One last thing.... My Rick Steve's french phrase book has Tim's evil frenchman twin on the help! page. Either it's an evil twin, or he's been moonlighting as a french police officer.. anyhow, the resemblance is insane! (if Tim gained some poundage, that is)

When I think of Dublin, I remember:

* "Dirty old Town" at the Auld dubliner with a free round of beer our first night in Temple Bar

* Harold's Cross greyhound racing

* Abrakebabra's glass-like fish & chips that claimed our fork spokes as their bitches

* Driving through the rolling hills of Ireland with expansive views and beautiful green everywhere

* Driving through the hell that is Dublin's city center with street signs on buildings after the intersections

* Underwelming breakfast at the Othello hostel

* Irish stand up comedy, peppered with George bush humor

* A free round of Guinness at the end of the tour! (two free rounds!)

When I think of Amsterdam, I remember:

Amersterdam highlights include:

* Reel big fish @ teh Max adn their 8 year old set that the 16 year old kids were digging on

* The Moulon Rouge fiasco with the doorman we ran from. (briskly walked that is)

* Gina & the banana dance

* "It was the littlest pizza they ever did see"

* The beauty of the canals at night with street lamp reflections

* Sinus issues at the St Christopher Hostel at the Winston

* Anne Franke's House *cough*

Looking Back at London, I remember:

London brings back memories of:

* Callaghan's bar, the most fun anyone has ever had... ever, and on a monday night!

* Cheers, the dance club with boogied at with Eddie the arabic dude

* The Regent Palace hotel, and it's silent halls at night that resemble those in "The Shining"

* The bum that directed us to our hotel in Picadilly circus and told us not to pay more than a pound for a carlysle pint.

* Haagen Daas night club/cafe, with it's delicious chocolate offerings and hipster hangout decor

* Sightseeing big ben and the rest of the city from the london eye. And, wishing we could sell T-shirts or food during the 30 minute ride.

* Best fish and chips platter ever...

* Best karaoke performance ever of "I just can't get enough" ... I mean, every song was incredible and everyone knew the words... they must have been ringers... seriously! the old guy with the song from grease? are you kidding? I mean EVERYONE was dancing... on a monday night!

When I look back at Paris, I think of:

Out of my travel journal, I'd like to spew forth the things I'll remember most about Paris:

* ElShan & Simo trying to get into nightclubs on Chmps de Elysee and "Nightmaring" thru the city together until the train started up again at 6AM.

* Our friend "The bum of Nation" metro stop who lipped a cig butt off the ground and mimed something like football for a few euro from us. He also got us started singing a beatles song.

* Losing 3 hats in 10 days! the last one on the bus from Beauvais airport!

* Running with drunken OJ girls to the metro stop and making the RER train just in time

* The Miracle "Last Train" metro debacle

* Kevin from Ohio... who we _did not_ meet at the eiffel tower the next day. chalk that one up to empty drunken promises

* Duck Confit & Steak Tar Tar at Le Trappiste, our favorite restaurant

* Crepes.... the first one especially

* The Louvre's Denon Wing

* 6 million skulls and femurs in the Catacombs

* Denis puking out our cab window, and the cabbie cleaning it up with windex. It was a miracle we made it home!

* Cafe Creme and old madonna music everywhere... the mysterious 5 year ago shift in popular music

* Beautiful girls everywhere (chestnuts) wearing jeans with hooker boots. I instantly thought less of the flophouse girls in LA who wear rags and sweatpants with their giant stupid glasses and fuzzy boots. What a contrast! Are girls in the states just that flophouse?

* Pink metro bunny warnings... and the jackass episode we got to see that mocks it!

* Hamburgers with fried egg on top and no bun

* Marais & Bastille, and the pompidu museum

* Simo, Elshan, Osgur, Denis, Vankar, and Team! (Tim) out on the town all together..

* Everyone smoking, everywhere, all the time... such is europe!

Our last weekend in Paris, and we all went out the bars in Bastille. We had a great time hopping around to a few places and enjoyed beer, wine, and a few celebration shots. Our favorite thing to do happened to be eating Crepes, so we enjoyed one last time at it. Here's Mat & Gina chowing down (they'll kill me if they see this), but the crepes are definitely the #1 reason to go back..

Back in Paris for our last weekend, here's Gina, Tim and Mat enjoying more of the wonderful coffee you can find in Paris. We all had a couple Cafe Cremes each day there, and I can safely say I've never had better coffee anywhere...

On the guinness storehouse tour, which I totally recommend, we got a chance to taste some fresh guinness. Here's Gina with 3 glasses of the brown stuff. The tour was really informative, and we got to taste roasted barley and see the beer brewing process. I swear the guinness tastes much better in Ireland. The tour ends at a top-floor panoramic bar, where 3 girls were kind enough to give us their free pints. I hadn't eaten anything, so I got a little smashed by 2pm on a couple guinnesses, and we soon were off to find some fish and chips... at restaurant chain Abrakebabra! where they fried the fish for way too long...

After two crazy nights in London and two more in Amsterdam, we returned to Paris just long enough to fly to Dublin, Ireland. We had a lot of fun in Temple Bar and caught some greyhound races our first night in Town. After renting a car, we drove through the irish countryside and saw expansive views of green hills all around us. We even were approached by deer, just a few feet from our car! Here's Mat & Gina somewhere off R172. (no one there knows or uses the names of the roads)

Outside Notre Dame cathedral, we spied some crazy inline tricksters... They were slaloming through the cones forwards and backwards, and jumping/grinding bike racks. It was kind of a modern culture meets ancient cathedral situation. ;) Anyhow, the inside of Notre Dame was beautiful, and we even spied part of a mass that was going on.

Here are the boys at the Eiffel Tower... Mat, Tim, myself, and Elshan... Elshan works with Tim and is from Azerbaijan... he is definitely a character and we all had a lot of fun together. The tower sparkles at night, though we never really figured out exactly when. maybe once an hour? It's dazzling to view from the train though..

Here is Tim with the smallest guinness in history at a cafe in Paris. (or he is a giant) All of a sudden the term "half pint" makes sense! We found out quickly that the french like to serve a hamburger on a plate without a bun and with a fried egg on top... bizarre, but it looked good!

We mastered the metro ("maytro") quickly and got around Paris pretty easily. Thanks to Rick Steve's book on Paris we had no shortage of ideas to talk about on the train. I think our favorite neighborhood was the Bastille with its bars and crepe stands.. (oh yeah!)

Long overdue... I've decide to post some pics from my trip to Europe to visit tim. Here we are visiting Tim in Val Du Europe near Paris getting beers at Le Agape bar... From left to right, Gina, Mat, Tim and myself... aka, team europe! we had a lot of fun, and I'm going to post pics of some of the highlights of our trip.