was really fun. Kim and I are thinking of heading back to Budapest at some point since it was such a great city. I've got tons of pics for the flickr page, and I'll be posting them soon.

Czersk Castle

Someone told us about a cool little site just outside of Warsaw where the ruins of an old castle lie, so we took the in-laws on a road trip to check it out. It wasn't very big, but it was pretty cool. Especially since you can climb up into two of the towers. The sun was hiding most of the time, so my pictures weren't all that great, but I posted a handful up on the flickr page.

Here comes Stanley!

The unthinkable has happened. Both of my teams will be fighting eachother for the Stanley Cup. I've had a long time to think about it, and the more I did, I realized that Detroit has to win it. They should've easily won it at least 3 of the last 4 seasons, and they deserve it after all the high hopes and terrible playoff disappointments. Besides, the Penguins aren't even supposed to be this good this soon. It was a great surprise that they even made the playoffs last year, and anything past the first round this year good be considered a bonus. They WILL win the cup within the next three years, especially if Marian Hossa resigns next year.

What really sucks is that I'll only be able to watch a maximum of 2 of the finals games because we'll be out of town. Worst. Timing. Ever.

May 19th

Today is our one year anniversary. Now that I've had some time to kick the tires (and check under the hood) I think I'll keep her. The biggest problem we've had is Kim squeezing the toothpaste at the middle of the tube, instead of from the bottom. But I've broken her of that habit and it's been smooth sailing ever since.

Now if I can just get her to forget that she likes country music...

Holy crap!

I just found out that the restaurant at Landoll's Mohican Castle burned down yesterday! Most of you reading this will remember that was where Kim and I got married last year. Luckily it was just the building where we had the reception at, and not the hotel. I assume they'll rebuild it, but who knows how long that will take.

The Greatest Game on Earth!

Anyone who knows me knows that I live and breathe hockey, especially during the playoffs. Being from MI, I am of course a huge Red Wings fan. But I'm also a Penguins fan. So much so that I chose to go to college in Pittsburgh rather than Chicago just so I might have a chance to see some games live. Well, for the first time ever, both of my teams are kicking ass at the same time. The Wings have only lost 2 games going into the conference finals (while sweeping the Avs away with a crushing 8-2 victory in game 4), while the Pens have only lost one. So if they each win their next series, they will face eachother in the Stanley Cup Finals. I think my head just might explode if that happens. I really don't know who to cheer for, although I believe the Wings would probably win. But it would probably be a really close and exciting series considering how they're both on fire right now.

Is this a win-win, or a lose-lose..?

Bring on round 3!

Greatest. Movie. Ever.

Hell. Yes!

This is how superhero movies are supposed to be.

And speaking of movies, we watched Juno the other day. That piece of crap has got to be the most overrated movie ever. It wasn't horrible, it had some funny parts, it just wasn't very good and not deserving of all the hype it got. And it definitely wasn't worthy of the Oscar it won for best screenplay. I'm 100% certain that if it hadn't been written by an ex-stripper who somehow broke into the industry, it never would've gotten all the attention it did. 

Anyways, There Will be Blood is sitting on the table right now, so we're gonna watch that soon. Hopefully that'll be as good as I think it's gonna be.

Suck it, America!

Anyone who knows me knows that I love my movies. And I've been absolutely dying to see Iron Man. But the problem with living here in Poland is that we usually don't know when a movie is coming until a week or two before it hits theaters. That's when the posters start showing up all around town. Some movies start at the same time as back home, and some start 3 months later (or anywhere in between). I check the IMDB website, but that's not very reliable most of the time. I've seen some of the movies in theaters before the site even had the date up.

So anyways, I found out today that we'll actually get to see Iron Man a whole two days before you suckers back in the states! Damn am I glad I don't live there anymore. That would suck! And of course I'm gonna go see it wednesday and them I'm gonna call all of you losers and totally ruin it for you.

On second thought, that might not be suck a good idea since you guys could do that to me on every other movie that comes out for the next couple years. So um, yeah I was just kidding.

On to round 2!

Spermy

These posters started popping up all over town recently. Not really sure what it says, but dammit it's funny.

Athens Again

We took a second trip to Athens, this time meeting my mom and step dad there, and stayed for 8 days. It was just as good the second time, if not better. We did some of the same stuff like going to the Acropolis, Ancient and Roman Agoras, and the Temple of Zeus. But we did a lot of awesome new things, too. We took a half day trip to Cape Sounion where the Temple of Poseidon overlooks the sea at the southernmost tip of the Attica pennisula. The view from the top of the cliff where the temple is was amazing.

We also took a ferry ride to the island of Aegina and spent the whole day there. The 80 minute ride to and from the island was really cool. The sun was shining the whole time, and I've never seen such beautiful blue water before. The island had two sets of ruins to explore, the Temple of Apollo (a different one than we saw in Delphi on our last trip), and the Temple of Aphaea. The Temple of Apollo was a short walk from the port where we docked, so we checked that out first. The really great thing about it was that you could pretty much crawl up on anything you wanted, where as most of the ruins that we've been to have been all roped off so you can't actually touch anything. 

To get to the Aphaea temple on the other side of the island we had to take a cab. It was nice because the cab driver took us straight there and waited while we wandered around the ruins taking pictures and enjoying the tremendous view of the rest of the island. On the way back to town, he stopped at a big monastery for a few minutes. That was pretty impressive, too.

We found the greatest little gyro stand on our last day of our first trip, so we went back there almost every day this time. We've eaten at some great restaurants while we were there, but this place is absolutely the best. And it's so cheap, too. 15 bucks fed all for of us. And of course I had to get some donuts from the people all over town with their little carts of goodies.

And last but not least, I got the sweetest souvenir ever. It's a solid bronze replica of a King Leonidas helmet at about half scale. I got a small helmet last time, but wanted to get another one on this trip. We looked just about everywhere, but the selection wasn't nearly as good as it was the time before so I had pretty much given up. But then we found this great store that was down a road that we hadn't been on before that had all sorts of great stuff. It was by far the coolest helmet we'd seen on either trip, and was less than half the price of any of the others. I was even able to talk the shop owner down by 45 euros.

Power Trip

So the concert was mother effin' amazing. It was Chimaira's first time in Poland and they came just for me. And they absolutely destroyed. It was brutal as hell and I loved every damn minute of it. And to make it even better, both of the opening bands were awesome. There was a third band, but I checked them out online and they sucked, so we skipped them since they were playing first. But it was great cuz usually you just kinda hope the opening bands don't suck too horribly, but these guys kicked almost as much ass as Chimaira did. I'm definitely buying some of their stuff. 

Kim is such a good sport about this stuff, and she actually likes a lot of my music but she had a great time, too. She was banging her head back and forth a little, I was very proud of her.

ROCK!!!

HELL YES

Hasek kicks ass

Kim's finally snapped

Jolly 'Ol London!

Kim's friend Lisa was on vacation for a couple weeks and stayed with us here in Warsaw for about a week, then we all went to London to visit their mutual friend. Another mutual friend from the states met us there and we spent four and a half days in the city. Kim and I thought London would be pretty cool, we'd see Big Ben and the London Eye and so on, but we had no idea how amazing it was going to be. There was way more stuff to see than we ever thought. We did a few of the "have to"s like take a double-decker bus and go for a ride in one of those cool old fashioned taxis. Those taxis, by the way, look all cool and old fashioned on the outside, but the inside is pretty high-tech and swanky. Five people can fit inside with three facing the back and two facing forward so you can all have a conversation. There's a clear divider between you and the driver with an intercom system to talk to him.

For about 40 bucks you can take a double-decker tour bus around town, getting on and off wherever you want to explore. The ticket is good for two days, but we did so much wandering around and sightseeing the first day, we never even used the second day. I spent about an hour or so on the top level of the bus, with no roof, freezing my ass off in the wind and 40 degree weather so I could get some good photos. I haven't really looked at them yet, so I'm not sure if it was worth it, but I'll be going through them and posting the good ones on the flickr page soon.

We spent some time going through the Tower of London, which seemed less like an actual tower and more like a small castle. There was a short, but very informative tour given by an actual Beefeater. He said that no one really knows why they're called Beefeaters, but the one thing that's for sure is that the alcohol is named after them, not the other way around.

On sunday we went to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard, which was pretty damn impressive. We got there an hour early to make sure we could get a good spot to see, since it's a pretty big deal and they only do it once every 48 hours. Luckily, we got a place right up against the gate over to the side, so we saw just about everything that happened. The whole thing lasted about 30-35 minutes. It started with a marching band being lead onto palace grounds by horse-mounted police, followed by two groups of armed guards, some of which had rifles, some with swords, and a couple with shiny axes. The band members had the black fuzzy q-tip hats.

We spent the second half of the day going through the British Museum, which is the world's oldest and biggest museum. It was pretty massive and very well laid out, with a ton of great artifacts. They have a lot of the original pieces of the Parthenon, some cool mummies, the Rosetta Stone, and tons of other stuff. On the way out I couldn't resist picking up an 800 piece puzzle of the Rosetta Stone from the gift shop. I'm sure it's gonna take me forever, but it should look cool once it's finished.

Another great thing about the city are all the huge parks. They were beautiful in the middle of February, so I can't even imagine what they look like in the spring and summer. Kim and I both agreed that if we ever live there (which could maybe someday be a possibility in the distant future, but we're not holding our breath) we would definitely take advantage and go running in the park all the time. We go running in Warsaw every once in a while, but the people all give us really weird looks. We've only seen a handful of people jogging since we got here, they just don't do it for some reason. We saw more people jogging in the first 15 minutes in London than the entire time we've lived in Warsaw. And it has [temporarily] inspired us to start training for a 10 mile race in August. 

I don't think it's gonna happen...

Yay for Po Polsku!

One of Kim's friends was in town for a few days to visit and she wanted to check out Krakow for a day. Kim had to work, so she just went on the train by herself. Kim's place of work has an in-house travel agency that we always use when we travel somewhere, but these were last minute plans and we had to take care of them ourselves. So we went to the train station to get her ticket, hoping that the cashier would speak english. Nope. But I guess all those Polish classes I've been taking are actually paying off, because I was able to tell her how many tickets, to and from where, what time, and what class of traincar. And I could understand her when she said there weren't any tickets left for the time we wanted, so we picked another time. So our friend got to and fro, no problems whatsoever. 

I know it doesn't sound like much, but considering what a pain in the ass this language is, I was quite proud of myself. Now I just gotta figure out where and how to buy tickets to the Chimaira concert...

Resurrection

If I was told that I could only go to one concert for the entire time we're overseas, but that I could choose which band, I would without a single doubt pick Chimaira. Well guess who's coming to town in march?

Hell yea.

The six month prank

The setup: 

The base for our cordless phone is in the same room that our personal gym is in. On said phone base there is a "page headset" button. When you push that button, the headset (which we keep in the living room) starts ringing very loudly and nonstop until you hit its off button.

Kim knows not of this button.

The execution:

About six months ago, I was working out in the gym room with the door closed and the music blasting while Kim was in the living room. Then I had a great idea. I would push the button every few minutes and see what Kim does. After the fourth or fifth time, she came into the room to ask me if I knew why the phone was all jacked up. Somehow I was able to keep a straight face while I asked her what it was doing and said that I had no idea what was up. She went back into the living room and I pushed the button a couple more times before finishing my workout.

About two months later I pull the same stunt. Kim comes in and says it's doing it again, and again I'm able to keep a straight face. When I come back out of the room, the phone is still ringing, but it's all muffled. Kim had put a blanket over it because she was sick of pushing the off button over and over again.

Flash forward to just a few days ago:

Same thing as the other two times, Kim's all frustrated with the phone randomly ringing every couple of minutes, I play dumb. At this point I decide it's time let her in on the prank. I start dropping little hints like telling her that it's strange that it only ever does it when i'm doing my workout and she's in the living room. She doesn't pick up on this. So I start pushing the button and then immediately come out to hit the off button. Still nothing from Kim. Now, there's about a two or three second delay from when I push the page button until the headset actually starts ringing, so I get to the point where I push it and then run out to the living room a split second before it start ringing so I can turn it off a quick as possible. I do this about 15 times in a minute before Kim tells me to just forget about it and let it ring. Keep in mind that my music in the gym room has been blasting and there's no possible way I could have even heard the phone ringing from in living room, not to mention that I haven't been able to keep my face straight anymore and am about to explode with laughter. I am absolutely amazed that Kim has not figured this out yet, especially since it's usually very hard to pull one over on her. I was actually thinking of prolonging the joke, but I didn't think I'd be able to do anything grander that what I had just done. So at the end of my workout I call her into the gym room and tell her that I think I figured out what was wrong with the phone. I ask her if she sees the page button on the base. She says yes but apparently still has no clue what's going on. So I tell her that it seems like the phone only rings every time I push that button. Her face is blank and expressionless for about 5 seconds (I'm staring at her with a huge smile on my face) and then it hits her all at once. I can tell she wants to be mad at me, but neither of us can stop laughing our asses off. 

She finally admits that it was probably the best prank ever pulled on her, then spends the rest of the night pouting and calling herself retarded.

Question:

How can you tell when Kim is away on a business trip?

Answer: The "Artsy Fartsy" set on the Flickr page gets bigger and bigger.

X-Mas, New Year's, etc...

Wow, it's been over a month since my last post. Part of it is because I didn't really have anything exciting enough happen that I felt like it needed to be shared. Part of it is because I just didn't feel like it. And another part of it is because we were so busy around the holidays. So I'll try to remember what happened and sum it all up for you in a nice little package.

A few days before Christmas I met up with some guys Kim works with for a guys night out sorta thing. Nothing too exciting, just hanging at a restaurant and drinking Polish beer. The three most popular Polish beers are Zywiec, Tyskie, and Lech. The first two are very good, but this was my first time trying the latter. It was just as good, but it gets extra points for being served in gigantic 1 liter glasses that look like a barrel with a handle. I had 2 and a half liters. Then I had a very fun tram ride home.

Christmas day was fantastic. Kim's parents go a little overboard with the presents every year, and being on the other side of the world didn't deter them at all this year. They sent us two big boxes of stuff back in november that we had to just let sit in the living room for about two months before we could open them. Plus they sent a full suitcase of booty along when my mom and step dad came to visit, so we had plenty of loot to open. There was a ton of good stuff, but what really blew my mind was the Sony PSP they got me. They got me a Ratchet & Clank game that's pretty fun, but I'm gonna have to start buying some games with all the Best Buy gift cards I also got.

New Year's Eve was pretty fun, even though we both wanted to go downtown and watch fireworks but were cornered into going to a house party. There were more people then we expected and we had a lot more fun than we thought we would, so it wasn't so bad. The Poles go absolutely nuts at midnight. There are fireworks going off everywhere you look. And these aren't just little wimpy bottle rockets, these are the big boomers. The skies in the neighborhood were ablaze for about an hour and a half straight. It was really cool, but next year we're definitely going downtown. I was downtown earlier in the day and they had two big stages set up in front of the Palace of Culture & Science and it looked pretty incredible even when there wasn't much going on. I've heard the fireworks there are better than back in DC, which is quite the bold statement. I'll let you know if it's true next year...

On New Year's day we headed out to Praque again. It was the second time I've been there and was just as fun this time around. Just when you think you've seen everything, you head down an alley you've never been through and you come out to a whole different part of the city. In doing so, I stumbled upon the greatest store ever: A handmade armor store. Unfortunately, the guy wouldn't allow anyone to take pictures of his stuff, but I did get a shot of the cool suit of armor that was standing outside by the door.

I also went to the Medieval Torture Instrument Museum, which was very cool and pretty damn creepy at the same time. It was kinda small, but they had lots of stuff crammed in there. One of the funny things about it was that half of the descriptions were talking about the constant need to devise better torture devices. But every device they had was always able to force a confession, wether it was true or not, so why the need for new ones? People were definitely twisted back in the day (mostly the Austrians, from what I read). The coolest piece they had was called "The Virgin of Nuremberg", which you may have seen in the movies. It looks like a sarcophagus that stands straight up, while the inside is filled with nails that pierce the skin. Pretty wicked shit. Photos weren't allowed there, either.

So that pretty much takes care of our last month. I'll try to keep this thing updated better from now one, but no promises.