I've been toying with the idea of changing the DetailSD website and I could use your opinions.  I have a rough cut of a new one made up, so if you have a minute, check it out and let me know what you like better! Here is the link to the other one:  http://www.wix.com/christopheristo/detailsd
Just leave a comment here on the blog and let me know what you think.
Also, if I've detailed your car and you want to write me a testimonial to put up on the site... I'd love it!!!
Thank you all in advance and again, can't wait to see you guys when i come home!

Tonight Algeria played Egypt in a world cup qualifier match.  Egypt hasn't been to the world cup since 1990 and Algeria hasn't been since 1986.  Naturally, this was a huge match!  Algeria ended up winning, and all of Marseille's huge Algerian population decided to "celebrate" downtown and the Vieux Port.  A buddy and I had gone downtown for a cafe this afternoon and ended up staying for a beer. We noticed quite a few riot police set up all around, but didn't really think much of it as its pretty common lately.  So we were sitting at a cafe drinking and talking when we start to hear some commotion and see two guys standing on a balcony with flares.  It gradually grew to more and more people so we decided to go check it out.  We went around the corner to the port and there were just masses of people and the entire sky was red with the flares.  The streets were all closed down around us and there were people going nuts on scooters riding in all directions.  I've never seen anything like this before in my life.  I can now say I've been in a riot!  We got closer to the center of it and it was just pure madness.  There were flares, all sorts of fireworks, cars drifting around corners with people hanging out the windows, multiple scooter crashes, people jumping into the water where all the boats park, people doing wheelies on scooters with 2 people on it, people riding on the shoulders of people driving scooters, the longest Algerian flag I've ever seen (probably 50 ft long), just pure insanity!  It was nuts.  We stuck around for a while, but then headed home when people started throwing these little exploding firecrackers into crowds. Not  so much fun.  We also had to figure out how to get home, since they shut down the entire city transportation system because of this.  One very long walk and 2 hitchhiked rides later and we were safely back at home.  An Egyptian friend here said that things are even crazier in other places.  His brother called to make sure he was okay as there were people getting killed in Egypt because of this.  People take their football pretty seriously here!  
In other news, I'm going to Florence again next weekend!  One of the school's organizations is organizing a trip there for a very reasonable price so tons of people are going.  Should be a lot of fun!  And Dec 4th i'm headed to Paris and possibly Bordeaux on the way home.  Gotta squeeze in some time to do schoolwork at some point...
My trip is quickly coming to a close and I'm really not ready for it to be over!  I've been trying to do as much as possible and enjoy every minute while I'm here because before I know it, it will all be over.  
Anyway, it's late here so i'm going to head to bed and hopefully get a ton of homework done tomorrow!  See you all in about a month.

Finally back home after an awesome week!  Sunday my friend Ray and I left for Belgium and after a bus, a metro, another bus, a plane, another bus, 2 more trains, and a tram we finally arrived in Gent!  We met up with Xavier at the train station and he showed us to our hostel and then we went out for a traditional Belgian meal.  Consisted of bicky burgers and belgian fries.  The fries lived up to their reputation (they're amazing) but the bicky burgers were a little strange.  Here's the deal.  The burgers are the pride of Belgium but  nobody is allowed to know the recipe for what's in the patty.  So it's basically mystery meat.  And if you're caught filling someone in on the recipe or if you try to recreate it, you go to jail.  I only ate one...
The next day we rented bikes and rode all over the city.  It's a really beautiful city with tons of old buildings and churches.  In fact, there was a castle right across the street from our hostel!  We explored a few of the churches, stopped at every single chocolate shop, ate Belgian waffles and Belgian hot chocolate for lunch, and tried as many Belgian beers as we could.  That night another friend from Marseille met us there and continued the rest of the trip with us.

We spent one more full day in Gent riding around on bikes and then early Wednesday morning, we left for Italy!  We left at about 6 in the morning and got to Florence at around 2:30 that afternoon.  Italy is so nice!  We found our hostel and just walked around the city a bit, then found a nice restaurant to go have our first Italian meal.  It was really really good.  We actually ran into a couple other friends from school before dinner, then after dinner ran into even more.  What are the chances?  
The next day we toured around the city all day.  We took a free walking tour through the hostel which was pretty interesting, we went into Il Duomo, saw Ponte Vecchio, and saw the Statue of David!  All pretty amazing stuff.  That evening we hopped on another train and headed to Rome.
After about a 4 hour train ride we had arrived and were all really excited to be there.  We had originally not booked a hostel for that night, thinking we could just take an overnight train and sleep on the train right?  Well our plan didn't work out as it was 9 o'clock and we were already there.  So we went to the hostel that we had booked for the next night, assuming we could stay there.  Full.  Checked two other hostels, full.  Finally we were walking to a third when an Indian guy walks up to us and asks if we were looking for a hostel.  Well.... yes, yes we are actually!  He promised us a private room for three, bathroom, and breakfast in the morning included all for 17 euros each.  A little bit sketchy but we decided to go along with it and see what it was all about.  We follow this guy to a Western Union/internet cafe where he goes in and finds another guy.  We follow the two of them down to the very end of this street and then they stop at this unmarked residential building.  No hostel signs anywhere!  We follow them upstairs and he has about 4 rooms on one of the floors and tells us this is his hostel.  To make a long story short, we stayed there.  Interesting night...
The next day we saw all of Rome.  We literally walked everywhere!  Saw the Coliseum, the ruins, countless churches, the Trevi fountain, the Vatican, the pantheon, and tons more.  It was really awesome.  To be honest, I liked Florence more as it was just a nicer looking city, but it was really cool seeing all of these sights in Rome.  This was our last day in Italy and the next day we flew back to Marseille.
All in all, it was an amazing trip, the three of us had a lot of fun.  It is good to be back here though.  Been pretty busy this week with tons and tons of school work, but now its the weekend so I have a little bit of time to relax.  Look for pictures on Facebook soon, i'm going to try to put some up today.

We have vacation this week from school so it's time for another trip!  A buddy and I are headed to Ghent today and will be there until Wednesday.  We'll be visiting a Belgian friend who stayed with my family a few years ago.  Should be fun!  Another friend is meeting us there Tuesday and then Wednesday we're all heading to Florence for 2 days.  Meeting up with more friends from school there and then catching a train to Rome until Saturday.  Should be a fun trip!   Wish us luck and expect lots of pictures when I get back.