I'm in Idar-Oberstein, Germany right now. oy...I haven't written here in awhile. quick summary before moving onto europe...

fun fun leo party last weekend where all sorts of friends from all sorts of social circles appeared at todd and olke's house. i took lots of pictures but haven't uploaded them yet online..you'll see it soon. took jon out for dinner for his bday at a yummy place on queen anne called sapphire on wednesday...and on friday, headed to george, wa at the gorge to see the area:one concert where moby, outkast, new order, paul oakenfold, timo maas, rhinocerese, the orb and the roots performed/dj'd. went with gary and had an amazing amazing time. saw eugene and party briefly but lost them.

and on saturday, i got on a plane for a long 15-hour journey over to frankfurt where Wil picked me up and took me back to here where he's stationed at the Baumholder U.S. Army Base. what a surreal world this is...not only being in a foreign country but also seeing a military base in another country. There's a whole community here so that one can feel like they're still in the U.S. I couldn't believe how cheap all the food items were in the grocery store...all subsidized by the government. he lives in this amazing apartment in the country that's huge...and the army pays for it. so this is where our tax money goes... Idar-Oberstein is a small conglomeration of several little towns just a little bit west of Frankfurt...quite peaceful actually. I love the view from his balcony, overlooking a bunch of hills with some houses nestled within. Tomorrow, I going to take a really last minute random trip up to Bielefeld where my friend Tanyel is studying law. I met Tanyel the summer of 1997 at summer school and that was the last time I saw him. I'm not going to have that much time with him...only about 5 hours...but it'll be worth it. I would've ended up just sitting in Wil's apartment watching TV or sleeping anyway...might as well make use of that time by....oh...traveling all the way to northern Germany for a day. And then on Tuesday is the long haul road trip (6 hours) to go to Prague, which is my primary reason for coming here in the first place---to attend Peter and Klara's wedding on Wednesday. Quite exciting.