JeremyLaDuke.com

I’ve discovered the BEST place in the world. And you may be shocked to discover where it is. I learned that the BEST place in the world is where your friends are. More specifically, where people who care about you are. The places I’ve had the most fun were the places where I had friends to enjoy my time with. Even in the most boring towns I’ve had fun, because I had friends there.

Jon is planning his bachelor party. The best place to go? Wherever you can get the most people together that care about you. Which is Thailand…. Just kidding.

Anyways… Relationships are what life is about. A relationship with God and with people. The places you are while those relationships are taking place are just backdrops. If you feel dead, you need to fill your life with more meaningful, deep relationships. I’ve also learned that if you aren’t expereincing these deep meaningful relationships, it’s almost definately your lack of participation. You want people to love you and show it? Do you love people and show it?

Next time you are hanging with your friends, tell them how much they mean to you and why. Everyone needs that. Everyone needs to be assured of their worth. The worth that is inherent to being a creation of God, the creator of the Universe.

Wow, it took long enough but I have photos from Roma up on the site. Pompeii photos coming soon! They are uploading as I type this! I’m killing time and money while I wait for a train to Spain. I’m going to Barcelona but must stop in Nice, France for a day or so.

Enjoy the photos!

Well, I can definately say that Cinque Terra has redeemed Italy for me. It’s beautiful here. There are five small towns. You hike through terraces and vinards to get to each town. The towns are amazingly beautiful, the beachs are gorgeous and the hikes take to places where postcard ready photos come by the dozens.

Cinque Terra sits on the Northwestern tip of Italy where it curves around to meet France. Iàm staying in a hotel in La Spezia just outside Cinque Terra. ALL hotels and hostels were booked in Cinque Terra. But Iàm a 5 minute train ride from there and La Spezia is beuatiful too. Each night Team Canada and I sat down for an AMAZING dinner. We ordered the only thing available…the house red wine along with a Margherita pizza to start. Then we ordered the most amazing pasta I’ve ever eaten, some of us got Ravioli, some Spaghetti, some Tortellini. All were amazing. We paid €3.30 for the pizza we split. €5.00 for each pasta and €2.00 for each quarter liter of wine. After that we walked down to the Gelateria. Oh my goodness. There were so many flavors. And the BIGGEST wallfle cone was only €2.00. A deal compaired to the tiny 1 scoop cones I paid €4 for in Roma. The old man at the counter gave us 4 scoops. Each a different flavor if we wanted. My last cone consisted of Caffé at the bottom, Chocolate, then Mint, and finally Berry. It was unbelievable. BEST ICE CREAM EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have about 3 weeks before I need to be in Athens, Greece. I’m gong to try and make it to southern France and Barcelona before I start greek island hopping. I hope to hit Santorini and Mikinos at least.

Yes Ian, I recently checked my voicemails. You are too funny. I don’t check them often since the service costs money to listen to them. Good to hear from you, send me an email!

Danielle has been recruited to plan out my Israel segment. Hopefully she’s not too busy! DDD, you need to send me a photo of yourself.

I’m so excited my website is working out. People from all different parts of my life are popping on here. Most recently… Larissa! This thing was specifically created for all of you and I’m so glad you all are finding it, and finding it useful. I’ll try to get photos up soon. It is super h ard to find cheap internet that is fast.

Ciao for now!

So I’m at the hotel bar. I see this girl who is of course very beautiful, and I’ve been noticing her all week. Unfortunaetly I think most of us know that if you don’t go talk to a girl right away–and this window may be something like 30 seconds–she may move to Goddess status. A place in your mind where you’ve already gotten married, had kids, moved to a topical island and live happily ever after with no worries and everything taken care of. And if you blow it, your life ends. The world is over.

She moved into this zone. But I have good news. I went up and talked to her anyways. Holy crap is that hard to overcome! She ended up being a complete bore. This of course is inevitable. Goddesses can never live up to their place in your mind. They are doomed from the point of christening.

So, the moral of the story? Don’t wait. Go talk to her immediately, before she becomes a Goddess, because Goddesses don’t exist.

So I took a train to Bari from Naples where I spent the night and then caught a n overnight ferry to the Greek island of Corfu where I met my Canadian buddies (both groups) from Berlin. I have one thing to say about Greece…. IT IS FREAKING AWESOME! So far it has been everything I hoped it to be scenic wise and culture wise. My accomoadtions were a bit odd for my tastes but it has been adventurous and interesting.

This particular hotel is an American/Canadian/Aussie/British college kid heaven. If you like drinking beer for breakfast, this is the place for you. It’s called the Pink Palace and is apparently notorious worldwide for being a party palace. Happy hour lasts from 4pm to 11pm where drinks and beers are 1.50 Euros and shots are 1 Euro.

Every other day the Booze Cruise runs for 6 hours taking drunk college kids around the island for cliff diving (before the drinking begins for safety reason of course), snorkling on a secluded beach only available by boat, swimming in a bat cave where the water is purple, and finally…once you are completely tanked, they take to to a little tiny “island” to hike of to the top where a ancient monestary sits in ruins, so you can pray for forgiveness of your days sins. I went… it was fun. And I took pictures of the highlights.

The internet sucks here. SLOW AS SNAILS. So I’ll haev to wait to upload photos.

The little towns around the island are amazing. You can buy anything you need in these little shops and resturants. We rented some 4-wheeler ATVs and cruised around the island ALL day. We saw little villages and coves with beautiful beaches. The weather has been terrific!

I think my next stop will be a little village in north Italy…don’t know how to spell it so I’ll leave you guessing for now. But I’ll be joining my Canadian buddies there before I head BACK to Greece for a few more days of island hoping before my final desination of Athens where I catch a flight to Egypt.

Love and MISS YOU ALL! WRITE ME EMAILS!