Spring Break Countdown: Morocco!

Just wanted to take one last chance to rub it in to everyone back home that I'll be in Africa in a few days. I know I'm a jerk but I can't help it. I promise to take lots of pictures of the Atlas Mountains out in the desert and be sure to take some great shots when I visit the coast and the Atlantic Ocean. The city I'm staying in is called Marrakech. It is just a beautiful city that boasts the worlds largest outdoor evening market. The center square in the city is very Europeanized (from my understanding) but after sundown the true cultural differences between Europe and Africa come out. Dancers and snake charmers line the streets as music plays. There are some beautiful mosques that I plan to visit as well. It will definitely be a remarkable trip, and I still cannot believe that I'm actually getting to do this.

On a side note with Ash Wednesday today and the start of lent I decided to give up fast food for lent. After i stuffed myself last night for fat tuesday I definitely need to take a break from the McDonalds and Burger King anyway. The mass today was just excruciating. The ash ceremony lasted forever because there was only one person distributing ashes to a church that was packed from front to back. I definitely miss American church where they move quickly, talk with rythem, and the priests actually announciate their words.

ONE MORE DAY!!!!

Spring Break Countdown: Spain

So I leave for Spain in 2 days now, and yes I'm definitely excited. Spain is going to be a great time. We are starting in Barcelona for a couple of days of relaxing on the beach, sitting in the sun and going out to some world famous dance clubs. On Monday I make the trek over to Madrid where I will tour Madrid for a day, and then head down to Toledo. In Toledo I will see the former head of the Holy Roman Empire. As well as a street where a church, mosque, and synagogue all live and survive peacefully side by side. It will be a great day. From there, Wednesday is my lost day to travel as I leave Madrid and head to the South as I get ready for Morocco.

Countdown: 2 Days!!!

Staying Busy in London

Alright, so the spring break countdown is officially on, and I can't believe that I already leave in only 4 days now. It's just unbelievable to think that in one week I will be sitting on a beach in Barcelona, followed by trips to Madrid and Toledo, and then of course off to freakin Africa!

I did have an exciting weekend here in London though. It was definitely busy. Friday I took a tour of Parliament. I got to walk through the house of commons and the house of lords, and stand where the Prime Minister gives speeches to the country and where the Queen sits when she opens up the government each year. Sadly I'm afraid I'm starting to become immune to all of this stuff and I'm not even thinking twice about these type of things.

Saturday we took a day trip to Brighton. It is a city on the English Channel, and it is simply beautiful. I got to go to the beach and see the ocean for the first time. I had to go in, so i walked in a few feet and it was freezing cold. I also tasted it, which was a really stupid thing to do, but oh well. I was really excited and am definitely going to go back when its warmer out.

Sunday I went to my first ever football match. It was a great time, and we are already planning on going back to some more. As I said earlier, I always liked soccer, but since I've gotten here I've really gotten into the game. We saw Fulham play West Brom and as we walked in my friend Jordan and I placed a bet on the game. To bet on soccer you have to be the final score so he bet Fulham to win 2-0, I bet Fulham to win 2-1. We both were pretty sure Fulham would win, but we were just guessing the score. To cut to the finish the score is 2-0 at the very end of the game. Jordan is going nuts and just before the final whistle a guy from Fulham tackles a West Brom player from behind and the West Brom guy is awarded a penalty kick. If he makes it, I win 70 pounds (about a hundred dollars) and if he misses Jordan wins 120 lbs (190 dollars). Penalty kicks are from only 8 yards away, and NO ONE, I mean NO ONE ever misses a penalty kick, so at this point I am so excited. And just as you might guess, the guy lines up for the kick, and kicks it right into the goalies chest. It bounces away from the goal and the game was over. I nearly cried. It worked out ok though, Jordan collected his money and is going to be me all day breakfast with it. (All Day Breakfast is this thing that we fell in love with at a pub called The Slug. It is a full English breakfast with bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, sausage, bread, baked beans, and a fried mushroom and tomato. It is also served with a pint of beer. All for only 4 pounds. A pint of beer usually costs about 3 pounds so basically you get a a full meal for a pound).

Today Megan, Kelly, and I got up and went to the National Gallery. It is just a gigantic art house. We got to see several really famous and cool paintings. My favorites were definitely the ones from more modern times. The outdoor scenes, especially the ones by Monet were really amazing. After we left we sat outside in Trafalgar Square and sketched it. It was actually a lot of fun. It made me remember how horrible of an artist I am but it definitely made for some good jokes. If you get a chance google Trafalgar Square. It is one of my favorite spots in London, and then you can just imagine how I butchered it with my sketching of it.

I'll be continuing the Spring Break Countdown over the next couple days. My goal is to make all of you hate me with jealousy as I describe to you all my trip. ;)

Razzle Dazzle

I was lucky enough to go to both a play and a musical in the past two days. I'm starting to realize how great it is that I can get on the tube and head down to the West End (the theatre district) and head down and see a play or a musical whenever I want for a cheap discounted price. On Tuesday night I went to a play with my theatre class called Three Days of Rain. James McAvoy was in it. I had no idea who he was, but all the girls were going crazy about him. A few even waited around after the play to meet him. I thought he stunk. And although I didn't really like the play that much it was interesting. It was set in New York City, about 3 young adults trying to divide up their inheritance from there parents. It had a flashback to the parents of the kids when they were their age, living in the same apartment, it was definitely unique. Although I felt a bit disappointed overall, it was was worth going to see.

Last night I went and saw Chicago. Most people have heard of it, or at least seen the movie adaptation. I had of course heard of Chicago but had no idea what it was about. When I walked in and saw the first couple minutes I knew I was going to love it, haha. First I'll say that I went to this play with 5 other girls on the program. I was the only guy there so I felt pretty good about myself to start with. Then the musical started and it didn't take too long for me to realize that basically the entire musical is 6 women dancing and singing on stage in lingerie. The show is actually about women who murder their husbands or other men and how the news sensationalizes them and makes them stars. Their lawyer is also a big part of the show where he works to get them off the hook for their crime. Lingerie aside it was an amazing production and I really enjoyed it.

I have a busy weekend ahead now though. Tomorrow morning I'm going on a tour of parliment. Saturday I am taking a day trip sponsored by the program to Brighton. It is on the sea so I'm really excited to get to see the sea for the first time and tour the city there. Sunday I am going to my first Football game. Fulham vs. West Brom. Fulham is going to crush West Brom but it will still be fun. Fulham has an american on the team Clint Dempsey, so I'll be able to cheer for him. I live in Chelsea so I've become a diehard Chelsea fan (most of the presents I bring back for you guys are going to be Chelsea stuff). I've always watched soccer and got into before I left for Europe but I'm really learning a lot about the league and other teams now. Soccer is now number 2 on my favorite sports list. The Crew, and The Sox will always be my favorites, but next to baseball, soccer is right there.

You Can't Make This Up...

So I'm back safe and sound from my trip to Switzerland. As you would expect, I absolutely loved it. Going into the mountains and seeing the sights is something that I won't soon forget. The trip didn't go that smoothly though. For starters our plane was delayed for a couple hours in the airport. To make things worse they never even told us it was delayed, the entire airport went on as if our flight never existed, so we just sat there waiting for any news either way as to what was going on. We called the hotel in Zurich and asked them how late that we would be able to check in. They told us that as long as we were there by 2am they would let us check in. We finally board the plane and fly in, just as we are about the land the pilot pulls back up and says the blizzard is too bad and we can't land. Since this was only my 2nd ever flight, I was not doing so good. I tried to act cool, but I was definitely sweating a bit. After we circled the city for a while, we found a new runway and landed. By this point it was really late, and we were in a race to get to our hotel. After a 50 franc cab ride we made it with about 15 minutes to spare. We were all so tired, it didn't take too long to fall asleep.

The next day we woke up and looked at our map, and found that the FIFA headquarters was in Zurich. Since we were all huge soccer fans we decided that that was going to be our first destination. What we failed to realize was that FIFA was located on the top of a mountain. When we started our climb it didn't look TOO bad but in reality it was huge and tiring. I nearly thought that I was going to die. When we finally made it to the top we realized that the FIFA headquarters sucked. It was just an office building with a statue. There were definitely no famous soccer players there greeting us, no autograph sessions, and we didn't even get to hold the world cup trophy. I was not very happy. But since we were already at the top of a mountain we figured that we should take advantage of this by finding a place to look out and try and see over the city. We finally found a place after another hour of searching, but it was well worth it. I was able to take some amazing pictures (they will be up within a day or so). We finally made the trek back down hill and we were so exhausted that we barely made it through dinner awake. It was definitely an early night as we went back to the hotel room and chilled for a little while before we all went to bed.

Saturday was a completely different day though. Megan and I decided to head into the Alps so we got on a train and went to the center of Switzerland to a town called Lucern. It was beautiful. The pictures I was able to take were amazing. It is definitely something that you will have to see for yourself because words really couldn't describe it fairly. When we came back from the city we went out to dinner and that was the start of an amazing night.

After dinner we decided to go out for a couple of drinks. As we were wandering looking for a place to go I looked down this ally way to see a sign that said Aelphi's Bar. I figured why not so I walk down the ally and open the door a crack to here accordions and yodelling. I close the door quickly and grab Jordan. We walk in together and as soon as we walk in to this tiny little pub an old lady greets us by speaking German at us. Niether of us have any idea what she said so we just stare blankly at her. Finally she asks the question that I knew the answer to: "Sprechen Sie Deutsch? We responded with "No, Only English." To that she exicitedly said, "Well then, come on in, take a seat." Megan, Jordan, and I sat down ordered a beer and listened to this band of 50 year olds play their swiss folk music for us. The played for a while and then began to pack up as they had a drink. The bartender (who spoke amazing English told us to go talk to them. They were going to America for the first time this summer and would love to talk to some Americans. We walked over and tried to break the ice. Only one of them spoke English so we talked to her for a while. We asked about them and they said that they were all relatives from Glarus, Switzerland. And that they were in fact coming to America for the first time. They showed us the flyer for their tour and we nearly died when we looked at where they were going to be. Fittingly enough they were coming to New Glarus, Wisconsin. It gets even better. They also have stops in Madison, and Milwaukee. Half of their American tour was in Wisconsin. We got all excited, and the guy in the band got all excited becuase he was really excited to tour the Miller Factory and Harely Davidson in Milwaukee. The only words in English he spoke was Miller and Harley.

We made plans to meet them this summer and come and listen to them perform. They gave us postcards and stickers. They also promised to bring chocolate for us in exchange for some Miller beer. We got a picture taken with them and as they left we asked the bartender if there were any places that she would recommend for us to go. After a couple minutes she asked if we just wanted to go out with her for the night. We of course said yes, and jumped all over the chance to hang out with an actual Swiss person. She finished closing up her bar and we headed out for the night. We followed her around the city for a while and finally we stopped at a place called the Piranha Bar. Its right around this time that our new Swiss friend (who ended up actually being 34 years old) informed us that we were now in the Red Light District. She told us that all the girls were probably prostitutes and not to talk to anyone else becuase they may try to sell us drugs. For everyone's sake I won't go into any more details, but needless to say it didn't take too long for us to realize that we may want to get out of this area. On our way home we joked about how only on a trip like this can your night start out listening to a Swiss Folk Band and end in the Red Light District of a city.

Sunday we walked around the city for a while, toured some churches and packed up for the trip home, which was much smoother than the trip there. It was very exciting that there was traffic on the runways at Heathrow because our plane had to circle London for a few minutes before it could land. It was great to see the city from above where I had been living for 6 weeks now. We were actually able to find our street using landmarks from above, a great experience.

Overall I loved Switzerland, and you all must check out the pictures because my words don't do the beauty of the place justice. I'm off to a play right now though. Three Days of Rain, I hope this one is good. Twelfth Night was amazing so I'm banking on this one being better. we'll see though. Take Care and miss you all.

P.S. Grandma and Grandpa: I got your package thank you very much. I Didn't win on the lottery tickets, but I guess that's OK, not really sure what I'd do with them if I won anyway. Haha.

Everyone's A Little Bit Racist...

On Monday night I decided that although I had been to a few plays here in London, I needed to go see a musical. A found a couple people in the flat who were were going to see Avenue Q. I tagged along with them and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I LOVED it. 2 hours of sitting there, laughing my ass of to the point of near tears. The musical is actually a bunch of puppets, mixed in with a couple other actual people, singing about the hardships of life. It was definitely a satire on the American dream and the American way of life. Some of the songs that these puppets sang included "The Internet is for Porn", "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist", "If You Were Gay", and "I Wish I Could Go Back to College". Definitely not your standard musical, but nonetheless it was brilliant.

Tuesday I went on a tour of Bavaria, it was basically a pub crawl with a tour guide. I went to a couple pubs off the beaten path and it was a lot of fun. I really liked that I went on this pub crawl with a group of people that I hadn't gotten a chance to get to know that well yet. As you'd expect, they were great. After the pub crawl I met back up with the rest of the crew to celebrate Molly and Emily's birthdays. We had a great time celebrating with them. Almost too good of a time, I had to sit through a 3 hour discussion on the role of the Monarchy with a pounding headache and constantly feeling like I was gonna puke.

I'm heading out right now to go see Twelfth Night. I'm really excited to see it. I suck at Shakespeare so I'll prolly be really confused, but I'm hoping that I can figure it out, and really enjoy the play. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm leaving for Switzerland tomorrow so if I don't get a chance to post again, have a good weekend.

I Gotta Lower My Standards....

So I came to a stunning realization today. London is way awesomer than Madison. I say this because we spent all day Sunday and the beginning of today talking about how much this weekend sucked. So I thought back on my weekend which consisted of going out at night (bars, pubs clubs), and spent the days trying to recover from the night. For any weekend back in Madison that would be a great weekend of going out and then spending Sunday doing all your homework.

We finally had a weekend like that in London. Nothing amazing happened, everyone did there work and went out like to be expected. Yet this time there were no crazy stories, no one got lost or abducted. No random naked bodies on the floors, and everyone was disappointed. We needed the drama, the idiot getting hypnotized, the naked bodies on the floor, and the rumors of random hookups running around.

Too be fair I'm ok with this, turns out studying abroad is pretty standard stuff and we are getting blessed to be able to have so many amazing stories, and its unfair to expect them to continue to come. So this has left me no choice to to tame down my expectations for my weekends in London. They may be pretty standard weekends but they will still be awesome.

School Sucks!

Sorry for the lack of updates this week everyone. Truth is, I really don't have a darn thing to write about. Even though it's easy, we still do get school work. I had a test and a paper due yesterday, a play to go to on Wednesday and spent Tuesday inside trying to stay out of the slush. Here are a couple random updates from the week though.

1. I got my first haircut, it was only 6 pounds and it actually looks pretty good so I'm not going to complain at all. 2. The play I went to on Wednesday was called Enjoy!. I did not enjoy it at all. It was just weird. It was about this guy who dresses like a girl who comes back to his parents how as a sociologist and watches them, but they don't know its him, and then their daughter moves to Saudi Arabia, and then the dad dies, but then comes back to life, and then in the end the son who is dressed as a girl gives a speech. We were the only people under the age of 60 in the audience and all the old people were dieing of laughter so maybe the humor was above us, but outside of a scene or two, I really didn't like it. 3. We found out that "blizzard" that shut down London for a day and a half was the biggest snow storm in 19 years in London. By Wisconsin standards it was just your everyday run of the mill storm, but it was a BIG deal here. 4. I'm going to Oxford tomorrow for a day trip. I'll take pictures for everyone, see the college and the city, should be a good time.
5. As far as the pictures go, I am not quite sure what to say as far as how to get to them to check them out. the only link i have is www.flickr.com/loganinlondon otherwise go to www.flickr.com and do a people search of Logan Thein
6. I'm starting to get letters and mail from people, and that is AWESOME! I really do appreciate it, keep 'em coming.

Hope everything is going well back home, even though its been a boring week I'm still loving it over here. And I promise to update you all as soon as anything remotely exciting happens. Take Care

A Blizzard in London....That's Brussels!

I just got back from an amazing weekend in Brussels, Belgium. My first real traveling experience while I am abroad. And, as you would expect, it was awesome. I have to say though, it was awesome in a way I didn't expect. The city of Brussels is actually kind of a dump. Outside of the Grand Place (center square in Brussels) there really isn't that much to the city, or at least that much to the city. It was dirty, with a lot of graffiti and walls and back alleys. This prompted one of the people I was traveling with to turn Brussels into an adjective to describe something that sucks or is dirty or smells. For example, Little Chute, the UofMinnesota, and Luke are all very Brussels. This leads to one of the reasons why this trip was so great. The people that I have been lucky enough to meet and become friends with are so great. You could have put the group of people I was with in a cave in Peru and we would have had a blast together. Its exciting because everyone on this trip is so different, has such a different story that there is NO possible way I would have been able to meet anyone like this back home. I'm getting to see and do so much here, but without a doubt the most rewarding part of this trip is getting to meet people. Not just from the program but the random people from all over the world. I've met people from 5 continents now, I just need to find an Australian and a Penguin and I'll have the last two.

Anyway, on to the trip. This was my first time ever not speaking the native language in the place I was visiting. I rode down with Megan and Kelly as we planned to meet up with everyone else when we got there. We got off the train and everything is written in French and Dutch...I am instantly overwhelmed and slightly scared to death. We make our way onto the subway and it is the most pathetic excuse for a train I have ever seen. We packed our way on to this thing, practically stacked on top of each other and as the train starts to move it rocks back and forth instead of moving forward. I was so tired and cranky that I hated Belgium before I even stepped outside. After a few seconds to calm down we went and checked into our Hostel...

I was expecting a room about the size of a shoe box with 3 bunk beds stacked up with a locker. Instead I got a kick ass room that was honestly nicer than 90% of hotels that I've stayed in before. We got situated and headed out to explore. We quickly found out that there ain't a whole lot to see. (Check out my updated pictures for what there actually was to see in Belgium...also note that anything that looks cool prolly wasn't taken in Brussels, and was actually taken in Brugges.) We walked around, bought some chocolate (awesome), Belgian French Fries w/ mayo (awesomer), and the world famous Belgian Waffles w/ strawberries, bananas, chocolate, and whip cream (most awesomest thing ever). We explored a little bit more and that's when things kinda started to go wrong:
1. I literally walked right through the sole of my shoe, it just plain fell apart, so im walking down these dirty streets with one shoe, and what amounts to a slipper.
2. Belgium is made for tiny people, the stairs are about 6 inches wide, and the sidewalks are 8 inches wide, needless to say I didn't fit that well and spent half of the first day tripping over my self.
3. Because it is made for tiny people when I went to the shoe store to buy some shoes, they honestly laughed at me when I asked for my size shoe (its a size 50 in Europe). The biggest shoe that they had was a size 45, so I had to walk around like I was all weekend
4. I'm a moron and never transfered money into checking from savings before I left. I get there go to the ATM and find out I have a grand total of 20 dollars for my whole trip.
5. I didn't charge my camera battery so I got about a day and a halfs worth of pictures and then my camera was gone.

Even with all that going wrong it was still fun. In brussels we saw the peeing baby, the Grand Place, The Atomium, The Palace of Justice, and did a tour of a brewery. We were all Brusseled out so the next day we went to Brugges, which is probably the most amazing place I have ever been. It is definitely not a place i can describe in words so you really will have to check out the pictures for that.

The nightlife was fun on the first night. We all went to a bar called Delerium. It had boasted over 2000 different types of beers. I didn't manage to try them all but I most certainly tried ;) The night was capped all of us bursting out into a singing Varsity! The next night everyone was exhausted and decided to be boring except for Kelly and I. We went out to this Karaokee/Dance Bar/Club. It was actually a pretty relaxed place and we had a good time. Kyle met up with us a bit later and we hung out for a little while before heading back to the hostel. Sunday night was of course the Super Bowl. It didn't start til about 1AM Monday in Belgium, but we all stayed up found it on TV and watched start to finish on that TV. It was a great chance to just relax hang out and be Americans!!!!

I got a grand total of about 12 hours of sleep all weekend so when I finally got out from the chunnel (the train that runs under the English Channel) to see England completely covered in snow, I was NOT pleased. Apparently while we were in Beligum, London turned into Wisconsin and there was a snowstorm. Everything was covered in snow....that just doesn't happen. Everything was shut down, classes were cancelled, it was nuts. There is so much more to tell, but I just can't think right now. Just to sum it up: I just simply love it here. The places are unbelievable, and the people are even better, the only thing that comes close is fishing at sunset on North Twin. Take care everyone.