The End.

I can't believe it's almost time to go home.

Barcelona was a really nice place. We swam in the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday. We couldn't believe how salty it was. The waves were awesome. They were incredibly violent right where they met the shore. I got into the water and a large wave hit me in the stomach and knocked me right over dragging me along the rocky shore. It was great! A few bruises later we made it out further where we could hop the waves without getting knocked down. I think we were out in the water for at least 3 hours. By the end of the day we were absolutely exhausted. I don't think any of us have swam that hard for that long in all our lives. The only bad thing about the whole day is that the weather decided to be a little ugly. Typical that it was the day we wanted to spend at the beach. We went anyway and only got cold when the sun started going down. It was a good thing anyway, because had it been sunny we would have burnt to a crisp.

We got back to Dublin late last night, and guess what, it was raining. I could have spent the whole month on the beaches of Barcelona. So even though I love Ireland, I really wasn't looking forward to coming back to the cold. It is sunny today, but it's just not the same as a sunny Mediterranean day. We are going to see a few more sights in Dublin today. We missed seeing St. Patrick's cathedral last time and we might go see Dublin Castle. Tomorrow we have just enough time for breakfast and then we have to make our way back to the airport for the big flight home. It will be nice to be on a bigger Aer Lingus flight. For all our our Europen flights, we have flown with Ryan Air. Ryan Air caters to cheap people who aren't that afraid of dying. The landings alone are enough to make me walk to my next destination. It is also the only airline I've flown where the passengers burst into applause at every landing. Not a good sign.

At this point we are all very anxious to get home to see everyone and to get back some of our familiar comforts like free water and toilet seats (Rome has something against toilet seats.) and ketchup that tastes like ketchup. Since we leave for America tomorrow this will be our last post from Europe. Like I said before, I will be posting all the photos here. I will add the photos to the appropriate albums already posted so look for them in a week or two. (I tried adding a few more pics today but the PC wasn't cooperating. I could only get a few to show up.)

I am really curious to know who has been following along with us on our little trip. If you would be so kind as to leave a message in the comments it would make me really happy. :) <--big smile
See you guys really soon.

Love, Angela

Barcelona rocks! What a cool town. It is a huge city, but beautiful and pretty clean and so laid back. Except the clubs. They are crazy, insane and wild and all the other adjectives of that sort. We met quite a few good people in our hostel and one night our entire room decided to hit the clubs. We went to Port Olympico which is like Water Street on acid and steroids. It's kind of like a boardwalk along the sea with one club after another all crammed side by side like a strip mall. That's on one side of the walk, and on the other side are big couches and canopies and chairs for the people who need a rest from all the chaos. There are women who are paid to dance in the clubs and make them look cool, and there are bouncers out front who have to try to lure people into each club with exciting drink offers like free shots and two for one beers and cocktails.

The first club we stepped into was full of smoke machines and strobe lights and there were no chairs, just big couches and a long bar. The group we were with was hilarious. Two South Africans, Three Americans (us), A Polish guy and an Irish guy. The South Africans, Frederick and Toros were spending money like crazy. They'd order a round for the group, so we hardly spent any money at all. I bought a Jack and Coke for me and a Screwdriver for AJ, but when the bill came to 16 euros, I decided that was it for ordering drinks. Although it was two for one. Woohoo. We really didn't need to buy drinks though since any time someone ordered something, they'd get a second free and just hand it off to whoever didn't have a drink in hand. Then there were the gigantic free shots of Sangria. Oh boy. By the end of the night, we had only spent the 16 euros, but we were all sufficiently having fun. Adam drank a bit too much, but not nearly as much as Irish. He ended up passed out after just an hour and spent the rest of the evening passed out on a couch outside. And they say the Irish can drink! We took turns watching after him while the others danced. It was great fun. I have a great story about how we all got home that night, but I'll save that for when I get home.

We're back in Dublin now. I wore my jacket and brought an umbrella which pretty much ensures it'll be a gloriously hot day out. Oh well! We'll be home soon and I can't wait to see everyone. Cheers, ciao, adios, and see ya later.

Heidi

Hi all,

World traveler is an odd title to think of for myself. I'll be sad to leave Europe, but glad to be going home. More to come, in person.

Cheers,
Adam Jackson, World Traveler

It has now officially rained on us in every country we've visited.

Barcelona is a beautiful There is amazing architecture everywhere. We visted the wied cathedral designed by Gaudi. (When we refer to something as "gaudy" it is because of this guy. For some reson he covered parts of the church in fruit. (google "Sagrada Familia") There is a giant national musuem which holds incredible works of art from Picasso to Dali. The parks are amazing and filled with fountains that rival some we saw in Rome. The city is a lot more Western than most we´ve visited, but still incredibly laid back. Unfortunately the crime is even worse here. We´ve seen many pickpockets and thwarted another one. One guy was eyeing up our camera again on the subway. Heidi was hanging on to it. He got up to follow us out of the car and Heidi flipped her bad around and covered it and the camera with her arms. The guy immediately sat down. Not very subtle.

Adam was thouroughly happy when we visited at large park in town. There was a large gathering of hippies that made it feel almost like Amsterdam, but they were mostly from Brazil. They were all practicing their arts like juggling and dancing. This one group was singing a chant while people took turns doing capuera (sp?). It was great fun to watch and Adam was thrilled to be there.

Today we go to the beach all day even though it has been raining all morning. We are glad we aren´t in a tent anymore. Tomorrow we fly back to Dublin and spend one more day before returning home. We are all looking forward to being in our own beds again.

We will check back in when we hit Dublin, and will upload more pictures.

Angela

Call off the Cavalry......we're gonna be fine!

Woo hoo! Our friends rule! It's so awesome of all of you for coming to our rescue. Max, I have to say, I might owe you a kidney or something. Sarah, I'm not the only Heidi Jackson in Eau Claire, but I'll pay you back just the same even if your money went to that other Heidi, and thanks and I luv ya! Eric, your donation was a huge and very pleasant surprise last night when we thought we had nothing. All in all, you guys have made our day much much better. So to say thanks and cheers to all of you who helped, or who wanted to help or who thought about helping or who were just thinking of us, (even for those few who were just going to leave us for dead ::cough::Ian::cough::) we're gonna throw a spaghetti party! AJ will make her special spaghetti, and Adam and I will attempt to make a vat of wop. If anyone wants to help us make it, we might have a pre-spaghetti-party wop-making party. If you guys have any ideas on where we should throw this bash, let us know.

Anyhow, I guess I should say something about Venice. It is gorgeous, laid back, and just awesome. The streets are narrow and almost impossible to navigate, but they are fun to walk down and there are neat little shops around every corner. The lagoon is beautiful. We get to cross it every day in a boat to get to and from our campsite. The only bad thing is that I get that boat-rocking seasick feeling every night when I try to sleep. Oh well, it's on to Barcelona today. We'll spend most of today on trains, planes and buses, so we'd better get to it. Later, and love you all.

Heidi

Again, a huge thanks to all our friends. It means so much that you could help us get out of our little pickle. I have so much to say about Rome and Pompeii and Venice, but I can't really think of anything right now. More to tell when I get home I guess. I'm really looking forward to spending the rest of our holiday on the beach in Barcelona relaxing. See you all in a week.

Angela

Hey Gang,

Wow, what a day. I'm not sure if the coolest thing to happen yesterday was hearing Louis Prima music coming out of a shop in Italy, or if it was hearing the band that played here last night do a rocked the hell out cover of the Numa Numa song. In general I'm enjoying venice a little bit more than Rome. Things are more relaxed here. But then again, we made great friends in Rome and saw some wonders of the world. thats all for now.

Cheers,
Adam

Made it to Venice...

Ok, we have arrived in Venice. We spent all day yesterday on the train to get here. It took us the whole morning to find a bank that would allow us to withdraw cash. Apparently, we can use Aj's card to make purchases, but only one certain type of atm will allow us to get cash and so far we can't find one. That is fine, because we only need her card to pay for our hostels for the rest of the trip. The problem we are having now is that AJ's paycheck was $400 less than we expected, so we are now completely out of money. The money on AJ's card is enough to cover the hostel in Venice and the campsite in Barcelona, but then we are completely broke. We were really counting on that $600 to eat. So if anyone, I mean anyone, can help pitch in. We need to raise the $600 we thought we had and put it in Heidi Lynn Jacksons RCU account. (All you need is her name.) I will be able to pay it back on the 5th of September and we will throw a kick ass party to thank everyone for bailing us out.


Later, the Heidi, Angela, and Adam the dancing fool

Dad! We still need assistance.....

We used our last euro on this internet time. (10 min.s only) and you are not online, so I hope you read this. We need you to do for Heidi what you did for AJ last night. The number is xxxxxx, and R. C. U. are the letters. The social program is under xxx-xx-xxxx. I hope you understand. I am speaking in Alais terms. Thanks a lot. Much love and hopefully we can find an atm soon. Talk to you later.

the kids.

Jacksons: 1 - Bad-Guys: 0

(We kicked a guy's ass, then had some cake!)

Well, we had quite an adventure yesterday. This one is for the record books. It was truly something you'd only think to see on a zany sitcom. We've been in Rome for almost a week, and have become quite accustomed to the rhythm of the city, the ins and outs of the streets and the crushing crowds of the trains, buses and subways, so I guess you could say we were becoming a bit lax with our sense of security. Afterall, a week had passed with no incident even though there were signs everywhere warning tourists to beware of this and that. We just didn't feel much like tourists anymore, so we let our guard down. Big mistake. Yesterday, on the subway at Termini station, we all crushed on to the car as usual, but our camera was in the side pocket on Angela's daypack. She was at the back of the crowd of people all pushing and shoving their way into the train. She had just been thinking vaguely that she should move the camera to a more secure location, when she felt someone pushing just a little too hard into her back. She looked behind her, and a man with a blue denim shirt draped over his arm stepped back off the train as the doors were closing. Instantly, she felt something was wrong and checked the camera. It was gone! Unbelievable! We had been pick-pocketed. It happened so fast. The train pulled away, and the man with our camera was gone. Freaking out slightly, we jumped off the train at the very next stop. We didn't know exactly what to do, and it looked pretty hopeless, but we couldn't just do nothing. I figured the guy was long gone, but Angela insisted we go back to Termini to see if he was still there. We jumped on the train going back, and hopped out, frantically looking for some sign of the blue shirt she had seen on his arm. (She hadn't seen his face, so the shirt was our only hope of a clue.) Angela spotted a man wearing the shirt (was it the same one? we didn't know.) We stood there staring at him for some sign that he had our camera. He noticed us and stood there staring back. Then he started walking away. We waited for a moment to see if he would look back over his shoulder, and he did. This was too coincidental. He was on to us, we were on to him. The chase was on!

He darted down the corridor, weaving in and out of the crowd. It looked as though he might jump on the train every now and then, but instead he headed up the stairs to the exit. We followed as closely behind as possible, trying to hide behind the crowd. At one point, we were all on the escalator together. We still weren't entirely sure this was our guy, but he kept looking over his shoulder suspiciously. Now we were almost positive. He picked up speed, but so did we. At the next set of escalators, AJ and Adam knew we'd lose him unless we took the stairs instead. They raced up the stairs, but I was already on the escalator. I turned around to run back down and take the stairs, but a crush of people was already behind me and I had no choice but to let them run on ahead. I was going to call out to them to let them know I was stuck, but I didn't want them to abandon the chase, and lose the guy. When I reached the top, I had to decide which hallway they had turned down. I was frantic that I had lost them completely and would never find them. Suddenly, I saw Adam's hat bobbing and darting above the crowd down the right-hand corridor. I ran as fast as I could through the crowd and dangerously close to the tracks to catch them. When I finally caught up, they had the guy cornered. They were trying to be as nice as they could with him at first (they didn't want to risk scaring him off), asking if he had the camera, offering money if he would just give it back, saying there would be no trouble and no police if he would just please tell us where to find our camera. I had just run like the devil was after me, so I was in no mood to be polite. I saw a bulge in his pocket that looked to be the size of our camera. He was taking off his shirt to show us he had nothing on him, so I just reached out and grabbed the shirt, dug into the pocket, and sure enough, came out with the camera. Our camera! At this point, I was pissed. I yelled into his face, "What is wrong with you? This is our camera! Thief! Thief! Estupido!" I was so mad, I wasn't even coherent and I yelled something about how dare he, we are tourists! which made no real sense, but I couldn't really think straight. At that point, he thought we were satisfied and started to walk away. Luckily, AJ turned on the camera to make sure it was ours. There were no pictures on it. We thought he had erased all of our pictures. This enraged us and we tore off after him again. He was already standing on the train when we caught up to him and grabbed on to him. We might have let him go had he not erased our photos, but this we couldn't let slide. I tried to grab his arm, and started shouting "Polizia! Polizia! Thief! Thief!" AJ had him by the other arm so he couldn't run. I was screaming for the police, AJ was yelling at him for erasing the pictures, and Adam was standing behind us looking as intimidating as possible, so finally, wanting no more trouble from the three crazy Americans, he handed us the memory card. He had removed it so that we couldn't have proved it was our camera. I was so pissed off and relieved at the same time I almost punched him in the face. AJ spit on him, and we pushed him back into the train as the doors were closing. He was left on the train surrounded by an astonished crowd of people who had just witnessed a mugger getting mugged back! We might've dragged him away to the police, and probably should have, but we were already pushing our luck confronting him in a crowd. Left alone with us after the train left, with no police in sight, he may have turned violent to get away. We were just happy to have our camera, and the photos back, and we immediately secured our possessions to within an inch of their life, and took the first train back home.

At Flaminio station, where we catch the train to our shuttle bus at Prima Porta, there is a little restaurant. Still high on the adrenaline of the incident, and incredibly proud of ourselves at being probably the only victims of pick-pocketing to actually seek out and reclaim our stolen goods, we treated ourselves to a well-deserved meal. Fried breaded olives filled with mince meat, and three different desserts! It was a great feast for the great Jackson vigilantes.

Admittedly, it was our own fault that we were marked to be victims, but how cool is it that we fought back?! Don't worry, we have learned our lesson, and won't let our guard down again. But I think that mugger learned his lesson too, and will think twice before stealing from three young Americans again!

Well, that was yesterday, and today is a new day. We are going back to Trevi fountain to see it in the day, since it was too dark for decent photos last time. Then we are off to find a fountain in the shape of a turtle, which is called the sweetest fountain in Rome, and then we're gonna go shopping for a change of clothes, cuz we are starting to smell funny around the edges. Tomorrow, its off to Pompeii with our great new friends from Norway who have become our companions for drinks in the evening for the past week, and then church on Tuesday. (at the Vatican!) We have quite a full week ahead of us. Somehow, we have to get to Venice by the 26th for our flight to Barcelona. We were going to head to Greece and Prague, but the logistics of that are too staggering. Flights and trains and ferries at a huge price, so we are just hopping one quick flight to Spain, and spending four blissful days at a hostel in Barcelona with free internet, and hopefully spending some time at the beach, and that will round out our vacation. After that, we have a flight to Dublin on the evening of the 30th, which means we will spend the night at the airport and fly home to the good ol US of A the very next day. I can't believe we only have about ten days left of our vacation. Unfortunately, Adam got a cold a few days ago, so he's not been feeling his best, and I got some sort of itch weed on my hand the other day which itches like crazy. All Angie got was a tan. (grrr.) We'll make this post for all three of us today since we really need to get into the city soon. Adam and AJ say hi and stuff. We'll post again when we have more to report. Probably after we've been to Pompeii. I sure we'll fill the camera with photos of that place. Ciao for now! Love and hugs to all.

Heidi (AJ and Adam)