I want to know why the pictures of Egypt are the most viewed, after only being up for about 10 days. Hot girl only barely surpasses WIll, Mariann and I in front of the Library of Alexandria. And she's been up since over two months ago! Somewhere, somebody is purposefully overviewing the Egypt pics. I'm going to track you down, and do nothing. I just want to know why - reply with a comment. Ok, all kidding aside - some serious news. I'm definitely coming home early. I didn't make it to San Sebastian. I spent a couple of days lounging in Paris waiting for my reservations for accomodation in San Sebastian. Then I decided that I wasn't going to do anything there that I couldn't do at home. So I have been in Zürich and Bern and their surrounding areas for the last five days because I fly out of Zürich on Thursday August 25th. I decided that I had done a large enough portion of my trip to call it a success. I have seen two continents and 12 countries [I had to take my shoes off for that one, so I might be off a bit]. I have learned how best to travel, and how definitely not to travel. The next time out I know how to have a better time for less money/headache/whatever. I know exactly where I want to visit longer, what I want to delve deeper into, and where I can skip the next time out. I have met some great people I will keep in contact with [you know who you are], and some people I won't. Plus I have discovered some things about me and my future that I need to mull over a while. I wanted my travels to compose a story which other people would want to hear. I believe that I have accomplished just that. So - yeah me. This probably ends a chapter of my life. It was short lived, but burned brightly. I am sad to see it go, glad that it is my story to tell, and excited for the prospects the next holds. Thank you everyone who read my adventures, saw the sights with me [even though virtually], and in general supported me with your thoughts, comments and prayers. It really can get lonely out here, and an encouraging email or a witty comment to a photo can make all the difference. The things I miss most about home are: 1. Family and Friends 2. Sushi [I'm adventurous with my food, but not that adventurous] The things I miss least about home are: 1. Driving 2. Mc Donalds [They're everywhere here!!] The things I wish I could take back home 1. Trains and Good public transport 2. Seemingly endless unexpected tolerance The things I probably will take back home 1. CDs - I love foreign music 2. Yogurette [Strawberry cream covered in chocolate ... mmmmm] - I hope i can find it before I leave! See you all soon! And keep checking this space I'll post details about Samoa here when I get them.

I was in Interlaken, Switzerland a few days ago where I did this really cool extreme activity called canyoning. Basically canyoning is falling down a mountain in a canyon in such a way as to avoid only the worst possible injuries. [You can deal with the minor ones. My hips are still bruised from crashing into the rock walls!] You take a bus to the top of a canyon and jump into the stream or river that is running through it. Then you proceed down the canyon by rappelling, jumping off 15 meter waterfalls into shallow pools, sliding down water slicked rock faces along with the rushing water, or some kind of crazy combination of the three. I couldn`t believe that I was actually jumping off a cliff into a pool of water just because some guy I met three hours ago had counted down from three. We were travelling in a group of about 12 people, along with two guides and a photographer. I did a flip off of one of the jumps, [and I am not a flip person!] The pictures came out amazingly, you should check them out. If you ever have the chance to go canyoning, GO! It will be the time of your life. 3 - 2 - 1 - JUMP!

Hey everybody, I`m starting to get tired of traveling. I feel like I have accomplished a lot in the short amount of time I had in each city. I would love to do more, but I feel like a need a break. I`m going to Lyon for a few days, and then I`m going to soak up some sòl in San Sebastian, Spain - supposedly Europes prettiest beaches are there. So I`ll rest there for five or six days and see how I feel about continuing untill September then. I have updated my photo album to current, so you can [URL=http://thelansfords.com/photos/main.php?g2_itemId=19613]check it out.[/URL] I`ll let you all know if I`m coming back early or not. Ciao.

Egypt had a lot less sand than I was expecting. All of the roads I drove on were paved. You don`t have to cross an expanse of desert to get to the great pyramids. And only the desert police ride camels. But it is really, really hot. Everything was really cheap though. There are 6 Egyptian Pounds to the American Dollar, a 200ml bottle of coke costs 1 Pound [about 17 cents], falafel and bread on the street costs 1 Pound, and toothbrush costs about the same. A ride on the air conditioned bus costs 2 Pounds, while a ride on the regular bus costs 0.75 Pounds, and a ride on a minibus [a van without regular stops] costs 0.50 Pounds. They have nice parts of Cairo, and really run down parts. Everything is dusty and brown though, whether it`s in the nice part or the bad part. I guess it only ever rains in the winter. But even then the outside never really gets cleaned. It really wasn`t what I was expecting at all. Even though I don`t know what I was expecting. I loved visiting, and was treated famously everywhere I went. Many of the little kids know how to say

So the other day I was in the basement of the Louvre, looking at ancient Egyptian works of art, when I thought to myself <

I absolutely love Paris. It seems as though there is energy running through the streets, and just by setting foot on them that energy is running through me. I got into Paris at 8pm two nights ago, and decided to walk around the city. I ended up walking from Gare de Lyon to the Eiffel Tower. That`s about a 4 mile walk. I walked the entire way on the banks of the Sein. On the way I passed by a small stadium cut into the walkway on the banks where there were a bunch of people dancing, just to dance. I passed by numerous street performers, walked through the Latin quarter which was packed with people window shopping. I sat and marvelled at the Notre Dame and the speed skaters just outside of it. I arrived at the Eiffel Tower at 4 minutes before midnight, just as the flash bulbs on it started flashing. It was a sight I will never forget that capped off a night I will never forget. Except that the night wasn`t quite over yet. I sat around at the Eiffel Tower for about 45 minutes just people watching. At about this time I was getting cold and decided to head home for the night. I walked about three blocks to the next metro stop, where I was greeted by a hoard of people waiting for the next train. Numerous announcements and 20 minutes later a train arrives. I board the train along with the masses. Two stops later, an announcer comes on the loudspeaker, and hoards of people groan then leave the station. <

It's been quite a while that I've seen new comments on either the photos or the blogs. I was wondering if the United States still existed. In case you don't know how: Leaving a comment on the blogs: 1 Click on the topic you want to leave a shortcut for ex. Click on "Where is everybody?" 2 Scroll to the bottom of the page 3 Type your name in the first box, you can leave the other stuff blank 4 Type your comment in the big box 5 Click the "Submit" button Leaving a comment on the photos: 1 Find the photo you want to leave a comment on [Make sure that you are viewing only one photo, not the thumbnails] 2 Scroll to the bottom of the page where it says "Add your comment" 3 Type your name in the first box 4 Type your comment in the big box 5 Click the "OK" button You can view the photos with the latest comments by clicking "Last comments" in the bar on top of the page.

It's really interesting traveling in Eastern Europe. Wherever you stay they have advertisements for other Eastern European sites. You never see adverts for Bratislava in Western Europe. But here I am in Prague and they are all over the place. Here in Eastern Europe you also don't see adverts for Western European attractions. It's as if the two halves of Europe refuse to accept that they are neighbors. If anyone was hoping or counting on a completely unified European continent, you can shelve those ideas for quite some time.

Yesterday I hopped onto a train from Munich to Prague. It was supposed to be a night train from 11pm arriving at 8:15am. Notice I said supposed to be. I couldn't reserve a couchette for this trip because they were all booked up, so I decided to try just a regular train seat again. I met the people in my compartment and they were all really friendly and nice. Believe me, this was a huge help over the stress and uncertainty of the following day. The train left normally. It made the first few stops while we were chatting away getting to know each other. Nothing amiss. We all fell asleep to various extents. I dozed for about 15 minutes at a time. Not too shabby considering I was sitting up. At about 3am the train was boarded by the customs officials to check our passports. Needless to say it was a bit hard to fall back asleep after being so rudely awoken. But at least it was a good indicator that the night was going well. Cool I'm in The Czech Republic I thought. About an hour later the train stopped at a stop called Neste Pische, or something like that, in Czech the characters are all different. It was stopped for a really long time. I got up to look around and see what was going on because it was getting really hot and stuffy in the cabin. There was nobody at the station, and no uniformed train officials to be found. I didn't want to stray too far from the train just in case it got started again. So I went back to the cabin and tried sleeping some more. The train ended up being stopped at that station, which we all lovingly called Nasty Piss, for 3 1/2 hours! At about 7:15, I got up and started wandering the train, looking for someone to give me any indication of what was going on. I met some really great guys from California in the next car behind mine, they were just as clueless as I. But I also met an Englander that informed me that about 2 1/2 hours ago some train officials came on and told everyone to gather their things and board a bus to Prague. So immediately I started worrying that I would be stuck in Nasty Piss, waiting for days for the next train out. Everyone in my cabin was still asleep, so I went to wake them and let them know about the situation. We all worried a bit, but eventually we reasoned that the train would eventually make it to Prague. It just had to, right!?!? So we all decided to just stay on the nearly empty train. The train got moving again at about 7:40 and we all cheered. But because the train was off of the regular schedule we had to stop every time we came to a stretch of track where only one train could go. We turned it into a game and were all laughing and joking about how crappy the train was, and how the train would stop because we had already been traveling for five minutes and the engine was tired. At one point we stopped for quite a while, and while we were hanging our heads out the windows two other trains came along either side of our train. We laughed and joked about boarding the other trains and staging mutiny. We saw one guy in the back of the train actually get out, but when our train started moving again he jumped back in hurridely. It turns out that the track we were traveling on had gotten hit with a pretty bad electrical storm, and all sorts of trees were down on the track in front of Nasty Piss so we couldn't travel any further in that direction. While they were figuring out a new route for us they switched the engine on our train from a diesel engine to an electric one that we would need on the new route. Our new route took us through Dresden, Germany. We arrived in Prague at about 2:30pm, over 6 hours late!

I was able to spend a good chunk of time getting some pictures up on the site. I've got quite a few of them up, but I've got so many pictures and I'm really tired of sitting here. Just ignore the empty albums, most of the new stuff is on the second page. Coming up next will be Berlin, Amsterdam, Belgium and Munich. Let me know if you come across any duplicates, I haven't been paying real close attention. Enjoy!

I had just arrived in Berlin via the night train [the train on the boat]. I had been told that it was the place to be, so I went. I didn't have a place to stay yet, and I didn't want to walk around all day looking for a place just to end up tired and exhausted. I needed a way to call around and find a place to stay so I decided to sit outside the T-Mobile store and wait for it to open. [It was still well before 8 at this point]. I was on the floor of the train station, my baggage surrounding me, reading a book. Then, two girls walked by me and each of them threw a 5 euro cent piece at me. I didn't realize that I looked so miserable that I needed help, but I was instantly humbled. I realized that I was lucky enough to not need the help, but thankful that if I really did need it, someone would be willing to help me. I kept and spent the 10 cents. I'm a cheap skate, what can I say?

The city of Amsterdam is so strange. It has some really interesting sights, some very unique architecture and some very strange people. Everybody in Europe comes to Amsterdam to relax and have a nice weekend. Unfortunately the city is neither relaxing or nice. None of the streets here are straight, their names change once every 10 meters, and all of the maps are missing most of the street names and include [free of charge] a gaggle of people laughing at you because you can't find your way. I saw the Anne Frank house today. Unfortunately they don't allow photography in the house. The house wasn't furnished, but some of the imagery that they had placed on the walls was really strong . It had a very strong impact on me. I read the book and was impacted strongly by it, but reading about her experiences and actually being where she experienced them are two totally different things. I imagined the annex to be quite a bit smaller than it was. Perhaps I got the wrong impression because the museum included the wherehouse downstairs. Once you get behind the bookcase that hid the only entrance to the secret annex you step into van Pals bedroom on the left and the washroom on your right, with the stairs directly in front of you. The van Pals room was about 5 by 8 meters, about the size of a large dorm room. The washroom was about 3 by 5 meters, and the staircase led to a second floor about the same size. I had always imagined it much smaller I guess. They had both of her actual diaries there, and that really impacted me. Knowing that she had touched the book I was looking at, and through that book the world had come to know her story. I would highly recommed this sight to anybody visiting Amsterdam.

And the green grass grows all around, all around. And the green grass grows all around. I was totally weired out last night when the train I was on, got on a ferry. I didn't know that boats could hold trains, or that trains could go on boats, or any of the number of things that blew my mind about a train being on a boat. I took a picture of the train in the cargo hold of the boat, and I'll post it as soon as I get a chance. Oh, and you think that trains rock back and forth a lot when they are riding normally? Try putting the tracks on a boat. I got rocked to sleep last night, not a bad way to fall asleep if you ask me.

So I was at this organ concert in Helsinki. It was my last night in Helsinki and I wanted to do something different. The concert was a free concert - even better - at St. John's church in Helsinki. It is the second largest church in Helsinki, and the organ is fantastic. I enjoyed the concert mostly for its novelty, and not so much for the music. I guess composers are still writing for the organ, so most of the pieces that were played were contemporary organ pieces. I don't like contemporary piano, much less contemporary organ. The concert started at 8pm, and finished around 10pm. After the concert was over I had to use the restroom, sitting down. The only restroom I could find was down two flights of stairs. So as I was finishing up I heard a large commotion upstairs. I washed my hands, gathered my things and went upstairs only to find that the church was locked up and all the lights were out. Needless to say I was a little bit nervous. I was prepared to stay the night in the church. I had my jacket and a small bag of candy I had bought earlier. But I decided that I didn't really want to [go figure], so I started pounding on the front door to the church from the inside, hoping that someone would hear me. Luckily the woman who had just locked up the church had just finished and was still outside the front door. She heard my knocking and unlocked the door and let me out.

I arrived yesterday afternoon at Copenhagen central station. Nothing special since I was here about 5 years ago. But the station did seem a lot smaller this time around. I don't know if I'm bigger, or if my perception has just changed - it's probably the latter. But I love Copenhagen. It's a small-ish town that is easily walkable. The people here are really friendly, and things aren't quite as expensive as they were in Norway and Sweden. I especially like all of the copper roofing they have. It turns green and gives the city an air of age and importance. Today I climbed to the top of the second highest bell tower in the city. It was a 90 meter climb with some 400 steps. I got some really great photos and I'll put them up as soon as I'm able. From there I could see the Malmö - Copenhagen bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world - or so I hear. It's a very spectacular looking bridge, very modern looking. I'm leaving for Malmö tomorrow morning where I will try to find a Swedish massage before I head for Berlin tomorrow night. PS I'm switching up the itinerary a little bit. I've heard from more and more people that Berlin is the place to be. They all say that they had a very hard time leaving. So I'm going to try it out before I meet Nick on July 25th in Amsterdam.