Congrats to Mr. & Mrs. Gilman!!!

I spent the past weekend in Narragansett, RI to witness my best friend from college - Gilly - get married to an incredible girl - Carolyn. Yes, those of you who know Gilly, you heard me right - he's married. For those of you that don't know him, this is he:

Narragansett is a cool little beach town just over the Connecticut border - nice beach, good eats & a real solid nightlife. Thursday was just the family and the wedding party for rehearsal and rehearsal dinner - lots of fun! The highlight was Mr. Gilman acknowledging Jon & Carolyn in his speech at the dinner and us realizing that neither were present. He stopped, waited, and moments later they each came out of the bathroom - classic Gilly form. And no it was NOT the same bathroom...

The wedding was on Friday at a spot called The Towers; a beautiful venue right on the water.

Here's the beautiful couple:

Carolyn, why the hell did you decide to marry Gilly???

The only negative about the entire weekend was that it was 102 degrees on Friday and this old building wasn't air conditioned!!! Wearing a three piece suit (as Gilly had picked out for the groomsmen) was not fun. Several members of the bridal party sweat through their entire suit - believe it or not I was not one of them.

Tulane was obviously in the house!

It was a nice quick ceremony (which included a bagpiper - pimp) followed by an awesome reception, and then we headed to a cool bar right next door for the 'after party'.

Guys, quick, do something gay if you're having fun (look how hard Doug is trying...)

Saturday was AWESOME! The day went: Bar - Beach - Bar - BYOB Restaurant (in a schoolbus they had arranged) - Different Bar (in schoolbus) - Hotel Bar (in schoolbus).
I do not have a single picture from Saturday because from the hours of 11am - 1am I did not set down my drink long enough to operate a camera.

Great wedding! Great Weekend! CONGRATS CAROLYN & GILLY!!!

Amsterdam

After a week in Italy we said arrivederci and boarded our plane to Amsterdam. We figured this would be a great way to cap an incredible trip.
Mike - if you're excited about going to Amsterdam grab your right leg, raise your left arm and look like a homo.

Okay, now that that's out of the way let's go!
Upon arrival we checked into our hotel - which was right by this beautiful old train station - and then grabbed a quick dinner. Here's a view from our hotel:

After dinner it was pretty obvious what we were doing - finding a coffee shop and then walking through the red light district (believe it or not we didn't go to amsterdam for the Van Gogh Museum). About a block from our hotel we stumbled upon Resin, our first coffee shop experience:

After about 4 minutes in there I felt like this:

Buckley looked like this (yes he's sitting on a swing):

And Stephen saw double when he looked in the mirror:

We wandered around the red light district and grabbed a couple of drinks but didn't do all that much on our first night. However, we did learn a valuable lesson - coffee shops close at 1am, and bars close at 2am. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal but when you've just spent the last week in Italy out until 5am every single night that's quite a changeup...

To be totally honest Amsterdam didn't quite live up to my expectations. I attribute that to a number of things:
(1) My expectations were ridiculously high
(2) It followed Italy - which was one of the most incredible weeks of my life
(3) The city was not nearly as clean as I had expected
(4) There were some details about some of the rules/policies/common practices that I found unappealing. I will not elaborate further because I don't know what I can legally say in the US about these matters and I'm not interested in confessing to crimes committed on International Waters...

We spent all of our time in Amsterdam exploring the city, by foot & bike (except for me) and popping in and out of coffee shops and bars. The city does have some beautiful old buildings and it's cool how canals run through the city as well.

Our second night brought more of the same - a combination of coffee shops, bars & wandering. However, I saw one of the most ridiculous things ever. I don't know if this story will translate and I might have been so flabbergasted due to my consumption choices from earlier that day, but here it goes:
The red light district is just blocks and blocks of glass doors with prostitutes behind them. There were main streets, small alleys, even dead end blocks - real shady stuff. So we're walking through this area and turn up a side street, as we're walking, the 'street' is getting narrower and narrower and becomes an alley. It continues to get so narrow that you have to walk single file to continue - It was the sketchiest thing ever. Finally you pop out of this tiny opening onto a main street. After escaping that passageway with my wallet and life I was relieved and looked back to see the following sign:

The blue sign is telling parents to hold their children's hand. We had seen this sign in other parts of the city where there was a lot of traffic (crossing the street in Amsterdam is an adventure all in itself), but to have this sign in the middle of Hookerville at the entrance to the shadiest alley that I've ever seen is beyond absurd! They should post a police officer there and arrest any parent that emerges from there with a child. I found it ridiculous and thought it might be worth sharing.

As we made our way back to the hotel I almost got into an altercation with an advertisement, but we worked things out and we all retired for the evening.

Sunday had come - our last full day in Europe...
We decided to actually do something today, what better than to tour the original Heineken factory.

We had lots of Heineken, followed by lunch and lots of Amstels, followed by dinner, coffee shop visits and lots of Heinekens & Amstels. It was kind of anti-climatic but we did have a really good final dinner at an Argentinian Steakhouse, as well as some good stories, laughs and obviously a lot of reminiscing.

On Monday we picked up a couple of last minute souvenirs, enjoyed one final beer at the oldest bar in Amsterdam (which we had just learned the night before was right next to our hotel) and then headed to the airport for our flight home.
Although it might not have met my lofty expectations it was a lot of fun and an excellent way to end the trip.

Florence!

Following our great Roman adventure we took a train to Florence.
Mikey - you ready to go to Florence?

We stayed in this real cool boutique hotel, however there were members of our group that were convinced that it was haunted and spent the 48 hours in Florence living in fear.
Florence is a beautiful city with gorgeous architecture and it's built for walking. We spent a majority of our two days there walking around and boozing & eating at cafes.

While walking we saw some interesting things, including but not limited to:
A bicycle that didn't get me anywhere (yeah I'm sucking on a Chupa Chup, what of it?):

Some nice art - this is me trying to get head from a head:

And, Kyle Style! Our buddy Kyle enjoyed holding himself up horizontally on street signs. This street sign happened to be perfect b/c the sign is like the opposite of what he's doing:

Kyle did this on a lightpost in Rome and his legs almost got clipped by a bus - so comical and scary all at the same time!
After appertivos and drinks at this awesome spot called Moyo, we had a nice dinner and lots of wine. Then we attempted to go to a club that we had heard a lot about, Central Park. After about an hour of trying to get a cab I decided that I'd have a better go at it on my own - bad call. I wandered the streets for awhile and got some more cocktails before finally getting to the club (about a half hour after the other guys had arrived). The effort was well worth it; this club was SICK!

Somehow Mike, Mike & I managed to get into the VIP room where we hung out with a group of American girls that were studying abroad. We got shitty until the wee hours of the night and then returned to our hotel and called it a night.

Our second day in Florence was spent pretty much the same as the first - lots of walking and drinking with some eats worked in. The food in Florence was by far the best. During the day, at cafes, we ate lots of pizza and Florence did pizza well!

On our second night we went to dinner at a restaurant that came highly recommended by a lot of people (both Americans & Italians), Giostra. It did not disappoint - this was the best meal of the entire trip! The manager said that they are looking into opening one in NY. If they ever do I can assure you that I'll be there for the opening.

Following dinner we decided to go back to Central Park - if it ain't broke don't fix it; besides it was Thursday night so it had to be even better than a Wednesday, right? It was fucking closed!!! Not cool. So we asked the cab driver if there was anything else similar that we could go to. He told us that he had just the spot - after a 5 minute cab ride we roll up to a different club - closed! The cab driver told us that there was one other place but it was about 20 minutes away. We had no other option so we told him to take us and held our breaths that it would be open. Great Call!
We arrived at a place called Flo. Initially the bouncer didn't let us in b/c I was wearing an undershirt (not even kidding), but after all of that effort we were not getting denied. We agreed to get a table and bottle service and all of a sudden my attire was a non-issue...
I liked Central Park better, but Flo was freaking awesome too - we had a ridiculous night, met some cool people, and the manager from Giostra even showed up and chilled with us for awhile.

One of the chicks that I was talking to was French - things were going real well until she told me that she wanted to 'piss on me'. Not kidding, those were her exact words. The pure terror in my face combined with the uncontrollable laughter from Buckley made for an unforgettable experience for all that witnessed it.
In case you're wondering what a golden shower faucet looks like, see below:

They made last call and put on Coolio's Gangsta Paradise - to which we all wiled the fuck out - and just like that our last night in Italy was over.
After some lunch and last minute shopping the following day we all said Ciao to Italy with a heavy heart.

Rome, Sweet, Rome

After an epic weekend in Capri we jumped on a train and headed north for Rome.
Mike are you excited to go to Rome?

I'll take that as a YES!

We arrived on Sunday evening and got right back into our routine - lots of drinks, cuban cigars for me, and an awesome dinner. We found a little cafe where the ridiculously flamboyant gay owner (Giuseppe) told Kyle that he wouldn't even watch him in a gay porno. That was good for a laugh. Kyle was so upset that I had to console him in the gayest way possible to make him feel better.

After dinner we bounced around to some bars - the neighborhood we were in was a lot of fun, it had almost a college town feel to it. At the last bar we visited Jay found someone special and was very upset when it was time to leave:

Our first full day in Rome we took to the streets and walked up the equivalent of Rodeo Drive in Rome (I definitely don't remember the name of the street). It was a really nice walk and we came across my retail store

We also walked through some incredible piazzas & squares and found great elevated viewpoints overlooking the entire city.



Not too far from where we took the above picture we came across the trippiest "park" with crazy art - weird designs, colors, shapes. I thought we had arrived in Amsterdam early. My favorite sculpture by far was Super Queeros (this is Batman laying down and Superman about to mount him):

After walking around all day we stumbled upon the coolest row of bars/clubs on the banks of the Tiber River (which runs right through the city). We chilled at a really cool place with an awesome DJ and we were introduced to Apertivo! Apparently it's common in Italy (and throughout Europe) for bars/cafes to put out huge free buffets from like 6 - 9. It's amazing!

We stayed at the bar until last call and then headed home for the night.

We organized a private tour of ancient Rome - the forum & the coliseum - for Tuesday, our final full day in Italy's capital. We got a great history lesson and our guide was a total smokeshow!

After our tour was over we walked around the Vatican on our own, which was cool, and then found a most interesting mode of transportation that some of the boys took out for a spin.

After a long day of wandering the Roman streets we had an incredible dinner at a restaurant near our hotel and then headed out for one last shit-show in Rome.
No pictures from our last night in Rome but I can assure that we tore it up.

Capri!

We started our European adventure with a weekend in Capri, a small island off the coast of Naples. I can't put into words how beautiful this island is. Our hotel was in the perfect location, right next to the Marina. Vanna, I mean Mikey, why don't you show the nice people what I'm talking about:

Thank you.

Here's another shot of the island & view:

Within about 6 hours of being on the island we were already regulars at a cafe located right on the marina - incredible for beers, people watching and olives! Our waiter, Roberto, was the man and took good care of us (probably b/c we were tipping at 20% when most Europeans don't tip at all...).

On our first night we took a cable car up to the square - an area surrounded by narrow streets of high-end retail shops, restaurants, cafes & bars. At night there was live music, dancing and lots of drinking. I LOVE the square - we owned that bitch!

After an incredible dinner we sat and had a couple more bottles of wine, a few cuban cigars and lots of laughs. We then got a table at the best club in Capri (without knowing it at the time). After lots more drinks and some dancing we decided it was 4:30am and time to go, we had been getting after it straight from the airport about a day and a half earlier.

However, upon leaving the club we came across a packed outdoor cafe and decided to grab another table. A few more Peronis and some croissants later we finally took a cab home. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Waking up for day 2 we knew that our goal was to rent a boat and circle the island while checking out some of the caves & grottos, and most importantly jumping off of cliffs! We found Gennarino, an awesome 80 year old that was from one of the oldest families on Capri, to take us out on his boat. The water level was too high to go into the Blue Grotto so we couldn't go there - that was probably the only disappointment of the whole trip - but we did get to visit some other caves and see incredible views of the island from the sea.

That left just one thing to do before returning to the marina - CLIFF JUMPING!!!
I'm awaiting the video which I'll post under a different heading once I get it from our cameraman (Mike).
Sorry, I stand corrected, Jay had a second thing that he also had to get out of his system before we headed back to shore:

Once we collected our things and got off the boat we went to see our good friend Roberto for a few more beers (and by a few I obviously mean dozens).
After showers and a little down time we headed out for the night. Since the first night was so epic we decided to do it all over again, just with a different restaurant for dinner. This restaurant had an incredible view and the meal was absolutely amazing (and crazy expensive) with the best dish being our lobster spaghetti.

Following dinner we headed back to the square and got our same pimp table, enjoyed drinks, cigars and conversation then headed back to the club with some friends that we made during the day.

While at the club we met another American - Ashley Olsen. We chatted to her for a minute but she was unhappy and shocked that I didn't know who she was. Oh well.

We left the club at around 5am and went to our after hours cafe, where the same waiter gave us the same table and brought out the exact same order from the night before - Peronis & croissants.
After an hour or two I was told that it was time to go home. I didn't feel like leaving yet and expressed my disdain:

We took a cab home as the sun was coming up over the marina. What a beautiful sight...

We had a couple of hours on Sunday before we had to leave for the train station, but we were pretty wiped (and soar from the cliff jumping) so we just laid around and then took the ferry back to the main land to get our train to Rome. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect way to start our trip. Capri is one of the most incredible places that I've ever been and I'll never forget it.