.

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I dont speak no french

just emily now. I started my program today. I had to take a placement test which was pretty hard. So I see tomorrow what class I am in. Grenoble is very nice all surronded by mountians. We had such a good time on our trip. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Dillon for letting Brendan come with me. We will never forget it! I wont have as good stuff to update anymore; but if something exciting happends ill be sure to let you all know about it!
love
just emily
i miss u brendan

Im in the Swiss airport.

Im just waiting for my connection to NY, which leaves at 12:30. See everyone soon! Peace,
B

Grenoble

I just got to Grenoble a few hours ago. My room is pretty nice. my roommate seems nice, a little tame though. I guess i should go unpack and get food: I dont know why i had to be here today though; since we dont have anything until monday: Wish i was in paris with Brendan: There is internet right in my dorm; so thats good. I forget ,most of my french; i hope to learn it back. Hope you make it out of Paris alive brendan just kidding
love Emily

Paris is confusing....

Alright, well this is just to let emily know i am safe and sound in paris. I had alittle trouble finding the hostel but i think ive got it all figued out. Peace, Hope your having fun at you program!
Love,
Brendan

The end is near....

Well tonight is me and em's last night together. Tomarrow i take a train to Paris and she takes one to Grenoble. Right now we are in Dijon, France which is kinda between the two. Emily just discovered what her account balance is, she may be having heart failure. Well it has really been a great trip, Switzerland was a great last stop. Everything there was so beautiful. We spent two days trekking through the mountains and enjoying our pasta meals. Canyoning was one of the coolest things we have ever done. Watching Emily jump off a 30 foot cliff, and jump into a 20 foot rock slide was pretty cool. Just wait till you get the pictures Mr. and Mrs. Z! Well were going to find some dinner. See you all soon,
B and E

OH yea, check this out!!

This is a picture from venice. The kid in the picture, his mother took the photo. http://www.stanford.edu/~chuongdo/pictures/random-yo-yo-meeting.jpg Very cool!

Gimmelwald in the Alps

So...I did infact make it through the canyoning experience. Canyoning is this crazyness where you go through a canyon jumping off waterfalls and going down natural waterfalls. The first jump was pretty scary and I was pretty scared, but I went off it and the rest was good once I got used to it. You where a helmet, wetsuit, and lifejacket so it was pretty safe. Needless to say, Brendan now wants to become a canyoning guide.
We got to Gimmelwald yesterday. Its this little village in the Alps. Everything is very cute. There are cows and sheep and other Swiss things. We went walking today around the mountains. Tomorrow we are going to try to do a harder hike. We will see if we make it through or not.
The mountain hostel is a very nice clean hostel.
Brendan is too busy talking to people to grace you with his presence on this journal post. He will be home soon though.
love you all,
Emily and Brendan

On our way into the alps.

Today we had an amazing adventure down through the canyon. Right now we are waitin for our cable car to take us to gimmelwald. I will post more later. Just have 5 mins on this computer. Emily jumped off a 35 foot waterfall though! The urine soaked matress turned out not to be so bad after i changed it, but im glad were out of there. Peace,
B&E

Hostel from hell / we blow lots of money to see a canyon.

Well, this hostel is pretty nasty, the bed i got, someone had wet the bed the night befor, and the guy at the front desk made me take out the matress and get a new one. Nasty. Switzerland is the most rediculously expensive place on earth. A cone of newspaper, with fish nuggets, and fries, was 8.50 Swiss Franks. the same thing cost 3 Euro in italy. Let me interrupt to mention that a swiss franc is about about 60 euro cents. So it works out better than it sounds.
However, we decided to splurg here, and were going on a 7 hour canyoning trip tomorrow. 40 foot waterfall jumps, 50 meter repelling, and 80 foot natural waterslides. Its cost us 115 Euro each though. We plan to eat lots of speghetti and cheap sauce for the next 4 days :-(
Dad. those puppets were evil midgets and we discovered a whole museum dedicated to their evil purpose. Sucks about Duke. Oh well, its a rebuilding year.
Alright, were gonna go watch "football" and try and not think about our urine soaked matresses.
Miss everyone,
Love, Emily and Brendan

More on the puppet show debacle.

Ok, so were jogging, trying to get to the show on time, and we think we know a shortcut, but no, theres a 30 foot drop to the street were supposed to be on, so we finally get there, were sweaty and gross, and everyone is already inside, and im like "uh...were here for the puppet show" and this lady escorts us into the theater, its already started and were with a lady waving around a flashlight trying to find our seats. We were already laughing hystericly befor the puppets came out, but when this fat, turban wearing puppet came charging on to stage, it nearly put us in tears. I really thought we were going to have to excuse ourselves from the show. Then we finally calmed down, and this little freaky black slave puppet comes bouncing across the stage with a red carpet in his hands, we almost fell out of our seats. Definatly our worst behavior of the trip. Neadless to say we slipped out at intermission, never to set foot in the puppet house again. Besides that, salyburg is beautiful, we are headed up to a old fortress now. Miss you all.
B&E

the hills are alive...

We arrived in Salzburg yesterday. This is the home of Mozart and the Von Trapp family of the Sound of Music.
Yesterday Brendan decided it would be cool to go see the marionnette show. Since he likes anything having to due with string skill. However, he then decided it would be not cool. We decided to go though, but where late. So we arrived at the puppet show late and Brendan goes to the austria ticket women, Hi we are here for the puppet show. The puppets were so funny we couldnt stop laughing. We thought the people in front of us were going to shoot us. oh well.
Today we are trying to go to the castle, but it has been a slow morning. Hopefully we will get up there soon. Brendan is going to post more about the puppets.
Miss everyone!

More Vienna

Vienna is really a beautiful city, everything is clean and nice. Last night we went to the opera, that was slightly boring at times, but not to bad. It was romeo and juliet sung in french by a fat Romeo, and a old Juliet. They had great voices though. We payed 9 euros for like 150$ seats cause we are students. Were going to try and see the Ballet tonight. The zoo was so cool! It was prolly the best one ive been to. The aquarium house was neat, and the monkey were awesome! We saw the black panther that ate one of the zoo keepers! He looked tough. It was neat cause like, all the bird houses, except for like the vultures and birds that could hurt you, you could just walk around and there were no fences or anything.
ok, please, enough about the zoo. THe bronx zoo is better, but we wont tell brendan that..... The opera was very good. The orchestra was perfect and the hall was really pretty.
We also went to the amusement park that has the famous vienna ferris wheel. Instead of riding that though, we went on the crazy turbo booster!!! it went 110 km per hour. It went around in a circle, like a one armed ferris wheel.
Happy summer to everyone!!!
love, emily and brendan

get me a snitzel

hello from vienna.
We have left the atkins dieters nightmare and entered their paraside. Dad, you could have all the sausage and eggs you want! hooray!
We got here yesterday morning on the night train, so we got here at 6.30 am. Which is just little too early for us.
We met Helmut. He has been so nice to show us around and let us stay in his apartment. Yesterday he took us to the summer palace of the Hapburgs, which was huge and beautiful. They do a really nice job taking care of the gardens, which makes everything look great. We also went to the zoo at the palace, which is the oldest zoo in the world! The emperor used to like animals i guess...
We are going to try to go to some musical event here, since Vienna is famous for it. We can get standing room tickets for cheap.
Happy Graduation to Zach. No more middle school yea!
In Venice we did lots of cool things. We saw glassblowers, went on a gondola ride, but the most fun thing of all.......was feeding pigions in st. marks square! These pigions are nuts. They will land of your arm and shoulder and eat right out of your hand. Brendan now understands why the crazy old men feed the pigions and he plans to become one in his old age.
To the zarookians you have really been slacking on the comments, i can only hope that our computer is broken.
love, emily and brendan

Venice!

Well, we havent actually seen to much of it yet, but we did take a water taxi which was cool (and loud.)
Brendan is writing very slow, so I will take over. This is our first day of rain so far on the trip. Brendan tried to wear his poncho, but he looked mentally handicapped, so he took it off.
Today we will meet a yoyoer!!!! hooooray!!!!!!!
Happy Fathers Day to both our pops.
I hope we will go see the glass blowing island near here. Venice is very pretty, no streets just canals. It seems it would be a bit annoying to live here and get around that way. I'm not sure how many people actually live on the island though.
(brendan now) Hey Aunt Lisa! Glad your reading our Blog! Hehe. Oh! Last night was cool, we had to take a small ferry to the campgrounds, and just to our right there was like a whole lightning storm going on. Emily was a weee bit scared, but i thought it was awesome. Ill call helmut this morning, i tried once but it didnt work cause i used the 011 part. Alright, were off to explore. Love you all,
B&E

ps. it is eurocup time here. People are crazy! Zach would like eurocup, it is almost as good as march madness. We are rooting for Latvia, b/c they rule. If lichtenstien was in it we would root for them! They do have a pro volleyball team though, Go lichtenstien!

Cinque Terre

We arrived in Cinque Terre yesterday morning after spending the night in a bungleo at a campsite in Viareggio. The bungalo was just outstanding.
Cinque Terre is very beautiful. Five villages that are on the water. You can hike between them. Yesterday we went to a beach that was accessed through this very long, creepy tunnel. We asked the man if there was another way out besides the tunnel and he said yes.
Well, the other way out consisted of a harrowing climb. Its ok though, because we survived thanks to some norwegians who knew the way out. Norwegians rule!
There are lots of stairs at the cinque terre, it will get us in shape. For mollz, this is the home of pesto. I know you love pesto, I will get you a jar if you pray to the gods of zoolander.

Brendan now.
Mom put money in my account!!
So "harrowing climb" just doesnt seem to do justice, it was $%!$%$ hard! It was cool though, when we got to the top i had the best bottle of waater in my entire life. Cinque terre is so beautiful, the hard work that it must of taken to build the thousands of terraces that line the hills, is humbling, to say the least. Oh mom! guess who i ran into while eating dinner last night! Julie the cocktail waitress from siro's! how crazy is that! I was amazed, what are the chances.
well, were off to go snorkeling! talk to you soon.
B&E

hmmm a problem

Yesterday we went to San Gimiango (spelling?) It was very cool. I wish they were having a battle using the towers. We climbed to the top of the tallest tower and had a good view of the countryside. It was very peaceful there. We also got some good saugase, cheese, and gelato.
Today we went to see the Uffizi gallery. The line was pretty long and when we got inside Brendan suddenly remembered that he didnt like Renaissance Art, oooops!!! The big Botticelli paintings were nice though.
So, this morning when we tried to rebook our beds at the hostel they said they didnt have any for tonight. So again stuck with no where to stay in this godforsaken hostelers hell. I know this is your favorite city dad, but there are not a big range of cheap places to sleep.
So now Brendan wants to go to Cinque Terre, where we dont have anywhere to stay either. hmmm decisions, decisions.
(brendan now) Well...Emily hasnt seemed to take to florence very well, lol. I like it though, i dont hate all renissance art, just some. We didnt get to see david..that was a bummer, we saw the replica though thats the same size. I didnt like hte hostel we stayed in the last two night, i had a 10 bed dorm, emily only had 4. Emily liked it, but i swear that place was evil. hmmm, so were gonna get going, and see where the wind takes us. Emily doesnt like my haphazard attemt at planning, but i think its more interesting this way.
Ciao!
B&E

Florence is not our friend...

haha, well we have had alittle trouble finding a hotel/hostel in florence for tonight. Last night we were lucky, we got off the train, and this guy was badgering us about a nice place he had for 55$ and emily was desperate for a room, but i put my foot down and said no, cause the guy seemed shady, but then as our last ray of hope was fading i saw a guy and his pamphlet looked really nice, and it was supposed to be an 80 dollar B&B but was desperate to get rid of it for the night so he gave it to us for 45$ It was really really nice!
Emily now. This shady man was like 60 years old. He looked the same as this other nonshady man, but brendan is insane. We had booked at a campsite, but when we got there we learned that were no buses on sundays too it and a cab would cost 40 euros. I was pretty pissed, because they would not give us back our money for the night. I plan to write a very mean thing about them online. Plus on the website it says they have a shuttle to the train station. It doesnt say the shuttle is 40 euro though!!!! The room we got was nice though, but now we have no room for tonight. Have to go work on that.
Congrats to Zach and Dad and wakeman!!! woohoo!! Greenwich falls!!! Wish i was there to see the game. I went to the phone to call Katies, but when i got there, I had lost the number. So i just wrote it down again, will call tonight.
Brendan now. Hey! my insanity got us a nice room! Tell dad im sorry i missed him again, tell him hes the hardest person to reach ever! We hada awesome meal last night, it was fresh pasta, i had gnochi and Em had some tomato cream sauce and pasta. And then we got gelato at the best gelato place in the city according to our guidebook. It was awesome! Alright, wish us luck, were off to sightsee and find a room. Peace!

B&E

Roma

We have been in Rome now for 3 days. The first day was not a great one. We lost eachother in the Vatican Museum. So we each did what we thought the other would do, hence doing opposite things. Oh well, we found eachother again the in the hostel.
The best thing we saw was St. Peters. It was insanely big and cool. All the paintings in it are really mosaics. We also went to the coloseum today. Brendan thought it would cooler if there were gladiators fighting in it.
I had a little lobster tail!! It was so delcious. Even better than at Mikes pastry.
There was a free Sting concert!! We went, it was crazy. There were thousands of people there. We also saw crazy Italian bands as well. (brendan now!) sting was awesome, he played roxanne and other great songs, the italians knew more of the words than we did! it was crazy. We met some nice people from our room and went out last night on a pub crawl, they were all pretty cool and the guides were nice. shoot i have to sign off! 1 minute left!

To Italy!

Well, we arrived this morning at around 7am after a not so comfortable night on the ferry, it could have been worse though. Now we have about 3 hours till our ferry (15 hours) to Italy leaves. It will be a long trip but we will be alright. They have a Disco on board! w00t. Naxos was fun, we stayed in a small room in the middle of town, there was a orange, nectorine, and lime tree in the back yard. We climbed mt. zeus which had a beautiful view of the orchards and olive groves that cover the island. Everything is going well so far, and i think were actually on budget. My ipod battery is dead, that makes me sad :-(
We saw lots of goats and their shepard on mt. zeus. There was also a crazy old man on the train who kept singing. These old greek women yelled at him. It was amusing.
Ciao!
Brendan and Emily.
PS- Ouzo is nasty, yuck, Emily liked it though :-/ Oh and we ate a great dinner last night, it was fresh fish (cought that morning) grilled whole with the head on. It was awesome!

Santorini!!!

We arrived in beautiful Santorini on Friday morning. We have done lots of fun things like rent scooters, which were scary at first, but fun after that. We went to the beaches, some have black sand, and our favourite one is called Red Beach and its surrounded by red cliffs, very cool.
We also went on a tour of the old volcano and the hot springs. Brendan got a little crabby walking up the volcano, but we were proud when he finished! When we got back we rode donkeys up the old port steps! Donkeys rock!!
(Switching to brendan typing) Donkeys do not rock... its one notch below wheelchair. Well, one thing that is interesting is the cool zig zag steps that go from the towns down to the water...one is like 600 stairs and when we were late for our volcano tour, emily and i ran down all 600. My legs hurt today.
(EMz) The sunsets are very pretty here. Especially from the town of Oia. Its the most photographed village in the greek islands. Brendan has been doing a crazy amount of photography. Hes been through 4 roles!! We are going to have millions of pictures.
THe greek food is good. Lots of soulakis for only 1.50 euros!! Yogurt and honey is also very good just like dad said. Brendan had an octopus bowl, he didn't really like it though. oh well. We haven't had any ouzo yet, maybe tonight. We have been drinking the local wines though. And brendan has been drinking extreme amounts of cherry juice.
Tomorrow we are taking the ferry to the next island of Naxos. Hopefully it will be just as beautiful as here. Miss everyone at home and hope everything is going well!
ps. We have lots of pictures of Brendan yoyoing at famous places!! woohoo!!
Love- Emily and Brendan

Emily pukes on the acropolis!

Well, overall its been a great day. We went to the acropolis and saw the parthenon, ate breakfast at a cafe, and enjoyed the ancient agora. Emily had a rough start (and middle) however. She got sick this morning from something still unkown from us, then puked on the acropolis (in the woods), shes feeling much better now, so thats good. Now she wants ice cream! she hasnt eatenm yet today, so i guess its alright. Our first night in a hostel was cool, we had a girl from virginia, and a guy from mexico staying with us, they were both very nice. NOTE: Lemonade in greece is not lemonade like in the US, its like lemon juice with no sweetener. Tonight we leave for santorini, we are taking a night ferry which will get us there around 5:30 tomarrow.

We are here!!!

Well, after a overly long plane ride in which brendan snored and a frenchman rested his head on my shoulder we arrived!!
We found our hostel without getting totally lost, which was quite an achievement.
We went for a little walk and saw Zeus' Temple. It was amazing to think of people building those huge pillars so long ago.
Then we had a great dinner of chicken souvlaki!!! Hooray!!!!!!
We are overly tired and jet lagged!!!

Miss everyone from home!!!

ahhhhhh!

We leave in 5 hours!!! Emily is having nervous breakdowns but i think shes going to be alright! haha.
Brendan

3 days!!

3 days!! Tuesday at 7pm!

Hahaha, thats us...ill try and find a better picture soon. 

Test Post

Well, we leave in 10 days....JFK to Athens on June 1. Haha, we cant beleive were actually doing it, everyone always talks about going on the adventure of a lifetime but were actually doing it. W00t!