King  Gary 

I just arrived here. I`ll be going out soon, so I`ll post back in a bit.

I`m also trying to work my way around a European keyboard (many characters are placed in different locations from the American keyboard), and all of the text and dialog boxes on this version of Windows XP is German.

UPDATE:

Today at a Glance:

• The escalators for the subway doesn´t move until you walk near them, so they conserve energy when not in use. I find this to be a very smart idea.
• The trams are designed by Porsche, and so they move very smoothly and practically glide across the streets.
• Buses have 3 exits instead of the 2 that Toronto buses have. Wouldn´t hurt to have an extra exit in a crowded bus!
• I drank some Schnapps; tastes okay.
• For dinner, I went to a most unusual restaurant. The place is heavily decorated (think Jack Astor´s but at least 3 times as much), and so is the bathroom. There´s hairspray in there, a television, and a lot of daily newspaper. And of course, there was dancing.
• If you danced, you received a certification that claimed that you knew how to dance to Austrian folk music, I believe.
• Beer is definitely than water here, almost anywhere you go.
• I saw a yellow Hummer (you rarely see big cars, like SUVs, in Europe because there is simply no space for them on most roads), but then I noticed that it had an Arizona license plate!
• They really like their Peugeots in Europe.
• I stayed in the Mercure hotel.
• The shower is in a separate room from the toilet, so when you’ve done your… business, you have to go to another room to wash your hands.

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Places I went to today were:

• Josefov
• Prague Castle (again)

And the other places that I went to today, were mostly where I went yesterday, but went to the places I didn’t go yesterday.

Bye for now!

UPDATE:

Today at a Glance:

• Climbed 300-step staircase to the top of a bell tower. It´s nothing compared to the CN Tower´s 1,776 steps, though.

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I just returned to the hotel right now, and I only have a short time on the computer, so I’ll just make this quick :). I also walked a lot and went to a lot of churches (as is expected; I’m estimating that I went to over 50 churches in Europe so far!).

Places I went to today (I’m also using this list simply to remind myself where I’ve been once I return home!):

• Prague Castle
• Old Town Square
• The Church of St. Nicholas
• National Gallery in Prague
• Church of Our Lady in Front of Tyn
• Mozart Musum
• Infant Jesus of Prague
• Prague Orloj (astronomical clock)
• Wenceslas Square
• and more…

I’ll be going to the Jewish Quarter tomorrow, and so I’ll post about that when I get back. I also hope that I’ll have more time on the computer tomorrow, as I went to a lot of places so far, and so there are many, many things to talk about!

Bye for now!

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I’m now in Prague, Czech Republic. It’s a very beautiful city, but there are also some parts that are obviously remnants from when the country was still under communist rule under the USSR - a lot of buildings that are slowly deteriorating, for instance. I also notice the presence of a LOT of foreign companies, such as T-Mobile, ESSO, Shell, LG, and McDonald’s - and these were all just on the way from the airport to my hotel.

I’m staying in a 4-star hotel right now, the Crowne Plaza. It’s where Russian diplomats, such as Joseph Stalin, used to stay when they were in town.

On the 8 hour British Airways flight over to London, I didn’t get much sleep, so hopefully I can catch up more on my sleep tonight. Although, the flight in general was fine, because I’ve taken at least 4 cross-Atlantic flights so far. Once I reached London, I took another flight to Prague, which was about 2 hours. That was worse, because the seats weren’t as comfortable since the plane is intended only for traveling over shorter distances; it’s an Airbus.

Charles bridge (I heard it’s beautiful at night, when the lights are all on), and other night-related activities. 

Bye for now!

UPDATE: It was nice and cool outside because it was late. During the day here, it can reach up to 40 C sometimes, and so I’m not looknig forward to the heat tomorrow. I just walked around the ‘Old Town’ today, to see where I want to go tomorrow during the day. There are a lot of churches, especially, and so I’ll probably end up going to at least a few of those.

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I’m now sitting here, waiting for the limo to arrive and pick me up to go to the airport. I’ve packed all my things, and am just relaxing a bit before starting my journey across 3 Eastern European countries. I’ve also packed enough books to entertain myself on the long bus rides between cities, but I’m sure the landscape will be beautiful enough for me to watch for a while, too.

I’ll try to post here as soon as I can find an internet cafe in Prague (my first stop!), or if my hotel has any internet access.

Bye for now!

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I’m taking English and philosophy as my two elective courses. My schedule looks somewhat hideous; huge gaps here and there. On Tuesday, for instance, I don’t have any classes between 10 am and 4:30 pm. On Thursday, I don’t have any classes between 2:30 pm and 7 pm, and then my last class ends at 10 pm. And then on Friday, school ends at 3:30 pm - thankfully!

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I’m not there just yet! But I’ll still be blogging while I’m in Europe within a few days; I’ll hopefully upload some photos too during the trip, but I’m doubtful of that as I’m unsure if I can find an internet cafe that will allow me to do anything more than browse the web on their computers.

All of my posts during the vacation will be found here, so that you can read them by themselves, and filter out other posts from other categories that aren’t related.

Here’s the link again, in case you missed it
kinggary.com/europe

I’ll see you at the other end…!

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Okay, maybe that is a goal that’s way too far-fetched for a blog like mine, but the number of subscribers to my blog this past day has dramatically increased - by well over 50% - in one day. I’ll be going on vacation in a few days, to Europe (once again - I’m traveling to 3 countries this year), and I’ll do my best to blog as often as possible while I’m there. I’m hoping that will also help to boost my blog’s readership!

The number of subscribers that my blog has every day is clearly displayed in the right sidebar on my website - it’s no secret, and it usually fluctuates around 20 to 25 subscribers each day. The following image is a bar graph that shows the number of subscribers that I’ve had in the past month.

On a side note, I’m almost at 6,000 views for my Flickr account!

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My BenQ T701 17″ LCD monitor just died this morning. I turned on my computer and my monitor, and the display showed the desktop for one second, and then it went black. I tried it on another computer, and it didn’t work there, either. So now my monitor is being sent to BenQ, courtesy of CompuSmart (which was where I bought the monitor.) It should take about 3 weeks, and hopefully not any longer. I’m forced to work with my Samsung SyncMaster 151s 15″ LCD now, which I took from my Windows XP computer.

I suppose that my monitor dying now is a better time than never, since I’ll be away in Europe for a week and a bit in a few days. Once I return, WWDC will have taken place, and I’ll then be able to make my final decision on which MacBook to buy for university in September.

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UPDATE: The photos are up now!
- new photos, starting here

Today I went to the UWaterloo for the Student Life 101 event. One of the major reasons was to finally meet my roommates - Geoff, Josh, and Kyle - that will be living with me starting in September. I’ll also be meeting Michael, who is living off-campus because he’s self-employed. I only talked to them online before today, and so I finally get to talk face-to-face. UW was also hosting some seminars to help guide students on their educational journey, such as giving you more information on the elective courses that we can take, help on co-op if you have any questions on that, and we could also check out your residence, the place that most of us will be living for at least 4 months starting in September (excluding Michael, for instance, since he lives off-campus).

Upon arriving at UW today, I get the impression, as I always do when I get to UW, that they are very organized, especially when you compare them to other (educational) institutions. They have clearly marked signs to guide you along their somewhat complex paths (for some people). The first thing that I went to when I arrived there was the presentation for computer science students. So far, all of the presenters have been very energetic, probably due to the fact that they are quite young (mid-30s?), which is welcome news. They often heavily stress the importance of hard work, but they are also strong supporters of the age-old mantra, “work hard, play hard”; the presenter even drew up a pie chart, including such mundane chores as laundry to be ‘Fun’! (I’ll link to the presentation when they upload it to the website.)

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