Fasching in Koln

I figured the Marching Band needed some help.
Read below for more about our trip to Karneval.

We found a suicide bomber and killed him before he could do any damage.

Pete is one happy Gorilla home in the cage.

Here I am getting my blood pressure taken from a "nurse." I ran up and said I needed a doctor as a joke and sure enough she had all the tools

Fasching - Koln (Carneval in Colonge)

This weekend we went to Fasching in Koln. Its basically the same things as Mardi Gras. Its the biggest one in Europe and very famous. We spent 3 days there. They had street parties and parades, and everyone was in costumes the whole time. The first day we went as a zoo. I was a pink donkey, we had 2 other donkeys, a chicken, a frog, a kangaroo, a deer, and a gorillla. The next day we went as nations, I was a Mexican, and Eamon was Uncle Sam, Pete was Hawaiin, and blah blah, you get the idea.

Winter Olympics - Torino 2006

This was a good trip. We rented an RV and drove to Turin, Italy for the winter Olympics. We had tickets for the USA vs. Slovenia hockey game on Saturday night. So, In order to maximize the American fever, we bought 5 cases of canned Budweiser (only can be bought on US Military bases in Europe). Outside the game, we gave the beer away to all Americans for free. So we became heroes.

Somehow, talkshow host Montel Williams was lucky enough to sit right behind us during the game. He went to the Naval Academy, so I talked to him about West Point. So, if you watch Montel's show, maybe he'll have a segment on his trip to the Olympics, watch for me!

It was just a lot of fun to run around town dressed up like an American and meet people for all sorts of countries. Torino is a beautiful city, unfortunately the weather was crappy most of the time. But it was a good trip, except for the fact that we broke the RV and have to pay a bunch of money to get it fixed!!

Ibiza, Spain

This one is also over due, but worth showing. Last summer over 4th of July a group of us went to the island of Ibiza. Its a beautiful island in the Mediterranean. Its know for being a party vacation spot for Europeans, kind of like Cancun is for Americans. But this place was a bit more sophisticated than Cancun. The clubs are the most famous in the world, bringing in the best d's and can hold up to 25,000 people. I've never seen anything like it. But we couldn't bring cameras in. So here are some photos of the Me, Rif, and Ben overlooking the bay, and of Ben's and Pappy's ridiculous sunburns.

Las Fallas - Valencia

Since I won't be able to make it back to Las Fallas this w\year, I thought I soould post some pics from last year. This was a trip my buddy Rif and I took right when we got back from Iraq. It was awesome. We were lucky enough to stay with my sister's family from when she was an exchange student. Thye are a great family and really treated us well. Las Fallas is more or less a celebration of fire. The town sounded like a war zone, actually there were more explosions there than in Iraq. People were lighting firecrackers off 24/7, seriously. And the fireworks started each night at about 1 am. So noise isn't an issue for these people. Something the German and Americans should think about. They other cool part of this fest are the Fallas themselves. These huge and beautiful floats that are on every street corner. Then, at the end, they just brun them all. Crazy, but fun. The other photo is us making Paella in the street. Great food.

St. Vith - Battle of the Bulge

Here are a couple photos for our military history trip about the begining of the Battle of the Bulge. Basically, i live about 30 minutes from the "West Wall", or the "Sigfried line." Its the line of defense the Germans built that we had to break through to defeat the Nazis. Anyways, here where I live is near where the Americans kind of stopped to regroup when Hitler launched the attack to try and split Allied forces. So we went and walked through the woods of the Hurtgen forest(famous for the very bloody fighting and amazingly harsh cold). The day we went was absolutely freezing and as you can see, i forgot my coat!! You can see the dragon teeth, meant to stop tanks, they are all over the place. And basically you can just drive through the countryside, park and walk into the woods, and you'll see fox holes everywhere. They are still finding artifacts today, hell, they just dug up a MIA US soldier last year!! The photo of my next to the monument is for the Malmaday massacre. It was when an SS battalion had over 100 US POWs in a field, and then for no reason shot them all with machine guns. The whole area is kind of amazing now, since it is just regular towns and cow fields...hard to imagine what happened there.