innsbruck, austria

innsbruck, austria. euro2008 (soccer) is still in full swing and a few games are hosted here (including one on thursday, should be nuts). boy do they love there soccer here. dad, you should definitely come here. hahaha.
entrance to Dachau. after taking about two photos, i decided to take the rest in black and white.

these building was used for interrogations and solitary confinment.
the "showers." probably the worst experience i've been through. . these were made to function as gas chambers, but supposedly the nazi's never used these specific ones for that. needless to say, thousands still died here. ceilings were about 6'10", it is rare for me to get claustrophic, but it was definitely a very unnerving experience standing in this room.
the beds. if i remember correctly, the barracks were each made for about 500 people, but they crammed at least a couple thousand in each one.

stolen photos and a full stomach (finally!)

so i stole a bunch of photos from friends. this one is of me and ben outside a mall in russia (don't worry, i didn't go there by choice, they made us go. i swear)
in the overnight bus from latvia to russia. 17hrs. so fun.
after another one of our all day bus rides (and i really mean all day), we decided to take a stroll through the countryside in the netherlands and happened upon these cows.
walkin through moscow
creating fun in moscow
group shot. i'm the short one in the front.
in lithuania

on our boat trip down the moscow river


me and denny on the baltic sea


i just ate a huge meal. I am so happy. the serving sizes here are a slightly on the smaller side, so i'm kinda hungry all day. but since tonight was our last night in prague and I had alot of extra crowns (the currency here), i pigged out at dinner. Had this huge pancake thing with pork inside, also ate what was left of the meals of the two girls i went with, then had some ice cream. life is good. since my last blog a couple of days ago, not too too much has happened. we've had a couple of classes, we went on a corporate visit to black and decker and saw the assembly lines that made dewalt tools, went to a five story club, ahhh, what else? walked around the city a couple a times, watched some soccer in the town square, a bunch of us played ultimate frisbee for a couple of hours today. that was definitely what i needed. I think i have a mild form of ADD or somethin because i'm realizing i can't focus in class or on our tours, and i think it is because i've really had no opportunity to exercise. at college, i'm either lifting, running, playing tennis, or a combo of those everyday, and here that isn't happening. i'm trying to pushups/crunches every night, but it isn't enough. so a few hours of running around throwing the frisbee this afternoon was amazing.

tomorrow we are off for another all day bus trip. we are going to innsbruck, austria for 5-6 days, which should be cool. but on our bus trip we are stopping off at Dachau (concentration camp). should be pretty intense and depressing but it is a significant part of our world's history, so I'm glad we are going.

and happy fathers day!

Praha (prague) and memories

denny.
we rolled into prague tuesday night and denny and I took a few hour stroll through the city. definitely brought back alot of memories from when I was here in high school.
i have a photo of me on this bridge when I was 16. I couldn't remember what statue it was, but looking forward to comparing them when I'm home.


Euro2008 is in full swing (soccer tournament). Denny and I saw the start of the France-Greece game in the middle of prague. While I was eating dinner with the Dagens the Czech Republic was playing. didn't get to see the game but i'm betting this plaza was packed.


inside the main cathedral in prague

overlooking the city of Prague. Kaylin (Mt. Vernon), Molly (Westmont), myself, and Katie (Biola) in the back, with Drake (Anderson University) and Ben (Messiah) in the front.
once again, I am tall and the world is small.
having dinner with the dagens.Haven't seen them since I was in the Czech Republic with Atascadero Bible Church for a missions trip in the summer of 2003. We had pizza and caught up for a little over an hour. They are on their way to Rome for a few days for vacation, so God definitely had a hand in us being in Prague on the night they were in town.

Soccer and economics

in frankfurt, Germany
lookin mighty sexy outside the european central bank
some weird lookin street performers in heidelburg
Old town in Heidelburg
6 of us just happened to be wearing dark pants and a white shirt. guess its bound to happen when we all are living out of one suitcase each.
this and next photo are part of heidelburg castle

thought i'd throw in one last update in germany before we head off on our 9hr+ bus ride to prague, czech republic tomorrow. we had our test saturday morning, which was harder than the last (got a high B, means i got to study hard for the next one). we have a steady stream of homework now, which involves readings, small write ups on our business visits, and an economics essay and project coming up soon. I spent the rest of saturday walking around town, denny and I went and visited the castle that over looks Heidelburg (which we ended up seeing as a group on sunday. oh well). a few of us went out to a small club that night but our small group of americans were the only ones dancing. still had a good time though.

sunday we went to church. so far in my life I've been able to experience the great blessing of worshiping our Lord in English, Chinese, Spanish, Lithuanian, Russian, Czech, and now German. so awesome. despite that it was crazy hot in the church, had a good time singing and fellowshipping with German Christians. Sunday afternoon was spent touring the castle again, doing homework, and watching Germany beat Poland in soccer for the Euro 2008 tournament. a couple of us went to a bar (we didn't drink, policy of IBI) and watched the game. European fans are absolutely crazy. After Germany won, cars covered in German flags were honking and people screaming over an hour and a half after the game finished.

Today we had the opportunity to go to Frankfurt where we visited the European Central Bank and Deutsche Bank. These visits were beneficial because I know now I do not want to be a banker or be involved in any matter with banking. boring. the presentations were interesting (long) but overall was a good experience.

I'm spending the rest of the night studying and packing for our trip tomorrow. Hope all is well where ever you may be reading this.

whoops

my bad. published the last post without actually writing anything.

tuesday morning we heard from an american making mexican food products selling to the russians. really interesting and he definitely knew what he was talking about. was interesting to hear about all the difficulties he faces working in the russian system and all the loopholes he has to go threw. it was also interesting to hear about how putin (the leader of russia) is disliked by much of the world, but the majority of russians like him because he brought some stability to the economy after about a decade of chaos.

after spending 2 hours in traffic (normal in russia) we made it to the airport and flew to amsterdam (tuesday night), ate dinner about an hour outside the city, and spent the night there. wednesday we took a bus for about 8 hours to get to where we are currently staying, heidelberg, germany. on the way we stopped at koln germany and saw a really cool cathedral (and even got to walk up to the top).

today (thursday) we had three hours of class (i got a 93 on my last test. holla. our next one is Saturday). we then went to a John Deere factory and had about 4 hours of tours and presentations. interesting, but long, so i got bored pretty quickly due to my short attention span. i've realized through my travels i really don't do well with guided tours. i space out about 10 minutes into it. so imagine a 2 hour guided tour through the factory. amazing, but long.

last night a bunch of us spent a few hours walking around town, and now i am currently hanging out with a few friends in a little cafe that happened to have free wireless. tomorrow we have more classes then a tour of a Dailmer (buses) factory. i'm spending the rest of the night checking up on the news and ready two chapters for economics. shoot me an email, love to hear from you.

bored in traffic. i'm actually the only one awake.
parking in russia. cars on the sidewalk.

we flew into amsterdam and spent the night in a hotel about an hour outside the city. so beautiful.
we stopped in koln, germany for a few hours for lunch. sweet cathedral we found.


a sweet view from the top of the tower of the cathedral in the previous pics
germany
taking a stroll in heidelberg germany where we are staying for 6 nights
feeling mighty hick.
denny and i gettin ready to go on a visit of one of john deere's biggest factories in mannhiem germany.

weirdest thing ever. i actually have some down time to sit and think. its pretty much been non stop since we got to russia.