I AM BATMAN

Hey everyone, check out this link to a video I got to be part of for my internship in London. Its for a fairly large company called the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT). I am Batman in the video. Its pretty funny stuff, really well done too, since our production included one professional actor and a cameraman, along with hours spent in the editing studio. Superman is a guy who sits next to me at work named Jules, and everyone else is part of the AAT. Here's the link:

http://www.aat.org.uk/superhero/

Enjoy.

Oui Oui en Frances

Sorry dad and grampaw, i know i haven't been writing very much. i'm busy and lazy. i have 21 total blog posts though, and thats more than most of my friends by an awful lot, so you should feel lucky.

we were in france this weekend for our Normandy 1944 class trip. we drove down to the coast in our crappy 15 passenger diesel bus, drove it onto a ferry, and crossed the channel overnight. we went at an odd angle on a big slow ferry way over to the Port of Ouistreham ("weesterham"), so it took us about 6 hours to cross the channel even though most people think of dover-calais, where its only 21 miles across and takes about an hour. so we got into france at about 630am friday. we had about 3.5 hours of sleep on the boat, and it is quite possible the most annoying and unpleasant thing in the world when the automatic alarm comes on about 530am, playing a loud, terribly timed orchestra piece over the radio piping into every cabin. it was still dark outside. we got into ouistreham and at breakfast at a local cafe. it was a small pretty town, which we saw a lot of this weekend. no big cities. the closest thing was the town of Bayeux where we stayed, and its only about 20.000 people, but if feels really small. there's still only like one big supermarket. its nice.

a french breakfast consists of bread (baguettes), a croissant, which is super soft flaky and awesome, jam or butter if you fancy it, a hot drink (we all got the best hot chocolate ever), and orange juice. nothing drastically different, but the bread there is darn-tootin good, i'll tell ya. then after breakfast we went to some places in aroudn the area. our longest drive the whole weekend was about half an hour, its all pretty close together, the war sites and such. we saw all of the normandy beaches, pointe du hoc, which had a lot of bomb craters and is along a really cool scenic coast lined with cliffs. we saw about 6 different museums this weekend. we saw pegasus bridge, where the fist casualty of dday occured.

the area of normandy france is famous for several things. not a lot of wine, actually. they have lots of orchards, and so make excellent apples of course, but also an apple brandy that is good as an apertif, sweet apple cidre, and lots of apple butter and spreads and such. they also have lots of good cheese. the countryside there is really pretty. most of what we drove on were narrow highways, without shoulders, where the super green grass in the ditch came right up next to the road. there were lots of fields, just like iowa, but no corn and beans. many were still empty this time of year, or atleast still looked like dirt. many others were endless seas of pretty yellow flowerd plants about the size of soybeans, that our teacher told us is used to make cooking oil. they have lots of cows, of many different sizes and colors. some were all white and absolutely huge, they don't have that kind anywhere else in the world. we walked on the beaches and saw remnants of Mulberry B, one of two artifical harbours created shortly after d.day to land supplies in france. for several months this artificial harbour was the busiest in the whole world. it was made by towing 5 story blocks of hollow concrete across the channel and sinking them just offshore of arromanches, france. they are really a site to see, and pictures from the war make it easy to imagine what it must have been like when it was fully operational during the early 1940s.

we went out for a nice french meal one night, and i ate duck which i've never had before. it was good. also had four glasses of french wine with my meal. i mean, they brought like 5 jugs of it out, so we had to finish it. no worries, though, the glasses were tiny. it was an excellent meal, though i could have eaten much more. i feel sometimes underprivileged as a young male who can eat whole animals at a time. i dont feel like i'm being fairly treated when i get a meal at a restaurant and can eat twice that much. its not my fault i'm a tank. i need to nourish myself.

this weekend we're off to climb preikestolen (google image that, everyone, its worth it) and see the countryside of norway. these last few days here over the pond will go pretty quickly, with lost of hw during the week and my only remaining wkend being spent in norway climing a big rock. if anyone wants any specific souvenir, tell me now, your time is running out. gramps, i will get your bottle of sherry before i leave from the tax free shop at the airport. we leave on may 8-a friday. i get into chicago airport at about 9pm that night, iowa time. then i'm riding with my friend to burlington, spending the night there, and i'll be back in perry sometime during the day on saturday, May 9. this semester has gone quite fast.

Spring break

just so you all know, ive been on spring break in italy this week. so i may not have internet or phone access till i return on sunday to london. yesterday our group went to easter mass in the

Izquierda a derecha?? Obrigado!

Went to Portugal this past weekend with my friend Scott. It is my favorite place so far. Its a beautiful city of about 240.000 people in Northern Portugal on the Atlantic coast, with the magestic River Douro cutting right through the heart of it to empty into the sea. On the north bank of the river is the most fantastic part of the city, with steep hills and cliffs next to the river, with narrow cobblestone streets and tiny sh0ps and apartments packed into every square inch of the hillside. There's a huge two level steel arch bridge that offers an incredible view from the top level, about 150-200 feet above the river (it runs from the top of the hill on one side to the top of the hill on the other). On the South Bank are more houses, a handful of stores by the riverside, and dozens of Port wine cellars.

Port wine is now my favourite thing in the world. Its wonderfully sweet because the fermentation is interrupted after only 2-3 days by pouring a special odorless, colourless, and tasteless, 75% ABV brandy into the wine (which is why the finished Port wine is about 20%). I bought two bottles, a Tawny and a Ruby, back to London with me. I shall try to make them last. We'll see. We sat on the beach Saturday and finished a whole bottle of the stuff. A big part of tourism in Porto is touring the wine cellars and tasting the wine, we took about 4 tours and tasted wine in about 7 different places, including some stores. Stayed with a kind gentle soul named Fernando, he's a retired statistician for the government. He was very hospitable, and made us soup, paid for some other special apple wine for us to taste, and had us try Portuguese Chorizo sausages that are set in front of you on the table-on fire. it was awesome.

The title phrase comes from the fact that we knew only a handful of Portuguese words, mostly jsut thank you (obrigado). Contrary to popular belief, Portuguese is not very like Spanish at all. Just a small percent of words are the same. Luckily for us, left and right are two of those words (izquierda and derecha). When we needed directions somewhere we got them by listening for those words.

When we arrived at the Porto airport some taxi driver came toward us and with a twinkle in his eye and hope in his whole face, asked us "Taxi??" .....I replied "no" calmly and shook my head, and he immediately threw up his hands in exhasperation and sighed quite audibly. he turned around on a dime and walked away looking dejected. I fear that our refusal was his last strike and he may have been fired for not getting any customers.

Greyhound Racing

I've been more busy the last few weeks than I was the first month or so. From here on out, I pretty much have plans nonstop most weekends, and hardly any free days left. I may take a sick day or two from my job, I can definately get away with it.

Tonight we went to see greyhound racing way down in South London. Its the working class area of town, sort of like the south side of Chicago where all the lazy sox fans live. It was pretty fun, I had a couple beers and ate way too many fries, I don't feel so hot. Its only because I had to skip dinner cause I didn't have time to eat it between my job and leaving for the track. At the track, all of us were yelling and screaming and getting really into it, and so were some other people, but you could tell the majority of other people there resented us loud young folk. Someone even heard another patron remark "Those stupid Americans are going to be annoying me all night". I'm sure we did, too. Most of us bet on the races, it only cost two pounds to pick the winner. On the first race, I put my money on dog number one, Kerr's Comet. He came through for me, I won eight or nine pounds and put two of it towards my next bet on the next race; there were races every fifteen minutes. After that, things didn't go so swimmingly for me. I lost every bet after that, including a nail-biting heart breaker where my pick lead up until the last 40 yards, coming out of the last turn. I was wimpering like a child as he got passed right before the finish line. That dog was something like 22:1 odds, it would have paid out nicely.

1000mph

That's the speed that the Bloodhound SSC is going to try to break in 2011, setting the world landspeed record. The bloobhound team is a client of my internship.

That's also the speed I feel like I've been going lately. Just got back from a long weekend, but an awesome one too. Went to Dublin, Ireland and Edinburgh, Scotland. In Dublin, took a tour of the Guinness Storehouse and stole some barley from the place (there was a huge mound, they had plenty) as a free souvenir. Also took a train 3 hours out into the Irish countryside (don't ask me where we went) to climb Croagh Patrick, a pretty famous mountain. It drizzled and the temperature was about 50 degrees. Doesn't sound bad, until you add in the 40-50 mile an hour winds that we had to deal with up there. We battled the elements for sure; there was a fleeting moment when I felt very cold and wet resting at the summit, and wondered if it would be worth enduring endless teasing for having been rescued on a mountain to call the chopper for a warm ride back to the bottom. We made it though, don't know how I didn't get hypothermia.

In Edinburgh only for a day, we went to bed early so we could get up early and get about 10 hours of tramping around the city in before our train took us back to London. Climbed a short bit to the top of Calton Hill, one of Britian's oldest parks and an excellent view of Edinburgh from all angles. Also saw the Edinburgh Castle, which is quite large and neat. I ate haggis, which will never happen again after learning what it's made of. Our second connecting train back to London apparently got lost somewhere, so we all sat confused in a Peterburgh (halfway there) train station until a coach bus came and got us, and got us into London around 0230. I got to bed at about 0315 last night, rather, this morning. Oh, the joys of the British rail system.

Weather

It hasn't rained quite as much as we all expected. I'd say it probably only has rained significantly one or two days a week whilst we've been here. It did rain today though; three of us went to Hyde Park to play ultimate frisbee and got caught in it. I decided to run back because I thought a little light rain was refreshing, but then it rained harder and hailed tiny pieces, and I got soaked. I can't wait for it to get warmer here, I'm tired of wearing my jacket. I need to visit Spain or Southern Italy soon and get me some warm sunshine and sandy beaches.

Four of our friends came up here this weekend to visit that are on the Central study abroad program in Spain, so we spent some time this weekend showing them around and whatnot.

A few of us are going to Ireland and Scotland this weekend. Since St. Patrick's Day is on Tuesday, I'm sure there will be celebrations for us to check out this weekend, so that is good timing. We are planning on celebratin St. Patty's day, climbing a mountain, and taking a tour of the Guinness factory. Then on Saturday we fly into Edinburgh, Scotland, and stay there for the next 24 hours. We don't have any plans in Edinburgh, we're just planning on wandering the city and seeing all the free touristy things to see.

I'm going to The Netherlands in two weekends, flying into Amsterdam and then we are taking a train right away to some other coastal town where we are staying with one of our friends' uncles' half-brother, or something of the sort. Either way, its a free place to crash.