It didn't start out easy

I have described some of the recent events that happened in my time abroad, but I want to document the beginning of my stay while it is still fresh in the old noodle. As my 2 readers know, I chose to move abroad and pursue a masters of arts in international business and would be completing the classroom part of my degree in Rennes, France. I purchased a round trip ticket and was planning to leave the beginning of September and will make my return to the US in early May. I was excited for the new adventure in my life and honestly was not nervous as I had been away before when I spent 4 months in Dublin, Ireland. I think this time my family realized I was going, because when I first told people I was heading to Ireland they all thought I was just blowing smoke up their ass's because apparently I can not be organized enough to do this. Well I have done just enough to get here. I was registered for school and had reserved a residence that I would be living in for the duration of my stay in Rennes. I was set and ready to move to France.
My good friend Megan drove me to the airport in Des Moines at like a quarter to 5 in the morning. I boarded my miniature plane to Houston, Texas where I had quite the lay over. I sat there for awhile and got bored, so I purchased a $9 Sports Illustrated to do some light reading. I got a Facebook notification from my eventual roommate Ryan that said the place we were supposed to live was overbooked somehow and that I would be homeless when I got to France. Great, I am going to a country where I don't speak the language and will have no place to live. Also, I somehow picked the day where the school welcome team would not be meeting me at the train station to bring me to where I needed to go. To sum it up, I had no idea what to do. Hell, I already bought the plane ticket, so there was no turning back now. I emailed my dad, to let him know what was up, but I wasn't going to tell my mother until I safely landed thousands of miles away from her. After getting my last taste of Buffalo wings and a few brewskies I boarded my plane to head to France where things were going to be very uncertain. I don't get too worked up about things like this as things in my life have always had a way of figuring themselves out so I remained calm. I just needed to get to Rennes so I can figure out the next chapter of my life.
This was not the first time that I had been in the Paris airport. I had been to Paris before in high school, but was apart of a tour group and basically just followed the leader. This time I was completely on my own, so it could be a bit more difficult. I knew I needed to take a train to Rennes, but I had no idea where the train station would be. I should have looked that up before I came. Well, I lucked out and there was a train station at one of the terminals in the airport. Went through customs and had no problem and started reading signs to find a train station. Hey its close, this isn't going to be hard. I got in this enormous line and waited to buy my ticket. I was talking to an American lady ahead of me who was visiting friends and through chatting had just completed a global MBA so we had something to talk about. I was a little tired from the transatlantic plane ride so I didn't hit on her. I wished her good luck and went to purchase my ticket. I politely asked for a ticket to Rennes and got a dumbfounded look. She spoke English, but had no idea what I wanted. Turns out I was in the wrong damn line. This was the RER line which was the train that went from the airport into the center of Paris. Son of a bee sting, I just waited like for a freaking hour to find out this news. I was directed to a terminal across the airport where I could purchase a ticket to Rennes.
I waited in another long line, but I was for sure in the right place. I got to the ticket counter and ordered my ticket to Rennes. The man said that the train to Rennes was leaving in 5 minutes and I didn't have enough time so I would have to wait a few hours for the next one. Great, if I would have come to the right station in the first place I would be in my seat on my way to Rennes. Of course this would happen. I have my ticket and a few hours to kill so I figured I would be a good son and find one of those computers I could pay for internet to let the rents know that I landed in Paris. I don't know why they, and in they, my mom worries. Who is going to take me and make me a sex slave. I honestly don't think I am on the priority of the Eastern European sex slave market. Plus Liam Neeson is my hero now so I have learned some moves, but I can see being worried if you have a daughter going abroad. From personal experience I have seen how naive and dumb American girls can be, so I do my best to look out for them. I have a friend here from Iowa who I will not name, Rachel, who didn't let her family know she was here and was scared to leave her apartment. We received emails from multiple family members of hers looking for her and they were about to file a missing persons report. Rachel if you ever read this we are still mad at you and a nice gesture would be a beer in our honor.
After being a good son, I headed back to the train station and my train was going to leave in about an hour and a half so I reached in my pocket to grab my ticket. Nothing. Holy shit, I left it back at the computers. Why they hell did I try to be a good son. It always bites you in the ass. I raced back to the computer and of course nothing. So I hustled back to the ticket office and waited in line again. Told my story and then had to pay another 20 euros for my ticket because I got the basic with no protection. I had an hour so I wasn't screwing around anymore. I would go outside and sit by the gate where my train would arrive. I sat and sat. It was getting close and there was no train that had the number I needed. I frantically ran around asking people and many could not help me. I asked conductors walking off the train, train station workers, and anyone who would speak English to me. I found a helpful soul and he took my ticket and took me to a monitor that displayed the departing gates and times. I was not told that the gate on the ticket doesn't matter. You must wait around the screen and it will tell you which train and gate 15 minutes before your train departs. I guess I was supposed to know that. Seems self explanatory right. Absolutely not. That was stupid. I figured out I had missed my second train so I would have to purchase another ticket. I bought that and sat right in front of that monitor for 3 hours so I made sure nothing happened again. Ryan had been there for about a day and graciously offered to pick me up at the train station so I gave him a call on a pay phone and said I would be arriving around 8:30 PM. Yep, I got into Charles De Gaulle airport before 8 AM. What a day.
I stepped off my train in Rennes and had no idea where to go. I didn't know where to meet Ryan and had no way of contacting him so I just walked around. I walked around forever and could not find him. Finally I walked by some seats and saw him. He got up with this other guy who was named Victor and we left. Where do I go? I am homeless. Do i get a park bench and use newspapers for blankets or what? I was told the only place I could go was a hostel. It was the only hostel in Rennes so my hands were tied. We got there and I got a room. It was about 9:30 and the guys asked if I wanted to go out. I was tired, but I needed a drink. We went out to a few places and headed back to the hostel for some much needed sleep. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was down. It had been basically 2 stress filled days since I had rested. I wanted to sleep until like 8 the next night.
At about 10:13 in the morning I awoke to this ridiculously loud banging on the door and not a second later this lady unlocks the door and starts yelling at me. She screamed at me for what was about a minute and I lost it. I popped up in my underwear and started yelling back, what the @#$^ are you yelling about! What do you want crazy lady. I don't speak French and don't know what the hell you are yelling about! She points to a sign that was in both languages in like 8 point Times New Roman font and said that we needed to leave the rooms from 10-2 for cleaning. I have stayed in a few hostels and have never been kicked out for any time including 4 hours. What a joke. She snatched the key out of my hand and tried to push me out the door. Almost didn't make it back in, but I pointed at my lack of pants and put some pants on while she watched and headed down to the lobby to watch some French television and hated life.
Well I ended up staying there for about 4 days, which sucked a big one. I witnessed ISU beat Iowa in football in 3 overtimes there. So yeah, it was awful. We got the best news in days, they found us a temporary residence until they could find us a permanent place. It was a room and we had internet so the first night was great. After a few nights, I was ready to get the hell out. We were trying to deal with orientation and find a place to live, it was a mess. We ended up getting some great news. They had found us a possible apartment where three of us could live. Ryan, Victor, and myself. We met two guys from Canada and they were in the same boat and were also heading over to see some places from this lady. The lady at first did not want to give her rooms to students as in the past some Filipino guys destroyed her places. They must have had some muay thai fights or something. We were showed around for hours seeing some individual studios and things. It was nice the guys from Canada were from Montreal and as much as they resisted the French language, they had grown up with it and were fairly fluent. We ended up at this place with our Canadian friends living below us. We lucked out and got a big apartment for what most people here have. We are in the best location possible as well. Walking distance to about anything besides school, but really whats important. Yep, that's what I thought.
We have a place and life is good... Wait a sec. We had our place, but had no hot water and internet. This was a struggle. Thank the lord we had Victor to call for our water. We signed up for our internet and were told that we had indeed singed up, but it wouldn't turn on for 10-15 days. We would receive 2 texts. The first that said we had signed up and then the second to ensure our internet was working. We got that 2nd text in like 3 days. REJOICE! We had been going to a fast food restaurant named Quick Burger and sneaking upstairs just to get our Facebook time. Ahh Facebook, I miss it. We sat on the floor for like 3 hours trying to figure out this internet. It was a mistake and we did get our internet in the 10 day slot. How is that possible. Things are so relaxed here and it is very frustrating for an American who is used to things happening now. We finally got it. Hot water did not take as long, but we were without hot water and gas for 5 or 6 days. We had to shower at school if we wanted hot water and could not eat anything but sandwiches or anything that was readily available out of the fridge. There were many times when we took freezing showers. They didn't last long, but I know personally I screamed the whole time. It was such a mess for the two weeks or so, but I can now laugh at it. We have a good place and have been doing well from now on.
I just finished season two of Glee and was so mad. When Rachel and Finn kissed after the first song I was so mad I threw my football across the room. They cost nationals. They ruined it and they are going to be seniors next season so they better man up and take nationals or I will flip. So it was not easy to get acclimated here, but it has worked out well. Au revoir.

Dog poop,speeding tickets, Nasty fish, and 3 week old cheese.

As I have said from the beginning that this is a place to vent for me. I must have some suppressed anger or something, but here goes. France is pissing me off a bit. To start, there are a lot of dogs in France and from what I have seen, especially in Rennes. I have loved every dog in the world except for one and a half. Kind of a weird number for dogs, but I will explain. My roommate back in college, wow I'm getting old, had the dumbest dog on the planet. I only hated her half of the time because other times she clawed him in the face or snatched his rib eye sandwich out of his hand. So, I only hated her half the time. He had a girl friend who had a dog that was awful. My roommate always had to babysit this dog and I think he even hated it. Most the time it was locked upstairs so it wouldn't eat the chalk off the pool table. Well apparently this dog had diarrhea and managed to spray the place. It smelt so bad that I could not leave my room. I had to crawl out of my window and jump of the roof of the house just to get out of my room. As you might imagine, the smell of dog feces has scared me ever since. Well there are landmines everywhere and I swear I am the only one who steps in them. There have been many days where I am scraping poo off my shoes on a curb or trying to use the cobblestone streets as a cleaning tool. Saturday night I stepped in the steamiest pile of dog crap known to man. I instantly felt the squish and went into instant rage. Now the worst part is that I somehow managed to get some on my finger. I am not going to explain the events that transpired to let this happen, but, to make me look less stupid, I talked Ryan into smelling my finger to confirm that it was indeed dog poop. I saw a few looks on the bus when you see a grown man smelling another mans finger. I don't consider myself grown, because miracles do happen and I may grow some more when I reach 30. Moral of the story is if you ever travel to France, watch your feet. You have no idea what you might step in. Alright I will get on to the rest of my venting now.
I come from Iowa. We have been able to drive with our parents since we were 14, get our school permits at 14 1/2, and Ben and I drove to wall-mart in Iowa Falls at age 13. So at age 23, I have been driving for the better part of the decade. How many speeding tickets have I gotten in all that time in the United States. Zero, zilch, none, nada, nil, and for the tennis fans love. That's not the case in France. I drove to the Netherlands last semester and and got two of them. We saw the cameras flash and just shook our heads. At least this last trip, as was documented in the last post could surely not have anymore happen to it, such as a thing like speeding tickets...
Ryan came in today with a stack of mail. He was excited, he likes mail. I don't like it because in past experiences only bad things are sent to me in mail. Except for your packages mom. I feel much safer with an email. He noted that Victor got quite a bit of mail. Well good for him, I hope something nice is sent to him. Find out later, that it wasn't. Those bastards sent us with two more speeding tickets. TWO MORE! I was barely even speeding. They were for a few KM's over and the highest one was the equivalent of going about 5 miles an hour over. Let me ask you this. How many times do you drive under 5 mph's over the speed limit. Absolute ludicrous. And no, for some of the younger viewers it is not the rapper Ludacris. He is becoming a better actor since his music fizzled, but that's not the point. I am tired of these French government thieves catching me with cameras going over 3 km. There police from what I have seen only work 9-5, that's including their 3 hour lunch, and definitely not on Sundays. They were no help when we were on the side of the road in the rain and I had to relieve myself. Absolute bullshit. Excuse my French, no pun intended. Well I can now see this is unhealthy so I will discuss something gross that my roommate victor and myself willing did.
I will keep this segment short because I want to discuss cheese, but we went to the store the other day and we noticed a very disgusting creature sitting on ice. It looked like an eel, but who knows what it was. Ryan thinks I am crazy for eating vegetables so he said even I wouldn't eat that. I have to stop this, I am 23, but the only thing that popped into my head was challenge accepted. I bought it and it was stinking up the fridge and was a few days past the date to consume so it needed to be done. We bet the 1.66 that it cost, but Ryan being generous said that I only had to take 3 bites and he would buy me a Heineken at the bar next weekend. Not my favorite beer by any means, but the cheapest we can find here. I didn't want to fry it and watch it cook and psyche myself out so I baked it and threw some carrots around it. This thing stunk up the entire house, but thankfully Victor loves garlic and applied half a bottle to the meat he was frying. I told him if a vampire ever bit him, the vampire would drop dead. I'm sort of an expert, I lived with my parents this summer and resorted to watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix to pass the time when my only friends Gus and Gidget were sleeping. Well it was cooked as much as it could be so I cut into it. I took comparative anatomy in high school so I was quickly able to identify the kidneys and the liver. This animal was one of those things that suck things off the bottom or something and I think I dissected something similar. Well, I didn't have a scalpel and we only had 1 fork clean so I used that as my utensil. Well I said it was gross, but they have no idea. It really tasted like formaldehyde. Wow, you might be impressed, I spelled that without spell check. It really tasted like salt water, dirt, and something my pallets have never experienced and I hope they never do again. It was atrocious. I threw the rest away in the trash. Bad idea. The apartment smelled like that until I took the trash out in the late afternoon. Well I am stupid, but I get a free beer, but now I will discuss my friend tending to rotten dairy products.
Might be a surprise to some of you, but our kitchen was gross. We had put it off for some time now and candles and glade were not doing the trick. A few weeks ago, we had a Mexican themed party. My roommate hails from Mexico and some other Mexican students and he cooked some dishes for us to enjoy. It was amazing. They did a fantastic job. Good work Victor and company. This is honestly the first time that I have been cooked for since I have been here. Might be hard to believe, but any dinner we have had, I have had a major part in the cooking. Yeah ladies, I make a mean apple crisp. Our apartment has kind of turned into a place to party on occasion. Nothing different from some of my other residences in the past, but these parties are different. I feel fortunate enough to have the opportunity to be a co-host of a party where there are more than 12 different nationalities in our small apartment. It really is amazing. It is really cool to meet so many new people from different backgrounds and cultures. I honestly think I would never have the chance to experience something like this and am very grateful for this. Hey, people take out loans to buy cars and houses they don't need. I have taken out student loans to better myself and see a part of the world I may never have the chance to again. This party was no exception, and although I love being immersed in other cultures I did have my computer propped up streaming the NFL combine, just in case people were interested, but the party was a success.
The problem though, this happened weeks ago, and we had yet to clean up. Last night we started. My roommates graciously cleaned up all the pretzels that I had spilled on the floor. Grandpa, I got your love for pretzels, but I still will never watch the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade. I stated with with dishes. I cranked up the DMX, did a little barking, and went to town on about every plate and pot we have. Here is my Good housekeeping tip for the week: Listen to DMX if you don't have a dishwasher. It makes it much more enjoyable. Well I tackled a majority of the dishes, but my hands were looking like the California raisins so I gave up and told Victor there was no way in hell I was touching this pot of melted cheese nearing a month old.
Today, when Victor got back from classes and ate some dinner, he tackled the Cheese, its fromage in French. It was so disgusting. We all left the kitchen because we were gagging. I set a plate on top a week or so ago to mask the smell so there were some odors that were brewing in there. I wanted to be there for him, I really did, but I could not take it. I told Victor I want give you moral support buddy, but it is too much to handle. I closed the kitchen door, but kept it open ajar and watched him gag and scrape this aging cheese out of the pot. My shirt was over my nose, but it still didn't help. People eat aged cheese, but I think this was dead cheese. Congrats go out to my boy Victor, he accomplished the feat. I would not wish this upon my enemies. You did well young grasshopper. That it is it until my normal PS, but until something happens, which usually does, Au Revoir.

Ps---> I can't believe Emma is not giving it up to John Stamos. That's "Uncle Jesse!" Even I would. My predictions are that Carl will get with Ms. Holiday and then Emma and Will are going to seal the deal. What am I saying. I need Facebook and Twitter back.

I am Victor Soto...

As I described earlier, my roommate and myself rented a car and drove to Belgium and Luxembourg. It was a little Renault Twingo. I am sure many of you have not heard of a Renault. It is French and they have some sort of partnership or a part of Nissan or something, I'm not here to give you a car lesson. We named the car Gary and I was actually pretty happy about driving this little guy. It reminded me of the the innocence of my youth when I terrorized Hardin Country with my Geo Metro. O how I miss the days of that black beauty. You become close with a car when practically every day you have to run along side pushing your car to jump in and pop the clutch just to get her purring in the morning in the subarctic that is known as Iowa. Luckily my parents house growing up was on top of a hill, but enough of this blast from the past. We had to check out of our hotel before noon so we got down to the front desk at about 11:58. We stopped at a gas station to pick up a sandwich and something to drink for the ride. Just as we were leaving, I realized I should have taken a dump. O well, I'm sure it will be a smooth ride.... or so I thought.
Most of the journey went quite normal. We decided to avoid tolls since we got raped by them on the way so It was going to up the drive time by about an hour and half or so, but we were stingy so we were going to have to make it work. It was a much different drive home and the change of scenery was nice to get off the big highways and go through some smaller towns. Every town here I swear has a huge cathedral in the middle, so it was a pleasant drive. We started to see some industrial areas and it dawned on us that we were going to be driving through Paris. Hey its a Sunday afternoon and the French don't do much on Sundays so optimistically we thought it wasn't going to be to bad. Not going to lie, I am not a huge fan of traffic. Growing up in a town with only one stop light, you don't run into a lot of it. It wasn't so bad up to this point and I realized that the Ireland vs. France rugby match for the six nations tournament was going to be played today or was going on. Almost instantaneously, I saw bumper to bumper traffic and then the stadium where the game was being played. Shit, we were driving right by the stadium and going to hit all of the traffic. It was stop and go for what seemed like hours. We found the game on the radio and listened for a little bit. The only thing we could understand was dix sept a dix sept. The match was tied 17 all and ended up that way. It was very frustrating and in the midst of all this traffic I turned to Ryan and informed him that I had to shit three countries ago. Bumper to bumper traffic is much less enjoyable when you have a turtle head poking out. We finally got out of Paris and were running a little low on fuel so I vowed to unleash hell on the next gas station toilette I could find.
Found a gas station, but not a toilette so I was going to have to suffer a little bit more until we found a truck stop. I should have added this earlier, but a light had appeared with a wrench. Ryan pulled out the manual, that was in all French, and tried to piece together what it could mean. Obviously it couldn't be good, but we were like 4 hours from home so it had to hold up. We got through Paris and everything alright and I hadn't lashed out, punched anything, or yelled too many bad words. I have learned a couple of those in French. We were going down a big hill and started to feel the car puttering a bit. You have got to be kidding me! I didn't say anything as I didn't want to alarm the co-pilot. This is what I had trained for. Keep calm in the most adverse situations. It started happening more frequently and I turned to Ryan and asked if he was feeling that. "Yep," he said, " I didn't want to say anything." Not a moment later the gas pedal went to the floor and we were losing speed rapidly. All of a sudden all of the lights turned on and a big red light that said stop came up and we looked in the rear-view mirror and as Ryan put it, there was smoke billowing from the car. I pulled over and turned to Ryan and said, " Golly Jeepers." aOK I lied, actually it was a word with one syllable and rhymes was truck, duck, buck, suck. Ok, you get the point. This shit was serious.
We both remained calm to not freak the other person out, but we knew we were screwed. Being business majors, we are always looking at ways to cut costs without taking ethics into consideration. Were cutthroat. We downsized to the smallest eco friendly car, avoided taking tole routes, and most importantly we put the car in our other roommates name because he is a few years older than us. Both of us being under the age of 25 we would have to pay almost double. The contract and car was under the name Victor Soto. We were absolutely screwed. What was going to happen. Victor Soto was not in the car and was sitting 3 hours away in our apartment in Rennes. Nothing but the worst things were dancing vividly in our imaginations.
We found the Europcar number in the contract and called it. After a few parle vous anglais attempts we were put in touch with an English speaker. He said we needed to contact the local authorities and get it towed and call them once we got it towed so they could take care of the cost. We tried the police. No one spoke English and almost all we could say was car. Didn't help. We called the emergency number and by this point Ryan took over the reigns in speaking. He is group 3 and I am a lowly 2 so he fared better. Through much struggle, they put us in touch with a lady, from the sounds of it from across the car, was speaking in a British accent. We still don't know of how they contacted her, or if she helped them out, as she told us later she was the only person anywhere near there who spoke English. We did get some positive news though, her husband worked for the tow company. We gave our approximate location and sat in the rain for about an hour until the tow truck came and during which I reminded Ryan I still had to defecate. The tow truck driver didn't speak a lick of English, but was a very nice guy from the seems of it through hand gestures and smiles. We handed the phone back and forth between the girl and her husband. She was our saving grace, but we were in no way out of this. We got our car back to the tow shop and got in touch with the company.
Ryan dealt with the driver and his wife and I spoke to the car company. The driver also talked to the company and told them it was an engine problem and we hadn't hit anything and in no way was it an accident. It was difficult on the phone, but through a number of call backs, I was given two opportunities. We take a cab 3 hours and pay enormous amounts of money, or they would send a cab for us to take us to a hotel for the night and then put us on a train the next day. We gave the name Victor Soto and we waited for the cab.
The cab picked us up and drove for awhile and it racked up to like 100 euros before he brought us to a hotel. In broken French we asked if we needed to pay and he said no and took us to the front desk where the lady handed us a key no questions asked. Thank God, I could finally release my bowel movements. It was glorious. I think the smell lingered in that bathroom for the better part of six hours. It usually irritates you when someone says that you are your father's kid, but when it comes to stinking up a bathroom, I realize I am my father's kid. We had to wait until morning where the company would call us and give us train details. We lucked out again. The room was in Victor Soto's name, but we did not have to give any information. We got in an went out to find something to eat and actually stumbled across a spectacular cathedral. It was illuminated in the night sky and had a mote. Pretty damn cool, but sorry no picture my phone was dead. Getting back to the hotel I noticed my mother had emailed me asking how the trip was and if we made it back. My parents were in Mexico and my mom worries with the best of them. I can only imagine that woman calling the company and throwing a fit and giving it up that I am not Victor Soto, so I have kept her in the dark until she reads this. Hey mom, Surprise!
We decided to put breakfast on the room tab since we weren't paying and were able to check out no problem. A cab got us and brought us to the smallest train station I had ever been to, and we went to figure out tickets. They gave us the reservation number, so I mistakenly thought we could just print them out in a self service machine, but I was wrong. Being a small French city, no one at the train station spoke English, and I realize why should they, but it made it difficult. We gave her the reservation number that I typed on my cell phone and she punched it in and told us the amount, which was 260 euros. Not sure what she said, but I imagine it as, o wait, and noticed they were paying for it. She pulled out a huge stack of what seemed to be charge forms. Are you kidding me, we made it this far, and are going to get caught when we almost have our train tickets. This is not how I saw our plan turn into a debacle. She filled out forms and asked for my passport. O shit, this is the story of the demise of Jake Grothoff. I was surely going to be sent to Guantanamo Bay. My heart is beating out of my chest, I'm sweating, but I showed no emotion. I have never lost in a stare off/ straight face competition. I was continually tested by a kid who swears that he saw a lemur in central Iowa and has kept up this story for years so he has some determination, but have yet to be bested. Things were going smoothly as she took my information. She handed me back my passport and I started to finally get that feeling of relief. Then she did it. This lady did like an octuple take at my name and computer screen. She looked up at us with those beady little eyes and pointed her fat sausage finger at Ryan and asked his name. Now I can not be completely certain to what happened, as I may have blacked out for a moments, but I swear Ryan's voiced cracked, but said exactly what I wanted to hear. The name...Victor Soto. She seemed pleased with the answer and printed off the two tickets, one of which bore the name Victor Soto. I think we pulled this off. We had two hours to wait for the next train and chilled in the train station. Apparently I hadn't got all of the garbage out of my system and was forced to crap in a bathroom that was outside. It was a metal circle raised above a little hole. Not to mention, it was morning and was about 40 degrees if my Celsius calculations are correct. To put things in perspective, my ass was cold. It was entertaining as I lifted up my legs so I could see my aim. Pretty damn good if you were wondering. I took a picture of course so I will put it on here. Just of the toilet. Not the act. Get your head out of the the gutter. I'm not that deranged.
We had to take a train back to Paris, go across town to another station in less than an hour, and board our train back to Rennes. Luckily we have had some practice at public transportation as we both had to babysit our parents in Paris on separate occasions. We got on the train and were finally able to rest as we had made it. We lucked out on so many occasions and with the help of a little luck and identity theft we were able to make it back safely to Rennes. Of course as we left the metro station to head to our apartment there was a Europcar van sitting half a block from our apartment, but we did it. May have been the most stressful few hours in my life. I am never doing that again, plus I have unpaid speeding tickets from an earlier voyage last semester so my French driving career has concluded. Well there you have it. Two guys completely out of their element were able to keep their cool and do the unthinkable. I learned a great lesson from that. I should obviously be a bank robber. Alright that's a wrap, I got some Glee to watch. Au revoir.
Ps---> Thank you Victor for helping out and dealing with our frantic calls to you during the whole ordeal and for sitting down to memorize the story in case someone called. Thanks bud.

Still Competitive

The sports leisure and tourism program at school hosted an event where you could get a team of 5 and compete in different games and that whole thing had an 80's theme. Through what turned out to be a lot of trouble we found people to play. We also ran into trouble when one of the girls on our team was very hungover and refusing to get out of bed this morning, but thankfully she pulled through. It was a pretty good time. It was nice to actually compete in something. We ended up 4th out of 18 teams which I am not thrilled about, but there were a few competitions that left us exposed.
Dodge ball was not one of them. We killed it in that, not even coming close to tasting defeat. Ryan nailed a girl in the face right off the bat. It shouldn't be funny I know, but I love head shots. Apparently the rules were if you hit someone in the face, you are out, so that's the only reason Ryan ever got out. We were fine without him that game. Most of the people did not have strong arms so it was easy to catch anything lobbed up at you. I maybe got a little to into it, the referee talked to me and told me tone it down and take it a little easier on the team we were playing, but its dodgeball. You have to be merciless. I really hate to lose and I don't like being bad at something so there was a little competitive fire that came out. During the basketball game I basically got tackled and that set me off a bit. I started throwing elbows and sort of looking for people to hit with those bows. Those games were definitely our strong points, but we had to play soccer and badminton.
Soccer is obviously not a strong point for us and we won one and lost one. I see why people go nuts when they score, because I scored the only goal in our win and I went nuts. Well enough bragging, because we got our ass's handed to us in badminton. Of course, we got matched up against Chinese students. One was wearing a badminton jersey. They were amazing. This was obviously a training match for when they head to London for the Olympics. Seriously, they made us look stupid. They crushed the birdie and were doing drop shots and stuff. It was really a beating. We took a little anger out when we played the same team in dodgeball but were left a bit dejected after badminton. This aside I wish I could have looked at the official results because I feel we did better than 4th, but I guess winning isn't everything. Yea right, who am I kidding. It was a fun day and good to get off the futon on a sunday afternoon. I just finished the first season of Glee and was so mad that they didn't win regionals I cursed my computer. I thought about throwing it, but I refrained. I already broke my phone when I heard Pujols signed with the angels so I may have learned my lesson. Until next time. I have much to discuss in the problems we faced returning from Luxembourg, it was madness. Au revoir.

Vianden

Being responsible lads we chose to call it an early night so we could wake up at a reasonable hour to have optimal time in our next voyage. We honestly had no idea of where to go, but we are scholars, so we did research. We didn't have our encyclopedias with us so we used this new tool Google. I don't know if you have ever heard of it. Through diligent work we devised our research question. we Googled things to do in Luxembourg. Ryan ran across a post of a small town called Vianden, which was near the German border, so we did it.
To start our morning off, we went to an American cemetery. Of course you have to jump on the opportunity to visit one of these if you are anywhere near one. I visited the American cemetery in Normandy in late December when my parents came, and it was absolutely incredible. The weather was not the greatest this day in Luxembourg, but the cemetery was still kept up in pristine condition. It was not the spectacle that Normandy was, but it still amazing to realize that you are in an area where such an atrocious war occurred. To think, it was not that long ago. 70 years or so, in reality, is not that long ago and it is great to see how these areas have rebounded. This particular cemetery was under a bit of construction. I realize this is probably not the main tourist time in being the beginning of March. Walking through these cemeteries can be a bit overwhelming. Obviously you have no real connection to these fallen heroes, but it really puts things in to perspective and makes you proud to be an American. Lee Greenwood lyrics were definitely going through my head. I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. I won't forget the men who died, and gave there lives for me. I proudly stand up...you know the words. I think that main attraction to this cemetery was that it was the final resting place of General George Patton. We almost missed it, but they had a bit of a chain linked fence surrounding the white cross bearing his name. You do keep your eye out for Iowa graves and we saw a few. Well, we walked around a bit, mainly in silence, but decided we had seen what we needed to and decided to head out to Vianden.
For those wanting to know, we named our little Renault Twingo Gary. Just in case you were wondering. Once out of Luxembourg city, there was a lot of wooded area. It was very cool and to be honest, it was fun to drive. The roads were winding in every direction. We had wondered why we had lost time coming on the GPS and Ryan figured it was probably because the GPS thinks we will be driving 110 km through these areas and we obviously can't. Challenge accepted! I said that, but I really didn't try to drive that fast. We went through many small towns and they were definitely different than anything I have ever seen. The houses were all very nice and I wonder what the main jobs were in Luxembourg. Our GPS lady took us on quite the scenic route. We entered this little cow town and we were basically driving through fields. Definitely did not know if it was right since this crazy lady got us lost many times on the way to Luxembourg, but she got us there.
Just pulling into this town we could see why it had such high reviews. Although it was for sure a tourist spot, it almost seemed unscathed from modern development. Like most old towns, there was a river in the middle and you could look up and see a castle on top of this mountain. First thing first, we needed to eat. A lot of places were closed, because some of these restaurants seem to be closed more than they are open. It makes me miss great wall and fast food Chinese that is open till 4 am. We went to a pizzeria as it was the only thing open. The waitress approached us in German. We were very close to Germany and as I mentioned previously, they speak both French and German. Not knowing German we asked Parle vous anglais. She said no and responded with Parle vous Francais. Good enough, we were able to order in French and I ordered a calzone that was bigger than my head. The food was great, but we found out later that it gave us gas. Fully bellys and happy, we were ready to explore.
Vianden was the last place in Luxembourg to be freed from German occupation. We saw some photos and much of the city was bombed. This city is known for their castle and there is a lookout on top of the mountain which provides an amazing view of the castle and the town. There is a ski lift that leads you up to it, but it was closed for the winter. Once again, challenge accepted. We were getting to this damn lookout. We drove up the mountain and found a trail that we decided would for sure lead us to our destination. We were right, but this was a trail and not a road. It was very narrow and winding and if we went off the edge we were for sure plummeting to our death. We got up most of the way and there was a bit of a washout, but an area to perhaps turn around so we went for it. Ryan got out to help so I didn't drive off a mountain. I think once you reach a certain age you become more cautious and I was. When I was making this 16 point turn, I took off my seat belt and opened the door just in case I drove off so I would be able to jump out and spare my life. I am becoming so responsible. We got the car turned around and decided to walk the rest of the way. Risking our lives was worth it, because the lookout was fantastic. Looking down on this town and looking out at a castle was truly incredible. We were up there for awhile. Long enough that we pissed on the building because the bathrooms were closed. If you ever get the chance and can take the lift, do it. You will not be disappointed.
After soaking in the views we decided to check out the castle. It was fine, but looking down on it is much better than actually going into it. We saw some replicas of how it was supposed to look and we tried our best to understand what was being said in French. It was a very nice castle and has had a lot of work done to restore it since it had almost been left for dead and deteriorating. Our gas was a bit of a problem. We walked into these rooms with other tourists and Ryan was dropping some bombs, and I know that I was not the only one who was smelling it. One of the rooms was dedicated to famous people who have visited this castle. There were many political leaders and things of that nature, but I am proud to say that me hero had visited this castle. The man himself, Patrick Swayze. He was filming a movie there or something and signed a photo. This guy is a legend. This last summer my brother and I practiced jumping into each others arms like baby in dirty dancing. The man is a amazing.
The scenery in this town was unbelievable and I feel fortunate enough to have been able to see it. Luxembourg is a great place to stay as you can go anywhere on such a short drive. Literally, in a 24 hour span, I was in 4 countries and had only driven a couple of hours. On our way back we were driving through what seemed to be like national parks and took some time to walk around and enjoy the views. It smelt amazing. I know it sounds weird, but nothing smells better than nature. In Ryan's words we were able to see some babbling brooks and some awesome rock formations. It was incredibly cool to get out of the city and venture to places that we had no business in visiting. Amazing trip. We had some car troubles on the way home, but I will discuss that later. Go to Luxembourg if you have the chance and especially Vianden, you will not be disappointed. Well since I am a loser an staying in on Friday night to watch Glee, you can have your assumptions, but I have a football in my arms, a fat dip in my lip, and just got done watching East Bound and Down, so think what you will. If anyone besides my family reads this I have one thing to say. Travel. There is no better feeling than discovering new things. Au Revoir.

Luxembourg City

This is my place to vent. Although I doubt anyone has read any of these posts, it keeps me sane. So, today I think I am about 95% sure that I sat in urine. I had an early appointment so I did that and was heading home for a nap around 10 AM. The metro was not extremely crowded, but there was no one sitting down in a section of 3 seats. The optimist I am, I was like, "Hell Yea, I never get a seat." I took my seat and rode home to the nearest metro stop Republique. Side note, the other day someone committed suicide by jumping off a building about a block from my apartment. Kind of crazy, but it almost made me respect cub's fans. They have gone 100+ years without giving up, but I still hate them. So back to my story, on the escalator up out of the metro station I realized my jeans were wet. It wasn't raining and hadn't for a day or so, but then it hit me. I probably sat in a seat where a drunken bum relieved himself. No wonder no one was sitting there. Son of a biscuit. The first thing I actually thought was, what if my brother had been the one to sit in urine. He would have gone on a rant. I will never tell him, but his pissed off approach on life really cracks me up. That is why I try to piss him off all the time. It really is funny. So, I sat in piss. O well, I am a glass half full kind of guy. It was a catalyst for me starting laundry. Although, I could have worn this pair of jeans for another week, it was probably a good starting point for laundry.
OK, to the real point of the story. We woke up in Achouffe Belgium and had breakfast at the hotel. Complimentary, or we would not have eaten it. We had some chips or something in the car so we were prepared. We went to the nearest town to check out the scenery and it was pretty cool. It was a little town in a valley with a big church in the middle. You could see the entire town from the winding road that let us in the town. It was cool, because we realized, we literally have no business being here. I think that is my favorite part about traveling is seeing a place that I never thought I would have ended up before or even know it existed. We found out later that allied troups gathered in Houffalize, the town mentioned, for the battle of Ardennes. You learn something everyday.
Well, we had a short drive of about a little over an hour to Luxembourg, Luxembourg. It is the capital city. Like I mentioned before, It is cool to go to places you never think you would go. I was talking to Ryan when we planned this trip. Why don't we go to Luxembourg. Why the hell not. How many people do you know that have been to Luxembourg. For me, it wasn't too many. I actually met some students when I was traveling in Madrid a few years ago that studied in Luxembourg, but besides that, I don't know anyone. We had no plan and literally no idea what there was to do in Luxembourg. Hey, that's the way I travel, spontaneous. It is the most fun. Worry free is the way to go.
We got to our budget hotel near the airport and took a a bus into the city centre. We just walked around having no expectations and were pleasantly surprised. Luxembourg, if you didn't know, is an incredibly small country. Luxembourg city is only around 100,000 people. Very small for a capital city of a country, but who am I kidding I grew up in central Iowa. It happens to be a very rich country as well. There GDP is ranked third in the world. A little worrisome for two students traveling, but it worked out alright. The city was very nice and didn't seem to have a bad part in the city. Elvis would have nothing to sing about because there was no ghetto as far as I could see. The entire city surrounded this park region. It seemed this town was built around this valley of natural beauty, I can only imagine what it would look like in the spring or summer. The valley went very far down and the coolest thing where the bridges. You wouldn't notice going across driving, but walking you could see all the bridges crossing this valley and they were remarkable. They were very rustic looking, made of brick, and extremely tall. I have honestly never seen anything like it. We walked around for hours, basically taking pictures of the same things because we thought it was astounding.
Walking around became a bit monotonous, so we did what any young men outside of the church of latter day saints would do, we found a pub. Luxembourg has two national languages. They speak French and German as they are surrounded by both. During WWII there was an act by the Nazis called Germanization of Luxembourg. This was the attempt to wipe out the French language, culture, and all French traditions out of Luxembourg. They could wipe one out in France where grocery stores close at 8 PM. C'mon, a brother gots to eat. I am still getting used to that, but the Germanization never completely worked. We had no idea which language was going to be spoke to us, and although we could order in French, I can only say thank you and train station in German, so we took the easy road out and found an English pub. We sat around and had a beer discussing our future plans. In future, where the hell were we going next.
A beer turned into 4 and we finally decided we were hungry. We pulled up Google maps to find an area of restaurants with the free WiFi and set off on what turned out to be an hour journey. The streets were completely crazy. Iowa is easy, some streets run the length of the town, and I don't even know the street names. I just say got Ben's house and take a left, you will come to Megan's house take a right, and right in between Green and Aaron's house your there. Ok, that was not accurate, but you get the point.
We were reaching our boiling point of frustration, and almost committed the ultimate sin. We almost went to McDonalds. Just as we were walking in, a light caught our eye. The sky's opened, the seas parted, and the cubs won a world series. Not really,anything to describe a miracle. There was a freakin Chi Chi's. For those who don't know, it is an amazing Mexican restaurant that I thought had closed. This is how my parents conned us into taking family pictures in Waterloo where we would stop at Chi Chi's after. I just found out that my parents want to take family pictures for their 25th wedding anniversary. Newsflash parents, we have gotten older, not matured. It is still going to quite the spectacle. Chi Chis, by the way, was amazing. Thank you Ryan's parents. Hadn't had a margarita in a long time. We did a little more wandering and caught the last bus back to the airport. Luxembourg is not a crazy city to go party, but I do recommend checking it out. It is a good place to stay and you are close to like 3 countries and plenty of places to see. I will discuss the next part of our stay tomorrow or when ever I get bored.

Ps--> this Glee shit is crazy. I am getting so pumped up for regionals its silly.
Call JG Wentwort 877-cash-now

Brasserie D'achouffe

J'aime la bière. Which means I like beer in French. It is no secret. I have been to a few bars in Rennes to get acquainted with the local culture. France is not known for beer as we all know it has traditionally been known for its wine consumption. They have a few fairly large producers, but the French beer is beer pong quality at best. I have taken a liking to Belgian beers. Their unique, almost sweet taste, makes them very recognizable. Being very close to France many of these beers are readily available. Towards the beginning of the semester, one of our Canadian friends who studied a semester here for his undergrad took us to a little bar that sells a micro brew called La Chouffe. Instantly, I was in love. It is very good, but a little pricy. We frequent this bar just to grab a Chouffe or two when nothing is going on or a place to start out the night.
During a class where we were not listening about SPSS and how to enter statistics into a special program to help our research, or something like that, my roommate and I got a wild hair up our ass's and decided to make the trip to Belgium to check out this brewery. We rented a car and woke up at the ass crack of dawn to begin our voyage to Belgium. I was so excited that I didn't sleep at all the night before. Maybe not the best idea, as I am the only one who can drive a manual transmission. We drove through a majority of France, no thanks to our stupid GPS, who was not aware of half the roads we were traveling. After some select words aimed at GPS lady, which I will never let my mother hear or deny to the grave of ever having spoken these words, we saw the sign to Achouffe Belgium.
We had finally made it. There was a wooden gnome pointing down a hill. Before I move forward, the gnome is the symbol for the beer. The brewery is located in the Ardennes mountains, which is known for their fairy tales of gnomes and elves roaming the forests. They are not what you would think of as a typical US mountain like those in the Rockies, but more of very large wooded hills, which even in the beginning of March proved to be beautiful. Back to the story, we drove down this hill not knowing what to expect. We finally reach the bottom and basically our mouth's dropped. It was almost if this was out of a picture book or fairy tale. This entire town seemed to be dedicated to the brewery. Not only was there a small brewery, but a lake, chapel, tavern, and restaurants all bearing the Chouffe name. We were a little early for our tour, so we decided to find our hotel which was supposedly located in this town.
We walked into the tavern, and in basic French, asked if they spoke English. The girl at the bar did and pointed us in the right direction. Hey, it was an 8 hour drive, we did not feel like structuring a French sentence together. We drove up this winding hill to the top. Here sat our hotel, L'Hotel Espine. It was a Thursday, so we were the only guests to this point. This hotel sat at the top of a large hill and you could see for miles. There were little houses with smoke rolling out of the chimneys and there were rolling hills of forest as far as the eye could see. It was truly a spectacular sight. Rennes is not extremely huge, with a population of a little more than 200,000, but being a small town boy it was good to be in the country. We checked and took the short stroll down to the village.
I had contacted the brewery earlier and they said we could take the tour, but the catch, it would be conducted in Dutch. They gave us an English text and the tour guide spoke to us before and after in English to clear up any questions, as we had no idea what the hell was said in the tour. After the tour were were given a complimentary Chouffe glass and a token to have the first beer on them. The rest of the Freaky Deaky Dutch went to a separate place, but since we were starving we went to the Chouffe tavern that was a restaurant as well. The place was modern, but very cozy and given the old feel. There was a fire in the middle and a few old men sitting around talking to the Chef. We had a few beers and decided to order. All of the food in this place had a Chouffe theme. At first glance, we saw the menu was in Dutch. In Belgium French and Dutch are the primary languages spoken. We were pissed, why couldn't it be in French. We discovered it was as well. We may not be learning much, but hey, at least we can figure out a menu when it is in French so we are learning something. I ordered rabbit in a Chouffe sauce. It was amazing. I have never had rabbit before, but I chased plenty of those little bastards in my Geo Metro in high school. Actually, I drove into someones back yard to chase one and then saw the patrol car sitting in the back driveway so I got the hell out of dodge. To be safe, I left my lights on so my car would die and I could drive my mom's car to school the next few days. Anyways, that is an entirely different story.
We sat around for the better part of the afternoon, enjoying our food, La Chouffe, and checking out the scenery around the little town. Being a Thursday, things closed down fairly early. We took a little nap, and then realized not much would be open, so we just chilled at the Hotel bar. We actually played chess. Neither Ryan or myself know much about chess, but we are extremely competitive. The game took like an hour and a half as we strategically analyzed each move, but I am proud to say I was victorious. I know you will want to compare me to Bobby Fischer, but I will humbly decline. I'm just an average guy, with the will to win in anything. It was nice to relax and check out this amazing place. We checked out the next town over a bit in the morning, but that about concludes our stay in Belgium. We then made our next adventure to Luxembourg which will be discussed later because I am tired of typing and I have to pee, but until next time, Au Revoir.
PS----> I need to get this off my chest and I am pretty sure no one will read this so it is better to do it here. I ran out of TV shows to watch online so I decided to try Glee to see what the hype was about. The first episode was OK and then the next thing I know it I am on episode 8 and it is 4:00 in the morning. I don't care what you think, those f**kers can sing. I am hooked. I don't know why I played sports in high school this seems much cooler. I guess I can't sing and when I dance I look like an awkward duck, but alright I wrote a novel check you later.