Skate hard, party harder.

THOSE WERE THE WORDS of TNT's victory speech in Austria, and that's what we did. For nearly a month Trujillo, Tony Miorana, Brent Atchley and I traveled around Europe with no set plans or responsibilities. No mandatory demos, only one obligatory contest--Marseille Bowl riders--and no higher-ups telling us what to do.

MARSEILLE BEAUCOUP 

THE FIRST STOP was the Marseille contest. This annual event is what got all of us over there to begin with. Omar won for the second year in a row and, although in the past there were doubts as to whether he deserved it or if it was just some Quiksilver scheme, this year he took it pretty much hands-down. He adapted quickly to the new obstacles, pulling out nearly every trick in his bag. I think the only one he didn't do was a 540.

Once again Dave Duncan was the announcer, and he loves to mix foreign phrases with English ones (hence the title of this section). By the end of the weekend his phrases got repetitive and he seemed like one of those dolls, a drunken one, where you pull a string and it blurts out a phrase. That weekend he had three main ones:

No joke: used like "This kid is no joke." He even used "no joke" to describe a bridge in Italy.

Joint factory: In Europe they smoke their marijuana in hash form, which is broken up and mixed with tobacco. The French were constantly rolling up joints.

Are you kidding me?: Used similar to "No joke." Such as, "Frontside rock on the big wall! Are you kidding me?" At one point on the bus from France to Italy I think he put them all in one. "Are you kidding me? This joint factory is no joke." And so it went on and on.

A WHOLE LOTTA BOLOGNA 

ONCE AGAIN, Etnies chartered a bus for everyone who wanted to compete in both Marseille and a contest in Austria the following weekend. This year Dreamland was building a park in Bologna, Italy, and there were plans to stop there between the two contests. The only problem was that the park was not finished due to several weeks of heavy rain. We went anyway. I was pretty sure that we would not be able to skate since the Dreamland crew needed to finish the park so that they could move on to their next job. Taking a few days off to let us skate would not get them home any sooner, but some people on the bus saw it differently. I even overheard one person say: "If we show up with 40 skaters, magazine photographers and video guys, they would surely let us skate." Well, that wasn't going to happen, and a few people that were on the bus were pretty bummed that they didn't get to skate. The others were amazed at witnessing the process of building an incredible park.

DA GUNTZ

I'VE BEEN to Brixlegg, Austria three times now, and have gotten to know some of the locals pretty well. This one kid Gunter is pretty much the Bart Simpson of Brixlegg. I saw him right when we got there and the first thing he tells me is that his teacher failed him and he was kicked out of school. His next plan of attack was to slash the tires of his teacher's car. I introduced him to Trujillo and Miorana so they would have a local tour guide. Gunter was good for showing us where the cheap places to eat were, the Internet cafe, and how to get water without gas.

Chris Senn won the contest in Brixlegg. I guess the word that comes to mind is annihilated. Senn started his run off with a hairball roll-in off the back of the cradle and into the deep end. Following that he attacked all the walls of the park, throwing out inverts, charging frontside airs, an alley-oop kickflip over a hip, and much more during the eight-minute jam session.

Trujillo took second place from the judges, but first place with the Austrian locals. Instead of making use of the crowded practice sessions, Tony could be found hanging out with the locals talking about metal bands, hacking the soccer ball and drinking from the seemingly never-ending keg of Steigel.

Third place went to Ben Krahn. Krahn switched it up this year by doing all the tricks higher and longer. This also resulted in a few out of the ordinary slams for Ben.

Wow. If that didn't read like a contest article from the late '80s, let me know

PARTY TIME

SO TRUJILLO WINS 3,000 CASH and suggests we go to Amsterdam. He offers to pay for all the food and beer while we're there. So we have the hotel desk call us a taxi to take us to the train station. Lo and behold, the taxi shows up and Chris Percival (AKA Chris Cab) is driving the thing. Chris not only skated in the contest, he nearly grinded the cradle and he owns the main taxi service in the town, so he gave us a ride to the main train station in Innsbruck on the house. Thanks Chris.

We spent two days in Amsterdam and it started to rain, so we split for Barcelona. Jose Noro was waiting for us at the train station--he not only had the best skate spots lined up for us, but he had a whole list of barn and parties to go to as well. The most notable was when El Homicidio, a punk band from Barcelona, played a show. It was definitely one of the best punk shows I have ever been to and I highly recommend checking them out if you are ever in Spain when they're playing.

Thanks to everyone who drove us around, showed us spots, and let us sleep on your floors; because without all of you, this trip would have lasted less than a week.