Where the road took me!

Europe GERMANY-Frankfurt, Weurzburg, Colonge (Koln/Bonn), Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Berchtesgaden, St. Bartholema (Bavarian Alps) AUSTRIA-Ingolstaedter Haus (Austrian Alps) ITALY- Venice, Genova, Cinqu Terre (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore), La Spezia, Florence, Rome, Pisa GREECE-Athens (Olympics 04)

The Wuerzburg Crew

Pearl of Wisdom...What happens when four Engineering Physics students and one Physics student find an office chair??
Click here to find out!!(Movie by Billy Lau)

Thanks for the laugh guys
Cheers

Berchtesgarden Slide Show

Hiking in Berchtesgaden (Aug 28 - 29)

By Peter Eugster, Modified By Matthew Harriman

This weekend was a trip to Berchtesgaden, in the Bavarian Alps (near Munich). Evan and his roommates from Weurzburg: Colin, Kung and Peter came. Colin, Peter, Evan and I hiked, while Kung hung around the city and saw the sights (he also slept in the back seat of the car for 2 days because of a lack of hostels). We drove from Wuerzburg down to Munich, where we stopped for an hour or so to walk around. One really cool thing about the car we rented was that it had GPS onboard, so you could type in the exact address where you want to go and it would give you turn-by-turn directions. It even had parking lots programmed in! It literally took us door-to-door, and we would've been pretty lost without it in Munich. We got all the way to Berchtesgaden, and just found a spot to camp on a quiet side road in the forest.

We were up pretty early the next day. We parked the car, gave Kung the key, and took the bus up to the trailhead. The hike up was about 6 hours, including breaks, and had some pretty awesome views. The trail was pretty rough - a lot of it went over hard, sharp, jagged rocks with deep crevasses. Parts of the trail were more scrambling than hiking.



Our destination was Ingolstaedter Haus, at 2132m elevation. This is one of the coolest places I've been. It's remote, and not lift-accessed, so there's no tourists, only Austrian and German hikers. We were the only native English speakers there. Oh, and to get to it you hike over the border into Austria. The actual border is along a ridge that we hiked. Anyways, hiking is very civilized in Europe; this hotel has running water, showers, a full kitchen that serves food and beer, and electricity. So we weren't really roughing it. The only downside was that they crammed 36 people into a room designed for maybe 10, but it wasn't that bad.

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Next day we hiked down on a different route. We passed another mountain hut, descended through a very steep gulley, and came out just above the Konigsee. The water is amazingly green and clear. It's clean enough to drink - they only allow electric boats on the water. Colin, Peter and Evan went for a swim in the lake (not too cold), and then we hiked into St. Bartholema, a super-touristy town. It was a bit of a shock after being in the mountains all weekend. From there, we took an electric boat into the town of Konigsee, and walked back to the car. The weather had been beautifully sunny all weekend, and all of a sudden it started to pour with rain, and there was thunder, so we were pretty lucky. We drove back through Munich, I was dropped off for more sightseeing and Colin, Evan, Peter and Kung continued on to Wuerzburg because they had to work the next morning.

Athens Olympics

If you want to blow your budget... go to the Olympics!!

Cost for transportation, accommodation and event tickets were outrageous. If you are planning on going to the Vancouver/Whistler Olympics better start saving now!! I managed to spend $300 Canadian a day.
The Athens Olympic Games were costly however, was worth every minute of it. Buying event tickets is like gambling, it is addicting. A way I learned to cut costs was to wait outside a venue right before the beginning of an event, scalpers and people stuck with an extra ticket were usually easier to bargain with and buy the ticket below face value.

The Olympics to me is the most incredible event it the entire world! Over 200 countries come together in peace to celebrate humanity and sporting achievement. The Olympics promotes peace and fare play something you do not see often in professional televised sports. The Olympics by fare has been the best experience I have ever had to celebrate the fact “I AM CANADIAN” and to embrace other countries and cultures.


The Olympic village was an inconceivable sight with over ten extraordinary stadiums housing swimming pools, valedrome, tracts etc. The Olympic stadium is by fare the most increadable 21st century building I have been in. Vancouver is going to have to do a lot of work to make BC Place Stadium look anything like Athens Olympic Stadium come 2010.

The Canadian Olympic Committee did a fantastic job organizing Canada House a three story building in the heart of Athens where Canadians could go and meet other Canadians. The house offered free breakfast, free pop, free food, free flags, free internet, it even had a Roots store. There where flat panal TV screens where you could watch CBC live as they followed the Canadian athletes throughout the games. Canada House was my home away from home.

Email From Evan

Hey, so I have been doing some research and this is what I think would be cool to do....

Aug 7 You arrive in frankfurt and train it to my place. We would then have the night to get ready/relax. Then we take a night train to venice from wuerzburg at 8:45 am, arrive in venice at 9:45. This night train is really expensive, about 100 euro!, and if you want a bed I think it is about 10 more.

Aug 8 All day in Venice.

Aug 9 Train from venice to Genova (9:15-14:45, about $66cdn). Once there we take a local train to Cinque terre. See my note at the bottom for info on this place. We would probably be there about 16:00 which is late but I can't find a faster way yet.
Hostel in Cinqu Terre
Pictures Cinque Terre
Pictures Cinque Terre

Aug 10 Spend the day in Cinque Terre area hiking and sitting on the beach.

Aug 11 Train from La Spezia (just south of cinque terre) to Florence. We would most likely stop over at Pisa so it would be cool to see the leaning tower. (about a 2hour train + stop over in pisa time, about $40cdn) Once again arrive in Florence around 1. Rest of the day in Florence.

Aug 12 All day in Florence. Accommodation Hotel Fiorentina

Aug 13 Train from Florence to Rome (about 1:40 long, leaves every hour, could take the 9:50-11:30 train, about $54cdn)

Aug 14 RomeAccommodation Hostel Alessandro Palace

Aug 15 Rome for most of the day and then fly home at 17:00, which means leave rome about 15:00. The flight costs 77 euro with German Wings and would take us to stuttgart. Then a short train to wuerzburg would be only about 15 each. We would probably be in wuerzburg around 20:00 or so.

So there is a week in Italy! Then after that the rest is totally up to you. We could also do it at the end of the month just before you leave for home, that way we could spend the first weekend in wurzburg because there is not a whole lot to do here during the week :(. If we want to go to these places we should book hostels and the flight right away because they are usually booked. So I suppose the end of august is also an option if we can't get the first week. I know it leaves not much time in each city but I have only a week and want to get a lot in. The last week I took to London/Paris we spent a lot of time waiting for the plane. This time if we take trains we would waste less time and it would seem like we saw more too! I am not sure what your experience with Italian trains is but I think they are not too expensive and somewhat reliable (I hear they are 30 min late most of the time).

Peter went to cinque terra when he was over in europe and he said it is one of the nicest places he has been. It is basically 5 towns situated on the cliffs over the sea. I think each town has no cars, and they are all connected my hiking trails through the hills.

How the events unfolded