We arrived in Venice finally after an overnight train ride with not very good sleeping patterns and in long conversations with a ex-Fransiscan monk (by conversation I mean that Rachel listened to him talk for hours.) Venice is a beautiful city. Water is everywhere. There are no cars inside the city, the only traffic is on the outskirts of the city. So you are either on foot or in a boat. This was a cool experience because everything was slowed down a lot more that you're used to like in downtown Toronto. Rachel and I stayed at another campground with a free shuttle into the city. We ate at a restaurant on side street somewhere that was cheap and excellent. Bought Joe and Darryl gifts (my Italian friends) and hopefully they get it in the mail in the next few weeks. Venice was a lot of walking and eating Gelato (Rachel) and Pizza (me) but being surrounded by water and boats wherever you turned was a great feeling. The old chair was sitting on the side of the road, Rachel pointed it out and she thought it made for a good picture. I thought she was right.

We jumped on a train to Milan and went straight to the airport and slept at the aiport. I found us a spot on the second floor which most people seemed to have missed so it was quiet and we had a pretty good sleep there surprisingly enough. From Milan we flew into Athens, Greece.

Athens has been really cool to be in. Last night Rachel and I walked up on top of Mars Hill (you know that place that all the 'cool' churches name themselves after). We didn't even know we were on it until today but I made Rachel stay up there for two hours so we could watch the sunset and Athens slowly transition into the night. Mars Hill gives you the most gloriuous view of the city. You can see for miles and the city goes for Miles. There is no skyscrapers blocking your view so you can see up to the mountains all the way around Athens. It is absolutly beautiful. It's hard to explain how wild it is to see. It makes you feel like your in an entire new world. Then today (Day 15) Rachel and I went up to Mars Hill again and went up further to the Acropolis and all the acient ruins that lie around it. The view from there is even more spetacular, and you have the structures that were built thousands of years ago to stand on. Sometimes I've been wishing I paid a little more attention in my history classes. Tonight we leave on a fairy to spend two nights on Santorini Island of Greece, to relax, sleep and swim at the beaches. It's supposed to be one of the most beautiful islands in the world so we are hoping to rent a car or moped when we are there to be able to get aroud to the sites better.

It´s becoming sort of a whirlwind at this point. We are flying way too fast through every city, and coutry trying to experience everything at once and getting to our flight that leaves for Greece. We arrived at our campsite in Munich late Friday night to a pleasant surprise. A camp full of fun Irish, already drunk and having a lot of fun, clean showers and just a friendly staff all together and a €3 steak. We slept in a tent that slept probably around 350 people. It was huge but there was only probably 50 people there, so we went off in a corner to sleep.

The day in Munich was mostly consumed by a festival we found called Tollwood Festival which was basically Artwalk times 1000. It was huge, vendors everywhere, food everywhere. It was a blast. Then to top it off the Euopean World Cup of Track and Field was also going on right next door. Germans have such roaring loud voices. The architecture of the stadium was also pretty unique, I posted a picture of it below. We spent a little bit of time in the city center and ate raspberries and blueberries and they were good throughout the crowded center.

Salzburg is a story all on its own. The Sound of Music tour ended up sucking a lot (who would have thought) so went by ourselves to see some of the sites after. The mountains and sites here are absolutly beautiful. A lot like the Rocky Mountains. We ended up getting a hotel because it was going to be the same price as a hostel for us and it was next to the Hilton in Toronto. We had a living room, massive bathroom with a nice tub, balcony, sauna downstairs, a little kitchen and everything. We couldn´t beleive it, especially for the price we got it for. It was nice to have a good nights sleep. We also climbed up the side of this mountain (there was stairs) to get a view from where this castle was sitting. You can see the castle in the night shot below. It was so high and really gave a great view of the city and mountains. Our train got cancelled for Venice so we got stuck here for another 12 hours. So we have been wondering around and met an actor who is now a hotel inspector and hung out with him for a number of hours. While we were eating dinner with him we sat under an unbrella during the middle of a hail storm. It was hilarious watching people trying to get out of the way and listening to the loud banging of marble sized hail hitting all around us. We leave in a few hours to Venice...more to come then.

Since my last post we`ve been to Switzerland and to Austria, and now we are in Munich, Germany. We´ve been moving a bit too fast to really get a great feel let alone blog of any city but its been a lot of fun nonetheless.

Switzerland has definitly been the most beautiful so far, nature wise. The Alps are all beautiful and the houses are all throughout the hills and its just quite a scene to see all the houses. Life seems more simpler there. People are gardening everywhere and seem so laid back and relaxed. Everything is double the price there though. $11.00 for a Big Mac meal. We didn´t spend that much time in any big cities there, but we took trains to small cities, since we have a Euro Pass. I posted some pictures below of a place called Lucern and a river flows right through the city with all these beautiful bridges that go over top of it. The one picture is of Rachel because she wanted to give the swan the rest of our Swiss Cheese.

In Austria we went to Wien, or in English we call is Vienna. This has been the most spectacular city yet. Everywhere you walk there is massive (I MEAN HUGE) castles everywhere and statues. You feel like you are walking somewhere that is all 1000 years old and if you ignore the cars you really can bring yourself back. It started making me wonder why the heck no one lives in beautiful buildings like these anymore. I guess probably because if our presidents started building castles and statues of themselves then us being a democratic state and all would get upset. However, I´m glad they did then, because its absolutly glorious.

One thing that sticks out about Amsterdam is the large quanties of bikes EVERYWHERE. It is quite ridiculous. They don't have parking garages with three or four floors for cars, but they do for their bikes. Below is a picture of a parking garage normally used for cars, but this one was only bikes. They also have three lanes of traffic on every street. One for cars, one for bikes and one for walkers. It makes getting around quite an ordeal and you always have to be looing out for traffic of all sorts. The mopeds ride in the bike lane but about 20 times the speed also, so they go whizzing by you. So Rachel and I couldn't resist, we rented bikes today and rode around.

The first stop was the Anne Frank House. They take you on a tour of the house that she hid in while walking you through her story. The story never ceases to amaze me. I put a quote up on my blog about her here a few weeks ago.

Then we biked around Amsterdam. Along the beautiful canals, and through the streets. We stopped and ate at this cafe who made us sandwiches on homemade bread with Dutch cheese on top. The cool part about this cafe was that everything in it, including the plate that you were eating off of was for sale. It was a restaurant mixed with a second hand store. Were gonna head in a few minutes on a boat cruise through some of the canals.

Tonight we head off to Zurich, Switzerland and will arive there at 8:30 in the morning. This is our first over night train, so we will see how it goes. Here are some pics.

Today and last night we spent in Belgium (Brussels if you want to know the city, Darryl). It was probably the most beautiful city I have ever seen. The architecture was out of this world and the city square was probably the most fascinating. We ate at a little Greek shop that was probably the most food we got for our Euro this trip so far, not to mention how amazing it was. We also bought a bunch of chocolate and because it was so much we mailed it home. So those of you at theStory, there should be a few blocks coming your way soon, my parents will bring it with them when then get it. Another reason to wake up for chuch :) Church after church of beautiful buildings and all of them were open to go inside and look around. Below are a few pictures of the city square, another amazing building that is up on a hill that overlooks the entire city and my favourite church that we were at (not those kind of pics).

Now we are in Amsterdam. Very dirty, in every sense of the word, but the freedom is refreshing in an odd sort of way. Water canals everywhere and the city is full of life at night, especially in the Red Light District, which did I mention dirty? Pics and thoughts to come on the next post.

Today we are in Ireland and it's Aaron's birthday.
We met Rachel's sister and husband (Aaron) in Ireland at the last leg of their trip.
So to celebrate we went to a pub here in Ireland.
We also saw a World Street Perfomer Festival (pics to come).
I drank my first ever full beer, and it was a Guiness and disgusting. But I did it for Joe.
We had many drunk Irish folk sing Aaron a song and then we left.
Ireland is probably the most laid back, casual, fun and exciting country I've ever been to. Canada needs to be more like Ireland.
Here are some pics.

Rachel and I just left London, England. It was a lot of fun. We spent most of the day walking and doing the typical stops. Big Ben, Westminister Abbey...you know stuff like that. A few realizations after being there for the second time.

1. People in the UK are generally nicer people. People give you directions, chat with you when you're stopped somewhere and even yell at you if they see your Canadian patch that we so conveniently sewed on our backpack.

2. Everything is ridiculously expensive.

3. It was 4:30 in the morning when we checked in for our flight to Ireland this morning, and Rachel and I watched the bar area fill up while a large number of people grabbed pints of beer. 4:30 in the freakin morning. I understand Ron so much better now.

4. We followed our 800 page Europe book an hour out of our way North of London to a restaurant called New Culture Revolution. The mounds of food that we got for the same price as our crappy lunch earlier that day in downtown London, that made us happy.

5. We had to have walked 20 km yesturday with our backpacks weighing in at 20 pounds and 30 pounds. My Crocs are holding out well and so are Rachel's anti-blister socks.

6. Sleeping on airport floors sucks.

Today we start Ireland. It's raining and we are sharing a room with Rachel's sister Danielle and her husband Aaron, a girl we met on the bus and who knows who else. We just spent £7 on a crappy breakfast something you could get for $3 in Sarnia. We're loving it though. Rachel still loves me and I love her even though we lost her baggage on the flight from New York and I'm singing annoying songs every few minutes. A good afternoon/night sleep should do us well.

Rachel and I have bought brand new hiking bags, booked some hostels, a few flights, bought Euro Passes, shaved my head, cut Rachel's hair, got someone to live at our house, got a free gift of a 80 gb Video IPod, and Rachel just won a 2gb IPod Nano, and as of this morning we are off to Europe. Where are we going in Europe you ask? Well we fly into England, then Ireland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, France, Spain and then back to England. For how long? We fly out the 13th of June and fly back the 18th of July. Then we are home for a few days then head right back out to enjoy some cottages up North. I would love to be able to post every once in a while. I'm sure I'll be thinking lots especially interacting with all these different cultures, so we'll see how the internet connection goes. I am bringing my laptop and of course my camera.

So if I don't post you know why. If I do post, you'll be lucky cause the blog will be full of beautiful words of deep and wondrous meaning.

A lot of times we speak without knowing. I think when it comes to Africa, foreign aid, poverty and other social topics we are all guilty. I’m reading a book right now called the Road to Hell which is about how foreign aid organizations are hurting the third world countries and keeping them poor (or making them poorer). This was a concept way beyond anything I could have imagined five years ago. But now, it doesn’t surprise me as I am a bit more enlightened. It hurts to read, not because I’m eating up everything he’s saying and taking it for pure factual truth, but because it reveals a side to the situations that if we don’t look for it, we’ll never find it and we’ll never care.

What ends up happening is we take what we think we know from whatever source whether it be hear-say, propaganda or intuition and we base our own beliefs and standards off these things. How many times have you heard the age-old saying of eat your food there is poor kids in Africa who don’t even get dinner. Or just the idea that those in Africa need or want our help. Or the idea that homeless people who beg for money don’t want to get a job. Or that all native people are a certain stereotype. Or that all Christians are anti-intelligent. Or that all Christians are perfect. Or that we should do everything that Jesus did. We all have our ideals that we want to hold on to with all our hearts.

The point. Not everything you believe is right. And it never will be. Never assume just because it’s on TV, your parents told you so or it just is ‘obvious’ or ‘common sense’ that there is no need for further inquisition. There always is. Nothing can slip through.

I think I wrote that because I was annoyed. I’m annoyed that all this time I thought sponsoring children, missions trips to Africa and all the poor big bellied children on TV were the real thing. Now I’m starting a harsh realization that maybe I’m being naïve to think it is how it’s presented to me. Maybe I need to dig a bit deeper. Maybe there is a lot to learn, and maybe my bubble is far from even being burst. I’ll probably be posting more as I trek through this book and a few others.

When we think of sharing we think of little kids having to share their toys. As we get older it becomes sharing the rake or lawnmower out of our shed to our neighbours. It usually consists of giving something of yours to someone else, with the understanding that you’re going to get it back when they are done. This isn’t a bad characteristic to learn by any means however I don’t think it really encapsulates what it means to share and what it should mean to us.

Sharing to those following Jesus takes on other ideals like selflessness and stewardship. The first thing that needs to be understood is whatever it is that we may need to share; it was never ours to begin with. As soon as you treat sharing as a transaction between the borrower and the one borrowing then we have strayed from the underlying importance of what sharing really means. Sharing, at its utmost core, is giving to someone what is rightfully theirs as much as it is yours. Typically we don’t like this and tend to stray away from this type of thinking because we don’t like to think anyone has a right to something that we earned. If I saved up and bought my car, then there is no way in the world that anyone else has a right to use it, especially before me. However, sharing trumps silhouettes of ownership and exposes the world as it really is: everything owned by God.

To share is not to allow someone to use something of mine but to allow other people to partake in what God has provided. We are mere stewards of everything we have: time, money, skills and stuff. To buy into the lie that it is actually ours, even if it was our own sweat that landed in on our laps is to buy into a false and upsetting reality. The world is God’s and everything in it.

Remember that next time you need to share something, drive someone somewhere or do something for someone. Don’t make it into a them being needy and you being a giver situation, because that eventually turns sour. Don’t make it into them needing you to make it another day. See it for what it really is; you giving as many people access to what God has given to his creation. Seeing provisions as a blessing and not a paycheck. Seeing helping someone as natural as helping yourself instead of seeing it as another reason for you to be above them. Sharing is not about you being the giver and someone else being the receiver. Instead, its about us all being the receivers of what God has given to us already and us trying to do a good job of sorting and evening that out.

Barry and I had a booth at Artwalk this weekend. We didn't sell much but we made lots of good connections, especially for the Sarnia Film Fest. Here is all the pictures that we were selling. Of course if you want any, you can always let us know.
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One of the Catholic churches in Sarnia is closing. St Peters Catholic Church, and the community isn't very happy about. This church is actually only a few blocks from where theStory meets.
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Kevin has a new song up and its great. He used drum tracks and did it all in a room in his house. I must say, technology now a days really does make for a great platform for artists trying to get exposure. Go to his myspace and click on the songs "Somewhere New."
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One of the reasons I love Sarnia is because you run into your friends everywhere. I was walking into city hall today to drop off a photo that was purchased at Artwalk this weekend and there was Dave with a sign that said "Save Logan Pond" walking back and forth in front of city hall. You gotta love Dave. Read more about the protest here.
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Ever wanted to start your own facebook, flickr, google, ebay type website. Here is the how-to.