Do I have a sign on my forehead???

London's calling right now. Its about 4:30am back home, but so far no signs of jet lag. The flight was lovely, British Airways gets mad props for being a quality airline. No more taking US carrier for hops across the pond. Was on the grand dame of the skies, the Boeing 747. 2 decks, 4 engines, plenty of passengers. In fact I thought it was a totally full flight from the line at JFK, but I manged to have a window with an empty seat next to me. When I checked in, I thought I was in the back of the plane serving drinks, as I was row 41, but the plane had 53 rows.

So when the first round of drinks came out, the stewart insisted I have not just 1 beer(Grolsh), but 2.. I was thinking to myself, damn do I have a sign on my forehead saying yes I'm about to drink your continent dry. So my first drink of the adventure was had at 35,00 feet, off the coast of Newfoundland, probably over the Titanic. On top of it all the beers were free, I should have had 3 now thinking of it. But between the brew, the acceptible dinner(Lasagne), it was better than a sleeping pill.

British Airways really does it well, each seat you have an individual video monitor and the selection of movies was top notch. I could have watched New World, Walk the Line, Good Night & Good Luck, Goldeneye or X-Men 2. I caught bits of Good Night & Good Luck and Goldeneye. Goldeneye was funny, not sure of the year it came out, but looking at the supposed high tech room, with old ass computer with big CRT monitors I had a laugh.

Even the magazine on the airline was worth keeping. Its called High Life and the cover story was about sailing in Croatia, with another good article about 18 things to do in Dubai from Skiing, to playing golf, to Polo, to Driving in sand dunes. Looks like a cool place to go, if you really wanna live the High Life. Also an article on secret bars, anyone been to The Back Room on Norfolk St on the lower east side, it was written up in there, have to check it out when i get back stateside.

Now killing 3Hrs before my flight to Helsinki in Heathrow, but plenty of options, and I've found a pub, only 9:30am so a bit early, but by 11am, I'll pick up a London tabloid and have a brew before I get on the plane. Not sure which tabloid to buy, The Sun, The Daily Mirror, or whatever.. I think the Sun has the topless page 3 girls, so that might be the winner.


Alright next post coming from Finland

A drink in every country? Are you outta your mind or liver?? or Both..

Ok the title of this blog is DrinkingAcrossEurope. And while it seems like an noble, stupid, crazy, (insert adjective of your choice here) Task. Lets see just how its going to work out. I'm leaving on Tuesday on a one-way ticket, why one-way? Well honestly I dont know how long I'll be able to hold out, i'd hate to have booked a return ticket and know I still had a good 2 weeks left in me. And vice-versa I'd hate to have a return flight and realize what the hell am I going to do for another 2 weeks till my flight. So hopefully British Airways will still have availbility using my remaining Frequent Flyer miles when i'm ready to return.

Europe how to define it. Well lets start with the European Union.Europa They have list 25 countries as member states. Here they go.

Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia , Finland
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands,
United Kingdom

Ok from that intial list, i'm going to have to cross off Malta and Cyprus, look at a map and you realize they are small islands in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea not connected by land to continental Europe. So we are down to 23 countries for my sake.

Now the E.U lists 5 candidate countries. So if these countries can solve their corruption, fix economy, stop drug trafficking, sex trafficking or whatever the criteria is, they can join. Turkey has been trying to get in the E.U for almost 20 years, with probably another decade to go. check out this to learn more.

Turkey on Wikipedia

Candidate Countries

Bulgaria, Croatia, Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia ,Romania, Turkey

Gotta cross Macedonia off the list as no direct flights or trains in/out. Cross Turkey off the list also as its more Asia then Europe.

Next we have a group of so called OTHER countries. they include

Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Monaco, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Serbia and Montenegro, Switzerland, Ukraine, Vatican City.

Of this group its easy to cross many of them off the list, as i know the Vatican doesnt have any bars within its 100 acres. Some are islands again way way away from the mainland, some still have land mines littering the country side, I just want a beer, not to get my legs blown off, some are so small I wonder if I could find the country, much less a bar, and some require a Visa to enter.. I could see myself at Border control now, why do you want to come to our country?? To sample your finest Vodkas!!!

So basically I have a group of 25 to 30 countries. In my June travel plans already I know I will knock 11 off the list. With scheduled stops in U.K(well really only a 5hr layover in Heathrow, hope I can find beer at 10am in England, I suspect a strong chance of that), Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium(yummy), Luxembourg, Czech Republic and Spain. While in spain visiting the Salvador Dali museum in Figures Dali Figures Museum I'll be a stone throw from France, so maybe i'll run over the border and find some ripe grapes.

The Month of July once the world cup is over, includes scheduled jaunts to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Croatia. So it leaves only a few tough to get to places in the mix. Hopefully my strength, liver and wallet will be allow me to trek on in July. Stick along for the ride, i'm looking forward to it and I hope you enjoy it

The countries that are going to the party

This commerical that ESPN is running basically says it all and in simple terms. The combination of a great song, Bono's voice and the visuals could make it one of the best commericals i've seen in a while.

Yet as a USA fan, people in my home country do not think much about soccer, how its not popular in terms of TV ratings, publicity, professional leagues, let us remember that most of us involved in athletics as young kids all played soccer.

The USA is making their 5th, yes 5th consecutive appearance in the World Cup. We have qualified every year since 1990. Even soccer nation powerhouses have missed out on recent World Cups. England didnt come to the USA in 1994, The Netherlands didnt goto Japan/Korea in 2002, France missed out both 1990 and 1994 before winning their first ever in 1998. So basically the consistancy the USA has showed is a positive sign for sure. True our qualifying group is nothing like the ultra Competitive European groups, but still 5 times in a row is impressive. Our coach Bruce Arena is the longest tenured coach of ANY NATION in the competition. Lets hope that experience and job security pays off. As I have the feeling Sven-Goren Ericksson of England really doesnt care deep down knowing he is back to Sweeden after this tourney is over, win, lose or draw.. And trust me if he wins, there is NOT going to be a statue of him put up in jolly old England

The remaining teams going to Germany are as follows on this map.

5 Days and counting..

Well its 5 days and counting before I jump on the plane for the beginning of my adventure. Excited for sure, but still doing some last minute things as always. Today my Eurail pass came, so that is a relief as rail travel in Germany is not as cheap as I thought it was. Also my SIM Chip came for my phone, so any of you fools out there who want to talk to me, can call me while i'm all over europe. Warning the number is based in Estonia, so i hope you know a cheap way to call an estonia cell phone.

So lets go back about a year to how this whole trip began. The first round of the FIFA lottery ended on March 31st, 2005. Just for a whim i'm figured ok let me enter, so on the last day I entered and requested 1 ticket for USA TST-5(Team Specific Ticket, 5 games). The winners were to be pulled April 15th, so I figured I didnt have to wait that long. Well how I found out was interested. April 16th I was traveling to Baltimore to see the incredible Nikka Costa perform and do this
Well before the show going to the ATM machine to get a buck bucks, It said insufficient funds. I was like what? No problem at the time and just used a different card(its good to have 2 bank accounts, whew..) Did not think too much about it at the time, but after the show going to my boy Ern's house I used his internet to check my online statement, but nothing funny was showing, so i was baffled, figured when I got back to NYC the next day i'd goto the bank and check it out. I get home on the 17th and see in my email box

Your application for tickets for the FIFA world cup has been accepted

and then I realized what happened, they sucked 600 bucks, probably the best 600 bucks I ever spent out of my bank account so they could earn interest on it and millions of other dollars for a full year. Well right now considering a 60Euro ticket is selling for 600 bucks, let them keep all that interest.

Now why the World Cup do you ask? Many of my friends are like Ayan, didnt know you were a soccer fan. Well i'm a total sports nut, i'll watch just about any sport on TV, The Indy 500 this weekend, if I'm up at noon on Sunday i'm watching. Kentucky Derby, watched it. Daytona 500, would'nt miss it. Now i've been following soccer on the international level since the 2002 World Cup when the USA had a strong performance. I must say the Euro 2004 games were amazing, from that first France vs England game, where England basically gave the game away in the last 90 seconds. Also vividly remember in the 2002 World Cup Senegal beating Sweeden at like 2am here local time, and hearing all the Sengelese folks up on 116th Street explode into the street and celebrate.

Just some information about the World Cup and its huge appeal. The United Nations lists 191 countries as members. . Yet FIFA had 205 nations attempt to qualify for the most recent World Cup. 3.2 million tickets are on sale for the whole tournament and all are sold out. This outnumbers the amount of tickets sold at the recent Athens Olympics that claimed 2.6 million tickets, but anyone watching it saw tons of empty seats.

Ok as long as internet access is available, I hope to post everyday at least once during my trip. So stay along for the ride. My itinery for the first few weeks of the trip are Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw, and onto Germany.