Well i'm back from Salzburg. This is the journal i kept while i was going to School in Europe for 8 months.

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Well my time in Salzburg is over for now. I had a good trip back yesterday to denver. I was able to see uncle mark in the Detroit Airport. It was a good first greeting to the U.S. for me. My parents met me in denver and today we drove back to lander.
So things are good here, its good to be home. Das ist alles fur jetz.

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 05:48

ok, so for those of you still with me. i am in salzburg right now and i fly out tomorrow at 10am. i will arive in denver at 8 30 pm !!!!
i got back yesterday from my two week trip that took me through nurmburg and hamburg germay and amsterdam. i spent some good time in nurmburg and bamburg visiting Christian and his family, christian was a great tour gide. then angela and i headed north to hamburg to visit my long lost relitives. iäm really not sure how i am related but some how it goes back 3 or 4 generations to two brothers in germany. one brother went to the u.s. and the other brother stayed in germany. it was great to visit them. they are really nice and also great tour gides.
then we went on to amsterdam and spent 3 days there with angelas friend. also a great town. with another great tour gide, zyron the student we stayed with.
and now iäm in salzburg staying with three of my good friends from austria. maria, maria and corola. they were nice enough to put me up for the few days im here and also sore all my luggage.
so that is that. i will head to the airport am morgan.

it has been a great year eh?

ciao

nate.
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 19:34

Hello all, I'm taking a study break so I decided to write one last page update. This most likely will be my last unless I enter a few random ones from my travels after school. So what have I been up to? Well last week some of my buddy Joey Novello and friends that are studying in Granada, Spain came up here for their spring break. They were here for the whole week but did some traveling on their own. It was really great to hang out with them.
Then on Easter a few of us from Salzburg (Banker, Jessica, Jenni, Melissa, and Myself) and the Granada crew (Joey, Christina, Carrie and China) Hopped on a Train Thursday evening and headed to Florence for Easter break. We got into Florence early Friday morning. Jenni and Melissa took of the Chinque Terra to spend the next 3 days. We met up with one of Banker's friends from the Gonzaga program and she showed us around Florence that day and later that night. It was great to go back there. I was able to see a lot of Florence that I hadn't got to when I was there earlier in the spring. Including a pretty cool disco called "spacy electric" I think.
So after a fun time in Florence Sat. morning we headed to Chinque Terra, 5 small towns on the Italian Riviera. Our train came into the main town of Monte Rosa, the nothernmost and largest of the 5. We were a bit tired from the night before so we found a nice beach to lay out on and have lunch and plan our day. It turned out that we ended up just chillin there all day planning our day J I hadn't laid on a beach in the sun for a long time so I wasn't complaining. We met up with Jenni and Melissa who had been hiking throught the towns the day before and had brought sleeping bags and slept outside. So we hung out with them for a bit ate some dinner, great italian food and headed back to Florence. I was a bit upset that we didn't do all the hiking between the towns cause I hear that is what makes 5-terra so cool. But That will leave me something to come back and do when I come back to europe. You have to leave a few things untouched so you have a good excuse to come back, eh?
On Easter morning we got up earlier to go to mass at the Florence Cathedral (Duomo) We got there to see this huge crowd outside the Cathedral. What it ended up being was, "The lighting of the dove" or "carriage" I'm not sure the off. name but traditionally if this complex fire work show is a success they will have a good year and if not, a bad year. So it started when this mechanical dove came shooting out of the cathedral to start this fire work show that lasted 15 min or so that was all mounted on this big wooden carriage. It was all real impressive. But because of that the mass was much later than we had thought so we headed to Pisa, which was our original plan for the day. Got there saw the Cathedral and Leaning tower. The leaning tower I guess is or was about a cm. away from the point of no return and thus would have fallen over in the next year if nothing were done. So they are currently undergoing a strengthening project that will keep it from falling over. It should be done by the end of the year but it was neat to see and read about it. So since we didn't get to go to mass in Flor. we found a small church to go to mass at and then headed back to Flor. and from there back to Salzburg.
Well I had a fun last week of School and now am in the middle of Studying for all my dang finals. We had a cool Guam BBQ last night that was put on by Manny a student here. It was a good day. After our theology class our Prof. Brought us some wine from Stiermark, then we had a good BBQ and went out for a night on the town and our History Prof. He stayed out later than me! He has been a good prof this year and it was fun hanging out with him.
After my last final on thurday the 26th my friend Angela will come up from Florence to do some traveling. We plan to head up through germany, Munich, Nurmbrug. Stay with Christians family in Nurnburg and then head to berlin, Hamburg and stay with some distant relatives of mine. Head to Amsterdam and spend a few days there. I then say goodbye to angela and take a train back to salzburg. Say bye to my friends here and the city and fly home on the 9th of May. Not to far off!

Well das ist alles. Congrats to those that made it to the end of this one, probably only one or two of you. Auf Wiedersehen from Salzburg.

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 17:11

Well hello hello,

I spent this last weekend at a little retreat our university ministry sponsored. There were about 20 of us that went out to this little Gasuthaus in the lake district, near Salzburg. It was so much fun. Oh and those of you that sent letters over here this past week, thank you so much. It really meant a lot to me. It was a really fun retreat, the Gausthaus had a nice little pool and sauna so that made for a relaxing weekend.
So that was a fun weekend to get me ready for my final drive in school. I have like 3 or 4 more weeks left and that means a lot of papers and tests to study for. So I'd better get on that huh. Ok, das ist alles.
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 20:03

Weekend update with Nathan Jacobsen

This will be a two weeker since I didn't post anything last week. Sorry. Not a whole lot, however, going on. Things are starting to pile like papers and what not so I haven't really be traveling a great deal. Um starting on the 15th. We had some U.P. affiliates visiting us that week. Fr. Art from U.P. came to talk to each of us about our future plans and figure out our academic schedule for next year. I as it turns out will be doing nothing but egrn, phys, and math classes so yeah for me. it will be quite the change from this year. Along with Fr. Art was Fr. Tyson our university's president. Hey came over to present some awards to faculty and kick it with us in Salzburg for a week. He was an all right guy. And then a former Salzburg and major benefactor for U.P. visited us as well. Peggy Hargerty who has contributed a lot of money to the Salzburg program and the university in general came to kick it with us. She is a very nice person and is pretty wealthy as well. Her wealth comes from her family's patent on Lava Lamps. So for all of those that have lava lamps, thanks from Salzburg. She even took our whole group out to the augestiener, a local beer garden here. Will all the drinks and eats on her. And she ordered multiple lava lamps to decorate our center with. So that was pretty cool. So let's see.
On Friday our group went to a Concentration camp near by in the town of Mauthausen. We are in a Theology class that concentrates on the holocaust. I had been there earlier with Eric and Nikki when they were in europe. Learning about the holocaust in class and visiting the concentration camps together has been a pretty powerful experience. Mauthausen was the last Death camps liberated by U.S. troops and in the 7 years of operation it held over 200,000 inmates, mostly Jews. We had a really good tour guide that knows and has talked to one of the Mauthausen survivors. It was a very knowledgeable tour.
So after that I pretty much stuck around here for the weekend. Had a fun week of school and this weekend did a little snow boarding at a town called St. Anton. We got there on Friday got a place to stay and a good half-day of skiing in. It was very sunny and thus really slushy so not the best day. But it was a really cool ski town. Probably great skiing in the winter, but I think the ski season has had its glory but is gone now. Austrians really like to drag it out though. The lower runs were just patches of snow between grass and big slush puddles but yet there were still skiers trying to ski down it, it was quite amusing. ok, not the most exciting web page entree, I can't really compete with jenny who is down in Guatemala now and is building houses, spending the week in the hospital, teaching Spanish kids. All with the Peace Corp. Way to go Jen, I'm real excited for you. You are getting your self into some adventures over there. You can check out her page at: http://www.geocities.com/jenljacobsen/guat.html
so go and check it out.
later, Thats my word and i'm stickin' to it.

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 20:39

Well I’m back from Greece and Italy. Sorry this one is a bit lengthy. kinda have been up to a lot of stuff latley. The thee week “study tour” in Greece and Italy was to say the least, truly amazing. They get off by calling it a study tour because much of the stuff we saw was covered in our art history courses this past year. But I think it is just a good excuse to take a trip through Greece and Italy. But we all enjoyed it and are a bit exhausted from the trip and most of us are glad to be back. The nice weather, fine dinning and lack of school personally kind of grew on me and due to the traveling bug I’m hopping on a train at 5 am tomorrow and heading to Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic with all of the guys here for a weekend where we can take some time off from the 29 girls here.
Greece: On Feb 16th we got on the bus at midnight on Friday. Got to a north Mediterranean town called Ancona. From there we took an overnight ferry to Igoumenitsa Greece. The ferry was money. It had a disco, which our group took care of well into the night. Crazy. So from there we drove to Kalambaka. Kalambaka had some really cool monasteries that were perched high on rock out-crops that we visited. There were a lot of high rock formations and the Greek monks back in the day would build them up there for defense. We also got some good bouldering in on the hill behind our hotel. So after two nights in Kalambaka we take off to Delphi.
Delphi had some of my favorite ruins in Greece. It was a small little town nestled in the hills, probably not over 4000 people and the ancient town of Delphi was not to far from there. The ancient city was built on a hillside so there was multiple temples built on the hillside like a stare case. Then the city worked its way up to an old stadium with the bleachers still intact. I did get in trouble there because I had climbed up to where the emperor most likely sat, for a picture and hadn’t seen the “no climbing” sign. opps.
From Delphi our next stop was Athens. We spent 3 nights here. We visited the famous Acropolis with all its glory. It wasn’t as impressive as Delphi however for me. it is about 3 times the size of Delphi but most of the stuff that you look at has been rebuilt or replaced. The three caryatids (columns in the shape of women) that support the porch of the Erechtheion are all copies. The few pediment figures on the Parthenon are also plaster casts. and all of the structures there have been rebuilt partially with new material. so it is impressive to see how it once was but I am more impressed with the untouched ruins. We did get to see most of the stuff however in the acropolis museum. So we then spent the day touring the old greek and roman city below the acropolis with a guide. The next day a bunch of us took a ferry out to the island of Agina south of Athens. There we rented mopeds and bumped around for the day. We made it around the whole island; saw some ruins (temple of aphaia.) And it was a perfect day as well.
After getting our fill of Athens we headed to Nauplia via Corinth and Mycenae. We visited Corinth, which was a Greek city over taken by the Romans in the 2nd century B.C. Paul is known for speaking there hence the “Epistles to the Corinthians”. Similar to what happened to Athens. Where paul also spoke. The excavation site was neat to see there, cause you could see both parts of the Greek and Roman cities. After Corinth we went to Epidauros where a well-preserved amphitheater is. Visited excavations there. Checked out Mycenae. Here is an ancient Aegean city built around 1200 B.C. I really enjoyed this place. It is known for its Lions (sphinx) gate and its large Tholos (a 43 foot hi beehive hut under the ground used for a tomb.) These ruins were quite preserved for their age. We then spent a night in Nauplia.
We spent our last day in Patras, which is the port city where our ferry leaves. It is festival there so we party there with the locals before getting on our ferry to italy.

Italy feb26- march 8
Due to lack of sleep and disco floor, I slept about 12 hours on the ferry to recover from the lavish nightlife of Greece. Woke up in Italy. We spent that day in Pompeii. Ok I am starting to sound redundant but this place was amazing. First of all it was huge. With out our guide we would have easily gotten lost. Saw some really nice frescos preserved from the ash it was a very rich community mostly summer homes for the rich that lived in rome. A lot of neat baths, temples and villas. Pompeii was really into the phallus symbols as well, our tour guide made sure to point out all of them and all of the erotic frescos and statues as well. He was a odd one.
After Pompeii we headed north to Rome. Spent 4 nights here. 27th-march 2nd I can’t even begin to tell you all the stuff we visited so I’ll hit the highlights. Our group got tickets to a papal audience! So we got to see old pall II. of course the Vatican with st peters and the Sistine chapel. so amazing. The coliseum and ancient rome. There were many other things that I can’t really list but all in all Rome was pretty tight. the weather in general in italy was on and off rain, really non comparable to Greek weather.
After Rome we headed to Florence via Assisi. Stopped in Assisi for lunch and spent some time there. Really cool town and church. We were then in Florence for 2 nights. Had a nice city tour visited the Uffizzi and another museum with Michelangelo in it. Florence seemed like a real hip town. My friend Angela goes to school there, although I didn’t get to visit here cause she was on spring break as well but I’m jealous of her. cool place. I did see a lot of Americans there, maybe that’s why it is cool, the people don’t mind speaking English to you since they are used to it. One of the days in Florence we took a trip to Siena, which was a neat, little medieval town.
So there from Florence we headed to Venice. What can I say, a lot of pigeons. Yes this place was being over run by pigeons when we were there. I feared for my life when walking through st. marks piazza. And what do they do the help the cause, they have about 10 different venders selling bird seed. so I tried to stay away from the piazza as much as possible. No but Venice was sweet. the coolest town set up I’ve ever seen. Basically an island from the rest of Italy. We took a quick ferry out there both days cause our hotel was inland. But it was just like all the pictures; I guess they have about 400 bridges there to cross all the canals. Besides the city tour we took, basically took it easy and walked around there. Some of the girls all pitched in and took a gondola ride. Which is excessively priced at 75 bucks for a 40 min. ride through the city. So I think they got to split that 6 ways. But by the end of the day we were anticipating going home. And so here I am. Sorry for the lengthy summery of the past 3 weeks of my life. Now that I’ve been spoiled for the past 3 weeks it is going to be tough to go to school again. I don’t want to think of all the papers I have to write. dang thought of it. ok must go. please write, I’d love to hear some cool stuff about the U.S., Guatemala, or wherever you are reading this. ok, peace,

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 22:30

Well lets see, I believe I haven’t entered anything here for a while now so I’ll try to fill you in. On the 26th I met up with my friend Angela who is going to school in Florence this semester, in a town in northern Italy called Bolzano. I made it there Friday morning in time to meet her train coming in at 10:30 but it was delayed 4 hours because of an Italian train strike that was going on. I had made it there before it started so I wasn’t effected. So I walked around town a bit and met her 4 hours later at the first train off the strike. Bolzano is a quaint little town. It was a bit cold but it was a neat place to walk around. On the recommendation of my parents who had been there earlier in the year we checked out the museum of archeology, which housed the 5000-year-old “Ice man.” If you remember there was a 5000-year-old “ice man” found in the dolomite region in northern Italy. We were able to see all his tools and clothes that they had recovered and the actual frozen corpse that was kept in a special freezer. It was a pretty impressive museum.
We decided to take the 45 min. bus to Selva (wolkenstein) one of the near by ski villages. Spent most of the time looking for a place to stay since it was so crowded there. The next day Angela wanted to learn to board and since I had been boarding a whole 3 times before that I thought I would try to teach her. She did all right too but her foot started hurting so she took the last part of the day off. It was a good day of boarding, kinda blizzardy but good snow. I didn’t get to see much of the mountains cause it was cloudy most of the day. Mom and Dad as you know they are pretty awesome. It was sunny the next day and they were just amazing. I had to be back at school by sunday night so I couldn’t stay and ski another day even though it was such a nice day. L I had a blast hanging out with Angela and catching up on stuff. Angela maybe I’ll see you up in Salzburg this week. The strike was over so we were both able to make it back that next day.
Salzburg has been getting some snow lately which is exciting. We had been getting snowed on about all last week so I couldn’t resist the temptation to go skiing one more weekend. My friend Damon has a friend from Italy that drove up this last weekend that took us skiing. Damon, his friend jeff, Ben, Milissa and I went on Friday. It was some of the best snow I had seen in ages. There was a slope that Damon and I hit most of the day. We had to hike a little bit to get to it so it was pretty much untouched except by us and had literally 3 feet of fresh powder!!! I borrowed my roommate’s snowboard so Damon and I had a blast with literally 3 feet of fresh powder. It was pure ecstasy. So the next day just Damon, his friend and I returned to the same place. It was some of the best two days of skiing I have ever had.

So that has been my last two weeks in a nutshell. Everything is going great here. We have two more weeks of school until our spring tour in Italy and Greece!! I hope all is well in the states, or where ever you are reading this from.

ok, bye for now.
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 20:10

Happy New Year, all, this is a bit lengthy but enjoy.
Ok, well I made it back from Morocco. It was quite an interesting trip. Let's see. After Christmas in Salzburg I headed to south Spain to a town called Algeciras (neighbor to the rock of Gibraltar) via Paris and Madrid. Spent some time in a few museums in both those places. I was most impressed with the Reina Sofia in Madrid which housed many Picasso, Dali and many other modern pieces. I went to Madrid to meet my friend Ben at the airport, of which I was a little late. Our train had hit a guy that committed suicide on the tracks and was delayed over 2 hours in order for the police, church and investigators to get their thing done. That was weird for a bit, kinda hard to grasp that the train I was on had just done that but we eventally made it to Madrid where I found my friend at the airport. We would then the plan was to go climb Mt. tubkal in morocco. This however changed because our group grew to 8 in Madrid, which is too large of a group for a climb. 2 girls and another guy decided last minute to come to Madrid with us. Then randomly we met three other people in our group in the Madrid trainstation. Their plans of going to Barcelona didn't work out due to booked trains so the came south with us to morocco.
We arrived in Tangers the north port city of Morocco. None of us particularly cared for this town. Everyone and their dog were out to get your money here. Our only goal here was to get to the train station for our 10 o'clock train so we had plenty of time to walk to the train station. We were constantly hassled as we walked to the train station. The taxi drivers wouldn't leave us alone, telling us the station was everywhere from 5- 10 km and all pointed different directions when asked where about it was. "Guides" wanted to show us the city, And every other person we would pass would try to sell us hash or some other good they had hidden in their pocket. So I took this time to practice my German and play like I was from Deutschland and that I couldn't understand their broken English. A dude ended up walking us to the trainstation and was tipped generously due to his hassling techniques and that we hadn't quite figured out the exchange rate yet. But we got on the train and were happy to be getting out of there.
Marrakech was a different story. We were used to the hassling by now so with a few newly learned Arabic words it became easier to deal with the scene. We stayed at the hotel Ali, which over looked the central market area. It also had the best Moroccan food with an all you can eat buffet for only 5 bucks. This was good seeing that we mostly lived off bread, cheese and water for most of our meals! not that thats a bad thing its just cheap. any way first day in Marrakech we just hung around the market place learning how to barter. I ended up getting a cool catfish drum and a little wood guitar thing. Seeing that our mountain climbing thing fell through we took advantage of a couple of the excursions that our hotel had. On the second day we went to the cascade waterfalls. A really place out in the middle of nowhere with a really cool waterfall. We ended up hiking around there most of the day. It was amazing that even out there the locals would try to show you around "for only small price" or try to sell you hash. It was real nice there. While waiting for the rest of my group I took advantage of some mint tea that an old man was brewing. It was really good, I ended up trying to talk to this old weathered man that only spoke Arabic or Berber, it was real cool.
So that night was new years eve and so we had our driver find an alcohol store for us and picked up a few bottles of wine. That night we chilled on top of our hotel overlooking the chaotic market place that was still hopping with circus acts, flame eaters, storytellers and other acts. We had bought some cheap drums and had a little jam session that lasted well into the night with some other Americans and births folk that were also staying at our hotel.
That next morning we all got up around 6 am.!!! ya it kinda sucked. but we had planned another excursion through our hotel for the Sahara desert. It was an amazing trip. It was a long and winding ride out to Zagora the town on the edge but from there we hopped on some camels and headed into the desert. It was truly amazing. When we got there we were put up in tents and shared some more Moroccan food that the Berber guides had prepared, along with some mint tea. One of us had brought drum and so the Berber guides grabbed their drums, (old plastic water buckets and what not) and began to jam with us. It started out with just our guide Assan, but by the end of the night there were 8 Berbers crowed in the tent with the 8 of us. It was awesome to hear them sing their traditional Berber songs. After a little bit of teaching we were able to sing along with them, it was great.
So that morning we road out on the camels with the rising sun and headed back to Marrakech. We wanted to see a few places in Spain so we decided to head out. Although I would have loved to stay there some more we took the night train back to Tangers.
Our first stop in Spain was Granada where there is also a U.P. foreign study program. So that night as we were winding the night streets of Granada we ran into two of our friends from U.P. They were just getting there for the second semester program. And the next day we were able to meet everyone else we know and surprise them as they arrived. Unfortunately in Granada one of my traveling companions tripped on the stair case in our hostel and sprained her ankle  I don't know why Europeans think those atomatic timed lights are so great. You find them everywhere here. you have to press the button at one floor and race up the stairs to press the next button before they turn off and leave you in total blackness. We have the same kind her at the center and a girl visiting here did the same thing. she was half way up the stairs when the lights cut out and went on to sprain her ankle as well. Anyway that added some difficulty to our situation. We ducked out a day early and headed to Madrid.
In Madrid Carol was feeling ill, looked real faint but had the sprained ankle so we took her to the hospital on her request. There they concluded she had some bug in her stomach maybe food poisoning, and that she didn't break her foot, just a sprain that should keep her form walking for 10-12 days. So that was great, she had to travel home that next day. Ok well just get some crutches and it will all be good. This didn't fly with the Madrid hospital, they said that crutches could only be issued to only those who had a broken bone, even after they told here to not walk on it for a couple weeks. After about 20 min of arguing with them that she has to travel and needs the crutches, they wouldn't even sell us them or tell us where to get them. So we stole one of their wheel chairs.
This worked out great on the way home. I was planned on flying home from madrid and so Carol wanted to get home asap so she booked a flight with me. We got great special service since she was in a wheel chair and all. Just a few odd looks from the porters due to the Madrid Hospitals "urgencia" logo printed on back. But all in all we made it home on a two-hour flight and another two hour train ride from Munich. This was compared to the approx. 40 hours of train rides that the rest of our companions had to bear with.
But we all made it back safe and sound. I just finished my first class of second semester but I'm in good spirits because it snowed last night and is still snowing today!!! it is the first falling snow I've seen all break. I was really getting home sick, missing the snow and all.
Ok, this one was a bit long but I had quite a bit to cover. ok peace.

happy new year
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 11:49

Hello, well I hope you all had a merry Christmas. I'm back here in Salzburg to get in on our Christmas dinner we have here at the center. I had a great time down in Spain. After Barcelona we took a ferry to an island called Mallorca. It is off of the east cost of Spain. The island we wanted to travel to, Ibiza didn't have a ferry to it that day so we headed to the larger island north of it. We took a all night ferry ride, approx. 8 hours long so we arrived in it's main city Palma at around 9 in the morning. We didn't know much about this island and our eurail train passes didn't work here that was if there were trains. So we rented a car. This worked out great because the best parts of the island that we saw were small little villages or ruins that were reachable only by car so it was great. It also felt great just to bum around in a car for a few days.
We were able to circumnavigate the whole island in the 4 days we spent on the island so it was great. The first day we got there we spent a few hours driving around the maze of streets in Palma looking for a gas station, an information office and cool things to see. As it worked out we did all of this with finding the info office with map of city last. So then we headed out of town along the West Coast of the island. We stopped in a small port town called Soller and ate lunch at this old monastery that overlooked the Mediterranean. We then headed further north to a place called Sa Calobra which took about 30 min on a road that on the map, looked like a line drawn by a 3 year old kid with his left hand. It was interesting. We hiked up to a lookout tower/castle to watch the sunset. We ended up finding a way inside the tower and hanging out on top of that for a while so needless to say it was pretty dark by the time we headed down. This cause our 45 min hike up the mountain to turn into 4 hours of wandering around trying to figure out which way we came up. So that night we didn't get to a big enough town to find a open hostel so we slept in our car.
The next two days we spent Going along the cost seeing beaches and other little towns along the northern and east costs. On the 3rd day we went to get our reserved ferry tickets but they told us that they had no room and that our reservations had been canceled. So asking them when the next boat off was they tell us two days from now. We look around some more and find another ferry that can shoot us down to Valencia the next day. This will add some time to our train ride back but it is the only way off the island besides flying. We stick around Palma another day and take off to Valencia. Here they tell us that there are no more trains going north so we must wait till the next day to catch a night train. This gives us a chance to see Valencia a little. A nice town but I liked Barcelona much better. And the next day we hop on a train an head back. And finally roll into Salzburg on Christmas eve.
So now I'm just hanging around here, missing Christmas at home but looking forward to a good Christmas dinner. Ok that's it from here. Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 13:21

hey, i´m kickin it here in Barcelona. it is so nice and warm here. I´m going to be traveling around spain for the break with a few of my buddies, Chris, michelle and moureen. we all just finished up a great week of finals back at salzburg. all i can say is that it is good to have that over with and on to traveling. We left on friday night for barcelona but decided to spend the day in Geneva Switzerland on our way there. it was cold but fun to bum around in. saw some of the sites and then that night we took another night trian to barcelona. we did run into a bit o trouble here when two of my friends got some stuff stolen in the night while we were sleeping. We are getting that taken care of though. like canceling credit cards and getting a new passport and what not. me and michelle had money belts on and were fine so let this be a lesson to all you travelers. where your money belts. rick steve would be proud. Besides that barcelona is so nice. it was sunny today so we walked down around town and down by the beach. it is nice to be in sunny weather. We are going to go catch the sunset now. even though it won´t be over the water we are going to get a little wine and what not and have a picnic on the beach. ok, just a quick post.
we are going to spend tomorrow here and then probably take a ferry to an island called ibiza.
and from there who knows huh.

ok, thats it form barcelona.
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 17:05

Well I just got back from an awesome weekend of skiing in the Austrian Alps. I actually tried snow boarding for the first time! It was a fairly large glacier ski resort called Hintertuxer Gletscher about 30 min south of Innsbruck approx. 8 of us took the train down there on Friday morning and got there in time to get in a half day of skiing. I decided to try boarding, and a couple of guys that i went with were pretty avid boarders so i was able to get some free lessons from them. The first day we spent about 2 1/2 hours on this so called bunny hill that first was fairly steep for a bunny hill and second it was basically all ice, so not a good combo for learning to snow board. I did however manage to smack my bum quite on that ice. so after that we all decided to head to the top to try to find some better snow. We did find some better snow about 4-6 in. of new, which was good. but the first slope we came upon was a steep worn down mogul field. This wasn't that bad because i could practice turning with out the fear of slamming may back into solid ice. But as the day went on i progessively got better. I liked it enough that i rented the board again. the second day. We got a full day of skiing in that day so i was really able to improve my boarding. And by mid day i was able to keep up with on of my boarder buddies fairly good. So all in all it was a pretty sweet weekend. Austria has some pretty awesome alps.

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 15:34

Hello,
for some reason my last entree didn’t get posted correctly so for the 2 or 3 of you that actually check this thing, I’m sorry. so in the last two weeks I went to Prague, had a blast, was going to go skiing the next weekend in Sladming, we missed our train so stayed home that weekend, got a lot of sleep, played some tetris. and now I just returned from Budapest. It was tons of fun. me and 6 others headed down to Hungary from Salzburg on the “Orient Express” yes the famous one. I’m not sure how famous it really is I was just told that, I think Agatha Christy may have wrote a book about it once. Any way it was nice cause it was a strait shot, so we got to get a nice sleep in, and it was a pretty nice train as well. So in Budapest we did some site seeing, went up to the castle hung out a bit, went to a few street markets. We stayed that night at the Marco Polo hostel. We were in a dormitory so one of our roommates was this crazy lady we met from Florida that is just traveling around and stuff. So anyway she said she has spent her last few days in Budapest looking for Robert Redford and Brad Pit. I guess they were in town then shooting a film. So anyway she talks the girls into going down to this park that Robert was most likely going to be running, in the morning. They didn’t see them but the girls said that the lady was pretty funny, cause she asked everyone she passed if they knew where Robert Redford was even though most of them didn’t speak english.
So anyway that day we walked around some more. Ended up going to the turkish baths there. Since only two of us brought our bathing suits we all asked for messages which are 3 or 4 bucks. We get our ticket and head into the baths. after 20 min of looking for the message room the third guy we asked finally walked us up there our selves through all these hall ways and doors, finally get there and they tell us the ticket we have was only for entrance. so since we didn’t have any cash on us we just kicked it in the baths for an hour or so. I had my suit, two of my buddies wore their boxers, one of the girls had a suit and another improvised. So at least we got to check out the thermals. If anyone has been to Thermopiles Hot Springs it was kinda like that except the building was a lot larger and older. But they had both inside and out side baths. It was tones of fun.
So after turning into prunes, we decide to go skating. we had a few hours to kill before our train left so for 500 Ft. we go skating with rentals and all. thats about 1.70 dollars or so. sot that was fun. and that was our trip.

A place I could have spent a little more time in but all in all it wasn’t bad for a large city.
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 12:05

well this well be short. sorry,

I went to Prague last weekend with 5 other's, its a pretty nice place. lot of cheap stuff. I found some beer for 20 cents 16 oz. yeah!! just kidding that was not the only highlight of Prague. We had a pretty rough time on the way there. right on the border of Czech there is this pretty sketch nuclear plant that the Austrians are pretty upset about. it was built a while ago under russian control and was sut down and a lot of people didn't think it should start up again. They did and right now there are a lot of protests and stuff going on there. so our ride there involved a detour which involved a one car trian, a transfer to some busses that took us around the nuclear plant, and then another two car trian. but we found our way there safely. Saw some of the sights like the Jewish quarter, Charles bridge and the castle and cathedral. they were all pretty neat. Hit some good pubs and discos during the night and did some shopping during the day. but that is about all I have to report from prague.

well bye for now.

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 20:20

I'm back from our fall break tour to Paris. Our group took a 10 day trip to Paris and saw quite a few things. It was a pretty nice trip. On Friday the 27th we all woke up at 8 or so, still tired from the night before midterm blow out party. So we were all pretty tired and all slept pretty good on our way to Ulm, our first stop. We visited the Gothic Cathedral in Ulm and went on to Strasbourg, France. We stayed at the hotel Ideal. We visited another Gothic Cathedral in Strasbourg as well.
The next morning we went on to Paris. Get to Paris around 4 o'clock. Since this trip is connected with our classes we got to visit many museums and Cathedrals. In Paris we head to the Musee d' Orsay. There we are able to see a lot of great art. Some familiar pieces like Van Gogh's Portraits, Whistler's Mother, and other pieces by Millet, Carot, Courbet, Manet, Monet, Renoir and Edgar degas. just to name 9 or so. Our Art history prof, Frau Loos, came along so we had our own personal guide for most of the tour. That night after dinner we went on a boat tour on the Seine, the river that flows along the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame and a few hotdog stands. It was real amazing to be in such a place.
On Sunday a few of us went to mass in The Notre Dame cathedral. Then we went on to meet our group at Saint Chapel which was basically right next to Notre Dame. After our guide through Saint Chapel, which was a royal chapel and once held the supposed crown of thorns relic but later was lost in a fire. After that and lunch we took a bus tour of Paris which was very torturous. A Good percent of us were still recovering from Thursday night and lack of sleep. Because of that I don't have much to say about the bus tour because my eyelids were a bit heavy and I caught a little snooze. I did however get to see most of Paris that night on our own walking tour. A few of us including Damon, Annie, Morine and myself took the metro to go check out the Eiffel tower. By the time we got there they had closed the elevator that went to the top due to high winds. Some of the kids that got up there on the last ride up, said that they could feel the tower actually swaying. I guess it can swing up to 16 in. either way so a total of 32 in. We walked, however over to the Arch of Triumph commissioned by Napoleon III and from there walked down the Champs Elyses Avenue which is similar to the Main street of Lander. (Its the main drag) That leads right to the big Ferris Wheel. After that and playing chicken with the traffic trying to find a metro station we called it a night.
then monday the 30th was spent at the Louvre and the Hotel Des Invalides. The Louvre is just the most amazing museum in the world. We spent a good 4 hours there and still just touched the surface of what was there. It is so big. Some of the more Familar things we did see included: The Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, and some more stuff by Da Vinci, Raffael, Michaelangelo, Delacroix and Gericault. It was all pretty interesting. And there was a lot of other stuff from the roman and greek period that we recognized from art class. So that is always exciting. After that we visited the Hotel Des Invalides which isn't a hotel at all, well maybe for one person, Napoleon, but he's dead. It's main attraction was Napoleons Tomb which is the Huge marble sarcophagus, probably the size of a Large Van, in the center of a huge domed cathedral type building. a pretty extensive grave. The Hotel actually had something to do with military headquarters so it did house a lot of soldiers at one time. After dinner we attended a ballet at the Palais Garnier. of which I didn't enjoy to much. but still glad I was able to see a ballet, I guess.

The next day, halloween, we visited Versailles, which is a large complex, very beautiful. Probably commissioned by napoleon but was very interesting to see. And after that we took a trip further south to Chartres, where we visited a very beautiful Gothic Cathedral. The guide we had was really into the stained glass so it was neat to learn some stuff about that. They were really amazing. This Cathedral also houses a relic of The Virgin Mary which was supposedly the gown she wore while giving birth to Jesus. That too was impressive to see. That night we celebrated Halloween with a night out on the town. We finally got to the top of the Eiffel tour and that was pretty neat to do at night. Later that night we tried to get into the graveyard where Jim Morrison is buried but the wall was a bit high to climb and there were also guards looking over the top. So we found another graveyard near our hotel to walk around in, to try to keep with the Halloween spirit.

The next day we went to the Fontainebleau, which was another amazing complex and residence, built under some king. and after that we went to the Musee Rodin, Rodin being the famous sculptor that did "The thinker" the guy with his hand on his chin. This was neat to see because a lot of his bronze work was out side and was a neat set up. The rest of the day was just spent kickin' it in Paris. Some of us went to the Latin Quarter to a cafe where Hemingway spent a lot of time in.

We leave paris on the 2nd of Nov. Back to Strasbourg. We make a stop in Reims and Verdun to visit let more Cathedrals. and then stay the night in Strasbourg.
Now on the 3rd, we head to Reutte, and visit a few more places including Neuschwanstein were the Ludwig castle stands. This was a very Fairy tell type castle, the castle Walt Disney designed magic kingdom castle after. and you could see the resemblance.
That morning we woke up to snow (Yeah!!!!) not much but snow. And head for Innsbruck and back to Salzburg.

And I'm done. All in all it was a pretty good trip. Paris was a so so town. Definitely a lot of great historical places and museums but the town in general was just real crowded.

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 19:17

This is midterm week so i'm going to probably stay home this weekend and study. . . or not we'll see how its looking on Thursday.

anyway, i had a fun weekend in Slovenia last weekend Climbing the Triglav. I went down with two of my previous climbing buddies Ben and Ryan and two girls Morine and Carol. The Triglav is Slovenia's highest mountain but measures in at around 9,500 ft. so this isn't as tall as the last mountain i climbed, the Breithorn but boy was it a climb.

So on Thursday night we had a dance party in our lounge which was kinda a something/ Halloween party which meant we had to dress up. The theme was dress up as your favorite super hero using 5 articles of clothing or less. And seeing that most of us packed light we really had to use our imagination to come up with a costume. My roommate Chris and I went as the Saturday Night Live "Ambiguously Gay Duo" those that know the show; I was Gary and Chris was Ace. It was pretty hilarious. I'm sure there are some pretty incriminating pictures that came out of that night.

ON friday morning at 7 we leave for Slovenia. It is about a 4 hour trian ride to the town of Jesanesa where we meet the first of many very helpful Slovenians. We got off the trian and trying to find the bus we had to catch that would take us to where we were staying when we walk past this both. There is a bunch of people gathered here and a guy playing the accordion and the next thing we know we are being handed shots of some liquor by a lady. It turns elections are coming up and this was a campaigning both. We then start talking to the canidate, who explaines that the strong shot we just forced down was a Slovene honey based drink called madiza. After a little chat with him he leaves his both to help us find our bus and sends us on our way.

We get to the town of Monstrana and walk about 3 hours to our hostel. We get to our hostel that is out in the woods and is nestled under the triglav, which is translated to three-headed monster. So out our window are the three peaks of the Triglav. We have a little dinner after talking to the lovely hostel lady and spend the night there for the ridiculously low price of 4 dollars! We get up at 4 and head out to find the Prag route up the triglav. Ya kinda early but it was a smart move. we find the trail which is about 45 min. away and start up the route at about 6 am and at about 1600 ft. ya we didn't get to use the gondola this time. It was about a 6 hour hike up to the mountaintop lodge that sat about an hour away from the summit. It was a pretty grueling hike. There were a few places where we had to scramble (use all fours) and others where there were metal pegs in the rock to use as handholds going up the rock. We hit the snow about half way up and also found a spring were we could refill our water bottles!! Clouds hid the peak most of the way up and when we were almost to the lodge the clouds cleared. And i must admit the last stretch looked a bit intimidating. We asked the girls if they wanted to wait at the lodge cause it was a lot harder hike then we had thought. but they wanted to summit since they made it this far. The last stretch required a lot of scrambling and climbing up near vertical rock walls (with pegs) that hung just above a good 3-400 foot drop off. This ridge had a lot more exposure then the guide book had described but then again we did choose to take the hardest non-rope climbing route possible. but we summated just fine and got a bunch of nice pictures. If i can find a scanner i will try to add them to my web page. we got some good pic's of the last accent so you can see what it was like! The decent down to the lodge took about 45 min. for me and ryan. But ben however had to help one of the girls down cause of here unknown till then fear of heights. That took them about two hours just to show how sketchy of a climb it was.

Everyone was pumped that we were able to do it and with such good weather but the girls were a bit worn out. Which can be expected. The hike ended up taking a couple hours longer then planned cause of this and so this is how we met our other great friends. we got down to the lodge around 7 at night and since no more busses were running we were in for another 4 hours of hiking to get to the train station! Yikes. In our rush to get our bags and out of the hostel we saw a fellow climber that we had met at the summit. He already knew our situation and offered to take three of us to the train station and only two would have to walk or hitchhike. this was just great. but then it got better. There were a couple of old Croatians having a drink at the hostel that heard of our dilemma and they too offered to give us a ride to the train station. Yeah!!! What else could one want after a 14 hour day hike then the news you don't have to hike another 4!!! So we made good friends with our new rides to the train station. And besides the train ride home that was our tirp!!! We were all pretty impressed that we had climbed 7,500 ft in one day and even more surprised that we could function after 14 hours of hiking. Since we started in the valley at 4 and got down at 7 we saw the moon set and rise during our hike. Pretty funny.

ok, well is should be reading Theology or music right now (real page turners!!) but i usually use those two books to put me to sleep at night.

ok this entree has gone on long enough. laters then from salzburg.

:)
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 22:06

( F. Y. I * I wrote this about a week ago and didn't get to post it till now)
Well well, lets see what have i been up to. I think i left off last time with my adventures of oktoberfest. Well i liked it so much that i had to go back. So 5 of us, Chris, Tom, Ben, Michelle and myself headed back on Tuesday after class at 6:30 pm. We got the group rate so again it was only like 4 bucks each to catch the trian to Munich and back. Crazy huh. so anyway this was the last day of Oktoberfest so we figured we had to make the trip. We got there around 8:00. It was a heck of a lot better this time because the crowds were about a third of what they were on Saturday evening. We could go in and out of beer tents with out waiting in line which made it just a 100 times better. It was still as crazy inside the tents, with everyone dancing on the tables and singing the German Prost songs. This is when you know your in a country that likes to drink. They have there own drinking songs that everyone and there dog knows the lyrics to. There were a few that we had learned in German class that we could sing along to which was fun and then there were a few that were in English anyway so we could sing along to those. Every year i guess that oktoberfest has an official song or there is one song that becomes the official song. none the less the one this year is taken from the American "will you be my girl" song and they sing it like this: "Heeyyyy... Heeeyyyy Baby... Uh, Aghh... I want to knoooooooooooooowww... Will you be my girl... eins zwie drei vier funf sechs seiben acht.... Heeyyyy.. etc." So this was its official song and you could tell cause people would be singing it in the streets, on the trian, and when ever the band would stop playing music the whole crowed would erupt in this chant. it was hilarious. and especially on the train rides home around midnight the whole post oktoberfest crowd would burst into chorus singing this song. So i had a blast and recommend to anyone that is in Europe during September to make a trip to Munich. I was able to add two more steins to my collection too so i was pumped about that. And seeing that it was the last day of Oktoberfest the Munich police were out in number confiscating stolen beer steins. So i was pretty fortunate to get out with the steins that i did.
Well this past week i was lucky enough to be visited by my parents. Yeah! We had a great time. I met them after class on Thursday at their hotel. I then gave them a amateur walking tour of Salzburg. They had visited here before so they were excited to revisit some of the places. and then on Thursday evening they joined us in dinner at the center. They got to meet a bunch of my friends so they enjoyed that. Then afterwards we went to the Augustiner brau, the big beer hall that i have mentioned before. It was cool cause a bunch of my friends came along and we all kicked it there with a liter and chatted. We all had a great time. Mom and Dad were the first parents to visit the center so everyone that came along was pumped to get to know them.
The next day Mom, Dad and I all hopped on a train and headed to Hallstat. This was the first little town that i visited and i wanted to show my parents around. Unfortunately it was rainy and cloudy so you couldn't see the nice mountains around the town but it was still a fun visit. We checked out a couple of relic museums and strolled around town for a bit. That afternoon we went to a huge ice cave. The walking tour in side the ice cave was all in German but it was still impressive to be underground and to see all the large ice formations. We got back kinda late that night due to the fact that we got on the wrong train, so it was a bit difficult finding a place to eat that late at night.
It was still raining on sat. so it was nice that we had a sound of music tour to go on. This took place mostly on a bus. My mom is a pretty good fan of the show so this was a must when she came to salzburg. I had scene a lot of the stuff already, just cause i had been here a month but is was nice to get to know my town a little bit better. Oh and the tour guide had some great (real dumb) jokes that we all (none of us) couldn't stop laughing at.
Then on Sunday we went to the 10:00 mass in the cathedral, which was very nice. Walked around town some more and had lunch. I was on the cooking crew so mom and dad came over for dinner. I then had to say goodbye: ( They couldn't stay forever, they have a lot of stuff ahead of them. including Budapest, Vienna and 3 weeks in Italy. Isn't that crazy. I know they'll have fun. It was real good to see them though.
well i'd best get back to studying for stuff (wink, wink) can't let any time be a wasted.

ok kids. I hope my long drawn out boring style of writing isn't annoying you. Maybe i can conclude with one of the hilarious jokes our sound of music tour guide gave us. K, What is wrong with the guy that has no left side?? Nothing, he's. alright (all right).
Oh and why do they give you an extra pair of socks at the golf course? Just in case you got a hole in one.
he was pretty slick with the word play, ok i've said enough. laters.

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 20:59

Well glad some people are checking in on me. The weather is starting to turn. The number of rainy days is starting to outnumber the sunny ones :(. I can't wait till it starts to snow, cause that means ski season. Well i made a trip to Munchen (Munich) last weekend which is only about a two hour train ride. And with a group of 5 or more it is only about 3 bucks a piece. You can really work some deals with the trains if you know how to work it.
So I headed to Munich around 9 or so in the morning so i had most of the day to tool around. As it turns out Oktober fest is a hell of a lot larger then i thought. So i didn't really get to see Munich much because there was so much to do. Picture a big carnival theme park setting. (It had 3 large roller costers and about 20 other carnival rides) then add as many people as you can in to that scene (it was almost shoulder to shoulder crowds.) Then add about 15 beer tents and you have oktoberfest.
I was with 3 other girls, which is not a good idea at oktoberfest. It is good to go on your own so you don't have to look after any one. (it is hard enough to look after yourself ya?) well anyway i had a blast, we went on a few of the rides. Checked out the place and headed for the beer tents.
The first and main tent we headed to was the Haufbrau Haus I hope i spelled that right but it is a tent for one of the most famous beer houses in Munich. We also found out after we got back that that last sat. of the festival was the busiest day. And it showed. After fighting our way to the front of this line (it was more like a huge moshpit) we got real close to the front doors. Since it was so crowed inside they only let as many people in as came out. Lets just say that it is October fest and not many people will be wanting to leave. so it was slow pickens as far as letting people in. After a while of this, the crowd of beer craving Germans started to shove and beat on the doors and in return the security would just get pissed and start shoving back. It wasn't a nice sight so about 45 min of this i jetted. I was able to find a side door that didn't have the huge crowd and was able to sneak in. Inside was twice as mad as the crowd outside. Good times.
I kicked it with some old German chaps for a while who ended up buying me a beer. Yeah. and then met this Hungarian named Cornell, who i pretty much hung out with for the rest of the night. I made it to one other tent the Agustiner Tent and yes i was able to score myself a few Liter steins despite the rumored 100-300 dollar fine for doing so. But all in all it was a great experience. And everyone made it back safely with some sketchy stories none the less but they made it back. It ends on Tuesday the 2nd so well see if i make it back again :)
Well i just got done with my monday, which is by far my hardest day of the week. so that is good and my parents will be dropping by on Thursday so I can't wait for that. Thanks to the few new people that have joined my guest book. yeah. Ok,

Take care,

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 16:24

Hey,

Well i have made it through another week! School has been going alright. Classes are a bit difficult. I'm still having some trouble understanding the very broken English of some of my professors. But all in all they're all right.
Well this past weekend i went climbing with some of my buddies. I guess most people would call it mountaineering, the type of climbing that evolves crampons and ice axes for hiking on glaciers. It was really fun.
We left for Zermatt Switzerland on Thursday night for a 10 hour train ride from Salzburg. The mountain we climbed was the Breithorn which sits right on the border of Switzerland and Italy and right next to the famous Matterhorn mountain. The actual town of Zermatt was pretty exciting in itself. We spent Friday night there in this town were gasoline cars have been outlawed to keep the air clean. So the only way there is by train and when we got there we saw a bunch of Electric taxies running around, it was pretty cool to see.
But that next morning we headed up early since the conditions are best before noon. We headed up the Matterhorn gondola, which I think is the highest gondola system in the world. But that took us up a good percentage of the way. So we get off around 12,something thousand feet and begin our climb. Two of the people i went with were experienced (Ben and Michelle) and so there were 3 of us that were novices (Damon, Ryan and myself). Since the gondola took us up most of the way it was only another 1,500 ft accent for us. It was pretty steep and we had to use crampons so it wasn't a walk in the park. It ended up taking about 1 and 1/2 hours to reach the summit, which is (4164m), and i think this is around 13,800 ft. but I'm not for sure about the conversion. But none the less it is the highest i've ever been and one of the coolest experiences i've had over here. We stayed on the summit for about 40-min. and got a bunch of pics of the alps which went on for miles. It was a bit windy at the top so lets just say that i feet safest sitting down. at one edge of the sumit there was the steep wide slope that we hiked up on the southwest side. on the other edge of the summit was a gradual downward slope that continued for about 20-30 yards. One could not tell from here but after that 30 yards it was about 80 feet of vertical glacier and then about a couple thousand ft more of a vertical rock face. If you look on my web page you might be able to see what i'm talking about. and i'm writing this before i try to put the pictures on so hopefully i can get them on. It was pretty sweet.
The weather was real good and there were no crevasses in the glacier that we had to worry about so it was a pretty safe excursion. There were a few guys up there that were roped up but they didn't bring crampons so it was a bit sketch for them. On the way down one of the guys had slipped off the trail and if it was not for his ice ax he would of had about a 200 yard slide down a pretty steep part of the glacier. So it was something that you had to be careful with.
After that we did some more hiking around the base of the Matterhorn and then hung out in the town some more. It was pretty fun weekend.
If you would like to check out those pics of the Breithorn you might look through my web page for them. The pictures really don't do it justice though.

well for now my plan is to head to Oktober fest so come back next week to see if i have any stories about that.
ok, talk to you later,

:)
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 19:30

on that sunday the 10th a bunch of us climbed the untersburg which may sound familiar if you a hard core sound of music fan. its the mountain that overlooks salzburg and it is in the opening and closing scene of S.O.M. it was an incredible hike to the summit. from the bottom it would probably be a good 4 1/2 hour hike to the top but we cheated a little and took the gondola which took off about 3 hours of that hike. (only because we had to be back by 4:00) but we then hiked all the way down which was about a 2 1/2 hour hike. i got some incredible pictures so maybe if i can get one off a digital camera that my one of my friends have i'll send it to ya. but there were some awesome views of the alps from there. this mountain sits right on the border of Germany so if were to hike down the wrong side we would end up in Germany. this is what the Vontrap family did in the S.O.M. but in the movie they hiked over the mountain into Switzerland. not Germany. so there was a little geographical flaw there.

School itself hasn't been too bad we started on mon. the 11th, a little trouble understanding the broken english of a few of my profs but not a big deal yet.
it is cool cause we have 4 day weeks so on Thursday evening we left for our second tour which was to vienna.

we saw a lot of stuff. there are a lot of famous places in vienna and we saw most of them Here is a quick list of some stuff we saw. and stars for what i thought of them:
Stephansdom (old gothic church in center of town) ***
Hundertvasser-Haus (A resedential building designed by the famous artist Hundertvasser that did not believe in strait lines and 90 degree angles so you can imagine how cool and abstract these buildings were.) ****
Scholss Schonbrunn (The schonbrunn castle, umm. i should know who used to live here but i know a buch of rulers, lived here, um maria tericia a famous ruler in austria, and some other aristocratic familes.) ****
The Belvedere castles(ok, just cause i don't know why these castles are important doesn't mean i wasn't paying attenttion. We took about 5-6 guided tours plus the narration around town by my art history teacher is all a lot of info. This weekend we so much stuff it all kinda collided together in my mind and got mixed up.)**
The Vienna state opera house.( the state opera house, this is were i saw Fidelio the Beethoven opera)
*****
The Hofburg Vienna Art History Museum(This was really cool, got to see a lot of originals for the first time.) ****
The Melk Monastery( a monastery in the town of Melk. Pretty big and stuff.) ***

we spent 3 days there which is quite a lot for me. but i had fun. one of the coolest things we did was go to an opera in the vienna state opera house. we saw Fidelio, which is Beethoven i think. but it was accompanied by the Vienna orchestra which is one of the top 3 in the world. they were pretty amazing. the opera was in german so seeing that i only have one semester of german in me i couldn't really follow it :) but i knew the story and was able to follow most of it. it was just a really amazing opera house and neat to see.

but after all our touring in vienna we headed to a town called melk and saw a awesome monastery which was just huge. the cathedral was covered in gold. most cathedrals we have seen so far are mostly centered around the stone carvings and stone work and because of that are kinda dark in side. This was neat cause all the statues and trimmings and ornaments in this church were all gold so it was real bright inside, which was cool.

well it is real hard to right to you all about all that i've done but i thought i'd tell you a few things that i have done just in case you were wondering.
school is starting to pick up so well see how that goes, so far my experience has felt like a combination of summer camp and a two week European vacation. but i'm having a blast with all of the students over here.

well, this is it for now.
sorry these are long entrees but i've been doing a lot of stuff so i have to write about it :)

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 14:08

well hey, sorry its been a while for those of you that are following this page. I've pretty much been busy camper. I have had a really sweet time this past weekend. lets see... after sayin goodbye to er and nik at the salzburg train station i headed over to school. Wednesday was a settling in day. that evening i met one of my roomates (tom spooner), his dad and a friend named lori and we all went to a beer garden called the augisteiner which is in this huge cathedral, i guess some monks started it years ago.
the rest of that day was pretty much socializing n stuff.

On Thursday we saw the sights of salzburg. we did a walking tour and it was raining but it was all good. saw some neat stuff. too much stuff to list here. but in short, this is a really sweet town.

so on friday we left for our 2 day tour on the lake district around Salzburg. this was a blast. we started off by doing a little sound of music type tour on a bus, so all you sound of music fans you would be pumped n stuff.

Then on our way to Haldstat (a town east of here) we stomped by various other villages and looked around.
Haldstat is the sweetest place.

it is this little town of maybe 700 or so that lies right next to this huge lake with mountains that look like the circ of the towers for those of you that have backpacked in the windrivers. so we got there and had some time to kill and some friends and i rented some little 5 person motor boats to go tool around in. and on top of that on the other side of the lake we found this old abanded castle which we explored. as you might expect it is still tough to realize where i am. it is really cool here. so after a fun night of pub hopping with the group of 40, including father lackenmeier (who is a blast) got a good nights sleep at the hostel.

so our next day we do some more sightseeing on the way back to europe. stopped in some salt mines which were real cool. to go down in them we have to get suited up in these white jummper numbers and our tour included getting in to the mine on this little train thing. after that we went down two sets of slides. (i think thats what the suits were for) these were some long slides that shot down into the mine. probably over 100 feet long! then we even had a boat ride on a lake that was over 700 feet under the ground. real fun though.

and so that puts me back here tonight. or morning rather, seeing that we all went out again tonight this has been my real first time to do some emailing.

so maybe expect this once a week thing on the web page. i'll try my best though to keep up.

later.

posted by Nate Jacobsen at 02:00

hey well iäm here in salzburg with er and nik, they met me at the airport and for the past couple days weäve been hangin out in salzburg.
zesterday we went to a concentration camp in mauthausen, about a two hour trian ride from here. it was real interesting and really sad. But it has been good to see nik and er, but now i check into school today in a few hours so
later, all.
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 08:52

Hez i made it. the flight was long but i got to see uncle mark and aunt joan in detroit which was sweet and then nik and er met me in salzburg!! well we are off to the wiess garden (a beer garden!) talk to za later.
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 18:20

Ok, well i fly to salzburg tomorrow so check back later to see if i made it. :)
posted by Nate Jacobsen at 07:02