Hello again all!I dont have much time as I am using the computer at the reception desk in a hotel I am not staying in, but Team Ironsides has made it to Kazakhstan!!  We crossed the border this morning, our convoy having grown to 5 cars.  There are many many stories involving Russian police pull overs, statues, and me leading about 14 guys from Russia into Kazakhstan in my little Fiat.  We are not giving up any time soon and are hoping to make it all the way to Mongolia, but more on that as we know.  We move onwards tomorrow, all 15 of us - thats 14 guys and me.  Wish us luck, we'll keep you posted as we can, but internet is going to get more and more sparse as we head out into this crazy country.  If need be we should be reachable on our cell phone, the number for which I posted below.  Thanks for all your support! 

So after arriving in Romania we spent the night in a hotel with the Kiwis and then headed off promptly the next day. The drive through Romania was actually really beautiful.  We drove through mountainous areas, small villages and a National Park; Transylvania was lovely as well.  It was really nice to be off highways, although we dont think Diana appreciated it much.  Seeing as how we cant drive very fast we arrived in our destination city of Bracau a bit late and had to run around to find a place to stay for the night.  The next day was a L-O-N-G one.  First it took us over an hour to get out of Bracau as they had closed the bridge we needed to get to the highway.  The drive from there was hilly and the roads rough.  We entered Moldova without any problems but all of a sudden we came across what I thought was just a police check point but turned out to be the border of a region/country within Moldova we didnt know existed called Transnestra (I think...).  They searched through all of our things leaving Moldova and tried to get us to pay some made-up tax, which we refused and luckily they didnt insist.  In Transnestra however they wouldnt let us through until we forked over $40 for a "road and emmigration tax." We refused for about an hour and then finally decided paying $40 would be better than driving the 300 km aound this region to get into Ukraine.  After finally getting through that hastle we drove onwards towards the Ukrainian border, laughing about the made-up rogue country we had just entered.  Thinking that the worst Transnestra had to offer was over, we were proved very wrong when they pulled us aside yet again when trying to exit this ambiguous region.  They ushered us into an interrogation room of sorts and had us empty our pockets of cash on the table.  We of course knew not to carry a lot of cash on us as these border guys would definitely dream up a way to get it from us.  I was sure this guy in the interrogation room was going to make us give him all the cash we had and to be honest I was starting to get really worried (interrogation rooms will do that to you).  After much arguing on our part and then finally dealing with someone who was reasonably nice and spoke decent English, we got away with only paying $5 more dollars for the alleged road tax stamp they hadnt given us at the first border.  With a sigh of relief we drove the ten feet to the Ukrainian border only to be pulled over once again.  This time we were in trouble because we didnt have a Green Card (and Im still not sure exactly what that is...) so once again we had to pay for that and wait about an hour.  We were then held for about two more hours because the name of the Registered Keeper on our V05 car forms was Alex's brother Scott, and not Alex himself.  This apparently was "big problem."  At this point we had spent many, many  hours on these horrible borders, it was about 11 at night and we still had 70 km before we would reach Odessa.  We were not happy people on that Ukranian border.  Finally, after much trumping around self-importantly, the border guys let us go through.  We were three VERY relieved individuals to say the least.  Arriving in Odessa wasnt quite the reprieve we had imagined however as it took us about 2 hours driving/wandering around until we actually found a place to stay for the night.  The past two days have basically been spent relaxing and seeing Odessa - taking a much needed break from driving, especially after the antics at the borders.  There ended up being quite a group of ralliers in Odessa; the Kiwis had arrived a few hours before us and we ended up running into three other Rally teams as well; one team with two Australian guys, one team of Brits (which included Jack Osborne actually, for those of you who know who he is) and then another team of 3 Brits with backgrounds from India, Sri Lanka and Iraq.  We all plan on convoying onwards together with three of those teams tomorrow.  Who knows how much of the Ukraine we will get through tomorrow as the country is quite large, so we shall see.  The next time I blog we may be in Russia, assuming Diana makes it and the Russians let us in!  Long roads ahead, long roads ahead...

I dont even know where to start in recounting the events of the past few days...Lets see. From Prague we travelled East to visit the Church of Bones and then from there we headed into Slovakia. We had barely crossed the border into Slovakia on a major highway at about 10:30 at night when our car battery died. We immediately pulled over and called the NZ guys in the car ahead of us. They talked us through some basic things to inspect in the engine and then convinced us that we would have to jump start our car to get it to the nearest gas station. Yeah, for those of you who have seen 'Little Miss Sunshine', you know that scene where the whole family has to get out and push the van while the father puts it into second gear, and then one by one they all have to jump back into the car as it is moving? Yeah, we did that, on the Slovakian highway, at 10:30, with me behind the wheel and the boys running. It worked tho and we caught up with the NZ boys (or the Kiwis as I have started to call them) at a gas station five minutes down the road. They spent about an hour with us looking over the car, only to conclude that it was probably our alternator and that we would have to camp out at this gas station and then get towed in the morning. After a wonderful night in a tent behind a gas station (in Slovakia), a tow truck came and picked Diana up. The driver, who spoke no English, communicated that only two of us could accompany him to the mechanics. We then decided that Tommy would stay behind and Alex and I would go with him. At this point our cell phone had run out of credit. The tow-truck guy then proceeded to drive us about 50 km into the middle of no-where. We pulled up next to what looked like someone's home and NOT a car-repair establishment. I was stressed. Turns out there WAS a mechanic on the scene, although again, no English was spoken. He managed to let us know that it was in fact the alternator and that he could try and fix it...Alex and I waited for about an hour at this guy's house, praying that Diana wouldnt die on us. I explained to the nice mechanic that we were driving from London to Mongolia and he responded with a lot of head shaking and "Fiat?! Oh no! Oh no!" We then got him to sign our car with a sharpie when he relayed that she was fixed and ready to go! Relieved doesnt begin to express how we felt! We then started to drive back to get poor Tommy only to get a call that he had hitch hiked in to Bratislava with a Dutch family. We then spent the next hour searching the city of Bratislava to locate him. Once found we decided to book it to Budapest, where we arrived three hours later (the Kiwis had gone ahead but we agreed we'd catch them up that night). After a few hours in Budapest we drove into Romania and stayed at a place right near the border with the Kiwis. Thats all I will write for now, many stories to come, involving being harassed at multiple borders and having to enter and exit a country in Moldova we didnt know existed...We are now in Odessa and will be here another 36 hours so I will try and blog again soon, so stay tuned!!

Hello everyone from the amazing city of Prague!! It has been a GREAT few days.  The departure from Hyde Park was quite the show with the array of cars and characters.  We ended up convoying with 2 other cars heading to Dover where we saw the beautiful cliffs of, before driving our boat onto the ferry.  We arrived in France about 2 hours later and immediately headed towards Belgium.  Our convoy had grown to four cars, the other three teams consisting of guys from the UK: one Scot, one Irsishman and four English.  A great group of guys.  We exited France pretty quickly into Belgium.  All four vehicles had walkie-talkies going which was helpful for direction comparing, but also useful for walkie talkie kareoke at like 2 a.m.   At 4a.m we stopped in a truck parking area and slept in our car for about 3 hours, woke up at 7:30 and headed onwards towards Germany.  That ended up being a big day as we wanted to make it to Prague that night for the big Rally party being held there.  We got a bit lost in Germany (the highway signs dont display cardinal directions...) and then were held up briefly at the Czech border (a Welsh team we ran into there were strip searched...).  We didnt role into Prague until about 1:30 a.m, exhausted.  Up until that point I had been doing about 95% of the driving so needless to say I was ecstatic to have arrived finally (Jon - you proud of me or what??!!).  Most of the ralliers were parked in this one car park so after getting together in a local pub until about 4 a.m, we put sleeping bags down on the floors next to the cars and attempted to sleep.  Yes, in a car parking garage.  On the floor.  Apparently Alex was not a happy camper with this arrangment so I was awakened at 6 a.m to Alex barking about a hotel he had found.  I would have been happy sleeping on the ground, thats how tired I was, but Alex wasnt taking no for an answer.   The next day we just spent wandering around this amazing city.  My only regret at this point is that we dont have more time here -I'll just have to come back!!  We also have been communicating with a team from New Zealand who are driving our same route eastward so we will be convoying with them now.  Today we head to the Church of Bones in eastern Czech and then on to Bratislava.All is well with the car; Diana is running beautifully, we are very proud of her!  I will start letting the boys drive soon, I just didnt want them to drive in the dark or in the rain, or in complicated cities when their experience with stick is pretty limitted.  They'll be pros by the end tho!  Ok, we are off to find these NZ guys now and continue heading East!  So far this has been amazing, keep posted!!  Pictures will come when we get our act together, but many have been taken, no worries!(Oh, and if Im not a man by the end of the trip I will be very surprised...Suffice it to say there arent many female-ralliers...) 

Its the big day ladies and gentlemen and we think we are ready to go!  I am in the lobby of Tommy and Alex's hotel, waiting to bring our bags out to the car.  We will then drive over to Hyde Park where we will join the 200 other teams.  I have a few friends who plan on being there to wave us off.  From Hyde Park we drive to Dover where we take the Ferry to France.  I have been nominated again to do the driving in this initial leg as neither of the boys want to drive stick on the left-hand side.  Understandable.We do have a cell phone with us and it is free for us to receive calls.  The number is: (423) 663 166645.  We may be able to send text messages in to the Rally Organizers who will then post them online, but we will keep you informed on that front.Right.  Team Ironsides forges ahead.  Thanks to all of you for your continuing support - we wouldnt be here without it!(A special thank you to Alex's brother Scott Switzer who has been great to us here in London and has made a generous contribution to our Team.  Another thank you again to the Fletcher family for their help as well!)

So, as of 3:00 this afternoon Team ironsides acquired a beautiful, grey Fiat Uno! Tommy and I met Nazeem, the car's former owner, at Victoria Station. Nazeem and his family are moving back to South Africa so they were eager to get the car sold and we were happy to take it off their hands! Tommy and I were in love with her at first sight - she is everything we dreamed of! After a quick intro to the car and some picture taking, Nazeem handed over the keys. I was extremely nervous as I had been talked into being the first to drive her. We had spent most of the morning desperately trying to find parking that wasnt ridiculously expensive but were then saved by some close family friends who said we could park at their house (thank you Fletcher Family!). This then meant that I had to drive a Fiat Uno through London with Tommy patiently navigating. I have never been more tense while driving a car: not only had it been a year since I last drove, but it was the first time I was driving a manual on the right hand side while being in the left hand lane -- in the heart of London! It actually went really well; it was a relatively smooth ride and we didnt get lost once during the whole half hour. We are so ready for Mongolia. Thus far the only thing obviously wrong with our new car is the speedometer. It doesnt work. Shouldnt be an issue though as I dont see us ever driving very fast anyway... On a random side note; we just had the pleasure of watching R Kelly's moving film entitled 'Trapped in a Closet.' If you havent seen it, you must. Really. But seriously, I drove a Fiat through London today.

Hayo!  Team Ironsides is officially united for the first time in London.  Alex and I joined JOya today who met us at the airport making things that much closer and that much more real.  Alex and I flew from Burlington with little incident besides a couple of minor delays.  The biggest hassle we sustained was in Longan in Boston due to our One Way flight status.  Apparently thats a red flag or something. We arrived at 7:30 this morning and made it through immigration with no problems, except for a sideways glance at my answer for reason of entry.  Having recently lost our accomodations to rather unfortunate but bizzare circumstances, Alex and I found ourselves homeless until a member from Team Micragolia stepped up in a big way and offered us accomodations for a night or two until we get settled.  We'll be meeting her in a couple of hours and staying with her mum and her.  What better way to experience London, right? being homeless, with two months worth of baggage over your shoulder.  Big snaps to Nettie for stepping it up and really helping us out. (check out their website at http://www.micragolia.com and help them out with fundraising if you can)  Otherwise we're settling in, Alex is passed out on a floor in a random apartment, and has been for some time.  Apparently the inflight entertainment on Virgin Atlantic was too much to pass up so he didn't get much sleep (for the record though i kicked his ass twice in a game of interactive Battleship)  Joya is also here with us, relaxing watching some BDs Grey's Anatomy.  We are all well and excited about the week ahead and will keep everyone posted as things arise.  please check back again soon... 

Hey Everyone,It's certainly been a while.  I have indeed survived my medical experiment with great ease, and although the scum bags have yet to pay me, I am excited for my impending flight with little more than a back pack and a handful of cash.  I would love to say everything has come together like a well oiled machine, since the result is still a couple of weeks away, we can't yet be sure.  currently we rest at the will of the system.  The DVLA (Britain's DMV) holds in their hands the documents which will give us official ownership of our beloved fiat uno, so we wait on their decision.  ALthough we leave Tomorrow, Alex's passport is still at the embassy of Kazakhstan in D.C.  We have been assured it will be overnighted to us by tomorrow morning before our flight.  but we will see.  Luckily all of this is out of our hands so we forge ahead with packing and goodbyes becoming evermore anxious and excited for the next couple of weeks.  I am confident that Ironsides will pull through flawlessly as we will not be dragged low by the weight of the empire. Alex and I are headed to London tomorrow afternoon at which point, Team Ironsides will convene for the first time ever to prepare for the rally.  You will all be updated on notable and unnotable events, please keep checking back, things are about to get interesting...

Oh, hello everyone, this is your captain speaking (aka Alex Switzer).

We recently acquired a new teammate from the belly of London, UK and his name is Uno... Fiat Uno. We purchased him from an orphanage for 220 pounds = $430. He is gray and small, but has a lot of heart, about 1000 cc's worth. We're very excited to see how far his humble wheel base will take us across the wretched terrain that is Eastern Europe/Asia. This all comes at the pinnacle of a very stressful time for all of us - we couldn't find a car, for starters, unforseen money problems plagued our spirits and I have a rash that I hope clears up before I party with all the little hotties participating in this year's rally. But things are OK now, we will prevail because we are IRONsides, obviously. Strong, resolute...American, yes we are! Haha. Anywho, Tommy and I are basking in our glory at the present moment after just giving my credit card number to a complete stranger who's about 2000 miles away. We'll keep you all posted with any new updates, and whether or not this thing I have will need prescription ointment...

Cheers! Alex Switzer

So, as I am assuming most of you know, Tommy is out and about as of 2 weeks ago. He seems to be mentally stable, although one can never be completely sure... Fund raising is moving forward quite well. A big thank you again to everyone who has given so generously online. I was also recently given a substantial donation from someone at WFP (hint: he's French and smokes like a chimney...) so I am definitely going to want to put a WFP logo on the car somewhere (assuming of course that we do in fact have a car - I have no idea). Well, a WFP logo should be on the car anyway seeing as how they are one of the leading humanitarian agencies in the world today....Also, it appears that Alex has also landed us another contribution, although from who I dont know. Good work as always Alex, keep it up!! Life on my end has taken a turn for the lonely. The people closest to me all just left within 24 hours of each other, my immediate family included. I have never actually been left behind by my parents in a country where we have all lived. It is a strange sensation. There were weeks of farewells for my father, literally a function everynight. Then there was the mass selling, packing and shipping of 11 years worth of stuff...Then it all ended with a bottle of champagne, a few close friends, and me dragging my little bro home from a bar where seemingly his entire school had assembled outside to say good bye, hours before his flight departure. Intense. And then they all left, leaving me on this island for 3 more weeks. I feel like a ghost of my former self - I feel like Im not really here, that I too took off on that plane...Well, I will be taking off in 3 weeks so I suppose as always patience is the order of the day... We have opted not to try and sell t-shirts, for a myriad of reasons, but as far as I know a kick-off celebration of some kind will be held in VT before the State-side crew takes off. They know more about that than I do of course so they will be in touch. Hope all is well in your respective worlds. The count down really has begun...finally.