To begin, we flew from Minneapolis to Detroit to Rome, and then spent 3 days in Rome sightseeing. After Rome, we stopped off in nearby Tivoli to tour Villa d’Este and Villa Adriana.

The next stop was the remote Assergi (l’Aquila) near Gran Sasso. Here we had some lectures given by researchers working in the nearby Gran Sasso Laboratory. Due to some political reasons and safety concerns, we were not allowed to tour the Gran Sasso Laboratory (which is located deep within the heart of the mountain, connected to one of the tunnels thru the mountain).

Leaving Gran Sasso, we took a bus to Florence for some more sightseeing. There was a little bit of class work when we toured the European Gravitational Observatory about an hour outside of town. The EGO is looking for gravity waves using a very large interferometer. Neat stuff, really.

After spending a few nights in Florence, we stopped for the afternoon in Pisa before continuing on to Torino. Torino was just a quick layover until we left promptly the next morning for the Laboratory in the Frejus Tunnel (you know, the one that’s closed now because of the fire that killed 2 people).

Next stop was the beautiful Geneva, Switzerland, where we stayed 4 nights to tour the nearby CERN research facilities. After the 4th night in Geneva, we drove to Montreaux located on the other side of Lake Geneva to tour an old castle, Chateau de Chillon.

We then took the TGV from Geneva to Paris, a trip which lasted about 3.5 hours. After spending 3 nights in Paris (so 2 full days of sightseeing), the trip ended and we flew home.

I’ll try to write more about my experiences when I get the chance.

If you aren’t a friend or family, some 400 of those won’t be initially visible to you. If you are a Flickr user already, leave a message here and I’ll add you as a friend. If not, either leave your email and I’ll send you a password to get in, or sign up for Flickr and leave your screenname.

I’ve also put together about 30 photo sets that should be interesting to browse.

I uploaded some pictures of Boston and Durham to Flickr. Enjoy.

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• Chicago, Illinois: Visited Thursday thru Saturday for the Big 10 Men’s Basketball Tournament. I played in the pepband for the Gophers. We won our first game, but lost the second to Illinois.
• South Bend, Indiana: Visited Notre Dame Wednesday thru Sunday to visit my girlfriend, Ann Marie. The trip went well. I especially enjoyed all the Irish flair on St. Patrick’s Day.

• Durham, New Hampshire: Playing in the pepband for the Women’s Hockey Frozen Four. Go Gophers! We are flying out of Friday morning, returning Monday morning. I’ll let you know how it goes when I get back.

Two days only!

• Sat., Nov. 20 – 7 p.m.

• Sun., Nov. 21 – 3 p.m.

Call the Northrop Ticket Office at 612-624-2345 for tickets.

Here it is:

In case you didn’t get it, it’s a take on the Molson labels.

(Click for full size picture)

Minnesota Brass had a performance Saturday night in Blooming Prairie so I caught a ride down there with some friends in Minnesota Brass. I watched the Minnesota Brass rehearsal on Saturday afternoon and then they performed at nightfall as part of a a 100th year anniversary for the local bank. The Govenaires from St. Peter also performed their show. The event was finished with some fireworks that were “choreographed” to music, but the CD kept skipping so it was really quite terrible. The fireworks, however, were pretty awesome, especially for a small town like Blooming Prairie.

That evening almost a dozen of us crashed at Gary Tashima’s house. His mother was way too polite, going way out of her way to make sure everything was perfect. Gary’s younger brother looks just like Gary—it’s quite remarkable.

We sat and talked for a while, it was awesome to be able to reminisce with old band friends and meet some new people who will be joining the University of Minnesota’s Marching Band this fall. (Spat camp starts in under a month).

The weather during the night was quite nasty, lots of noisy thunder peals and bright flashes of lightning. I slept in a tent with Matt Beyer and Ryan (aka “That Guy”), but we didn’t stake out the corners—“Oh it won’t be windy or storm…” I had the joy of dashing out in the rain at 5am to grab tent stakes from the car and put stakes in the corners so that the tent wouldn’t try to blow over with us in it.

On Sunday we drove over to Le Sueur so Minnesota Brass could march in their parade. Sarah Henning and I helped distribute water to the corps members during the parade. Afterwards we enjoyed some overly buttered corn and other fair goodies.

The weekend was wonderful with the exception of the numerous down times that Sarah and I faced since we weren’t in Minnesota Brass like everybody else we were traveling with.

And if I have to eat Dairy Queen one more time this weekend…