the once famous, now infamous bridge/ waterfall in Luxembourg and a church in Haarlem, Netherlands

my pentax (r.i.p.) had a cool background feature... my aunt Rhonna and İ thought this was pretty hilarious. yep, that is a diamond lined heart. haha. we had a really fun time in the netherlands.

Yep.

where i had lunch on tuesday--- the alps, liechtenstien.

mountain biking

i wasnt sure ı was going to be able to get my bike through the narrow rock passage in the above photo (tilt your head to the left)

Final Destination

After a flight delay, waiting for someone to sell me a visa so I could enter the country, waiting for the bus, rush hour traffic, taking the metro and an hour time difference (that i forgot about), I finally made it to central Istanbul. That might sound frustrating, but i´ve developed a certain peace of mind when traveling that doesn´t allow me to get too upset or anxious about these types of things. Same thing about the mountain biking/hiking and dropping my bag in the river-- hang-ups only allow for better stories, more vivid memories, new opportunities and experiences; not negative thoughts. Plus, İ often enjoy the traveling as much as the destination.

I´m happy to be here in İstanbul now... it has a certain feeling of home. I am looking forward to getting back to the States though, where the U.S. dollar is worth a dollar and where İ can attempt to get settled. I may make a trip up to Indiana to see my grandmother who is in the hospital, but then it will be on to Charleston (hopefully i will have housing lined up by then). İ get to play Ultimate (frisbee) tomorrow and summer league starts May 22nd. Plus I´ve got a lot of work to do on my Master´s terminal project.

ok... stay tuned... gonna attempt to post some photos now...

Welp...

I stole 'welp' from my friend Skiles... i like it as an alternative to 'well.' Did i mention that i have had perfect weather... one afternoon it rained in the netherlands though... and in luxembourg it rain about 15 seperate times that i was outside... but for just a few minutes and then it went right back to being sunny with blue skies... so i couldn't have been luckier... except that ill be sweating like crazin in Istanbul because no one wears shorts there and summer is in full swing.

I opted for hiking instead of biking in Liechtenstein because bike rental was $22... i made a good choice... i walked nearly across the entire country... i climbed an elevation of 1000 meters... 3280 feet (i think). and walked at least 25 km i think... i was off the map a lot and there wasn't a scale on the one i was using... at one point i was walking knee deep in snow while wearing shorts and a t-shirt... that is how nice the weather was/ hot the sun was shining. i've def. got a tan now. the best part of the day was drinking from a mountain spring with water so cold that my hands turned bright red, like they do in the winter after being out side for a while. the water must have been snow not an hour previously....

Got to munich this afternoon and have been walking around. Tomorrow i will have breakfast here and then fly to istanbul. I promise to post photos by saturday.

LUX / Mt. Biking

Wednesday I rented a mountain bike in a small town in Luxembourg on the German border. I had an awesome map and confirmed my route with the guy at the hostel... I had a destination in mind... a bridge with a waterfall underneath it. Welp. Turns out that i'd picked a hiking trail and a quite intense one at that... after hitting the trail i spent the next 20 minutes trying to see how many beats per minutes my heart could beat/ walking my bike up a hill. Lots of steep hills, steps and rocky, rocky slopes had me carrying my bike on my shoulder more than riding. I used to mt. bike in h.s., so it eventually came back to me and i was able to ride down some of the slopes and stairs later in the day. After about 4.5 hours I made it to the waterfall only to dropp my bag (w/ passport, 2 cameras, etc.) into the river as I was exhausted and careless... so, i had to jump in after it. It wasn't deep, but i sure got wet... my little silver camera was the only casualty. THANKFULLY the memory card was undamaged and the camera is insured... so no huge loss there. I got what i think were some pretty good photos. I took a road route back to the hostel... had a long uphill (20 minutes in 3rd of 24 gears)... but my reward was a few minutes downhill at speeds prob. up to 50 mph. fun.

I then headed to Luxembourg City. Thursday I did a guided city walk and went to some museums, including one designed by famous Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei and then took the train to Düsseldorf where I met Jan. Friday he showed me around town & i tried many types of german meats, including a few raw varieties of pig and cow. Saturday I expored on my own and went out to his tennis club to see him play a match. Today I've been reading, catching up on internet/e-mail/etc. Tomorrow I will spend most of the day attempting to reach Leichtenstein (a tiny little country between Switzerland and Austria). Tuesday I hope to bike around, Wednesday I will head to Munich for one night before I fly from there to Istanbul.