Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Missing Post

I wrote this one back in Spain and forgot to post it. Oh well.

It's been a few days since I last posted, and we've had a great time since then.

Granada was less than it could've been but still fun. Tickets to La Alhambra apparently sell out way in advance, so we couldn't get into the Moorish palaces. It was a good walk up though - it was on top of a large hill, as fortresses usually are - and we were able to see Charles V's palace and the alcazaba, a fortified section of the wall.

The night train we wanted to take to Barcelona was sold out, so we found a place to crash that night and booked tickets for a train in the morning. The hostel, called the Makuto Guesthouse, was a nice place. It had a wonderful inner courtyard and they gave us a free drink and crepe each.

Our train ride was uneventful. Barcelona is all the way up the coast from Granada and it took almost 12 hours to get there. The scenery was fantastic, as we passed through both mountainous areas and plains (where the rain mainly falls in Spain). At one point, we thought we saw a field of pot plants, but we couldn't be sure as neither of us have seen them before.

Barcelona has been excellent. The metro system is easy and efficient, and makes travel less of a pain than it was in other places. Our hostel is a while away from the city center (15 minutes by metro) but it's worth it since we're only 5 minutes from the beach. Plus, we get free breakfast and it's just a generally nice hostel.

Yesterday we went for a swim in the Mediterranean. The waves were huge so we stayed pretty close to shore but it was a good time. One thing worth noting is that we observed, on more than one occasion, that groups of teens would spin around in circles for a few minutes before dashing into the water. We couldn't figure out what they were doing.

Also, we met some Americans at the beach who are studying abroad at a school in Toledo. The same school that we met people from in Madrid. What are the chances of that?! XD

The festival of La Merce is in full swing right now in Barcelona. It's a celebration of their patron saint, I believe. They have concerts and dancing and parades of huge paper mache people called gegants.

Gaudi's work is very evident in Barcelona. We've seen a few of his buildings already and today we hope to see his great unfinished work: la Sagrada Familia.

Next time I post, we'll be in France. Spain is coming to an end. D:

< Derek >

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Leaving Roma - City on the Water - Impromptu Sidetrip


Leaving Roma

 

We're leaving Italy already. It was never supposed to be a huge section of our trip but still...the time we spent here went by so fast. Let me get you up to speed:

I think our last update was from Roma - the night before we left. The following morning, we woke up early since we had a date with the Colosseum. They opened up the dungeons and third tier to the general public that morning...for the first time in 40 years! We had reservations for a guided tour, so we wanted to make sure we got there on time.

After checking out, we dropped our packs at the train station and headed off to the Colosseum. This was the place where gladiators had fought against each other and animals in ages past! Although the walls have started to crumble, much of the impressive structure still stands.

We bypassed the long line, laughing at the tourists waiting for tickets ^_^ and picked up our reservations. The tour guide arrived shortly and showed us around the second tier. You could see all the way down into the underground levels (now visible because of the decay of the floor) - if you could see around the tourists.

Then the fun began. Our guide led us though a locked gate to another set of stairs, and we climbed up to the third tier. Our small tour group was the only one up there, so we had no problems seeing down. It was truly an awesome view from the top. Behind us, we could see the Roman Forum. The tour guide rambled on, but I didn't listen. (We generally look down on guided tours - the only reason we paid for one was to get access to the top tier and dungeons.)

We descended until we were at the level of the arena, and went through another set of locked doors. The dungeons awaited us! We saw tunnels and vaulted caverns where animals and gladiators used to wait their turn. Admittedly it was nothing like what we expected - we only saw a small portion of the dungeons - but it was well worth it. I'm sure David will go into more detail about the Colosseum and the surrounding area.

We saw the Roman Forum and then headed off to catch a train. One thing worth mentioning: we had to wait for a few hours at the train station since our train was pretty late. The later it got, the more homeless people showed up - and many of them were pretty crazy. We were glad when our train got there because it got very sketchy at the station.

Our train ride was made in comfort and style since we managed to snag a private compartment for 6 and take it over. We soon discovered that if all the seats were slid back, they met in the middle and created a comfortable double bed.

There was a slight snafu in the morning - our train stopped just short of Venezia and started going in the opposite direction after a short delay. We got off at the next stop (an hour later) and caught a train back, but our car had ended up in some random town called Latisana. We spoke with someone else later who had been on the same train and he had reached Venezia just fine. The only explanation I can come up with is that our car got switched onto another train - which is very odd. But we did get there eventually.

City on the Water

 

Venice! The city on the water - the place of canals, vaporettos, gondolas, and masks. I had been especially looking forward to seeing it on our trip, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. We made the trek across the island to our hotel in about a half hour, then went back out to explore.

Starting off with the obvious: there are no roads in Venezia. Only canals. So instead of cars, there are boats. Personally I liked the absence of noise brought by cars, but the downside was that transportation is expensive. It would've cost us €6.50 to get to our hostel by waterbus. Taxis and gondolas can be even more expensive, often charging up to €100/hour. So we walked everywhere, which wasn't a problem since Venezia isn't a huge place.

The city is just as you would picture it from a movie or whatever. It's very beautiful and, I suppose, romantic if you're there with the right person.

During our first full day in Venezia, we took a trip over to Murano, a neighboring island. The trip only cost us 2 euros each way, luckily. Murano is famous for its glassblowing artists and I wanted to see the works firsthand. Now, normally I'm not an art fan - but when you see a guy effortlessly shaping a small elephant using tongs and a blowtorch, you can't help but be impressed. I enjoyed watching him work.

One thing you have to remember about Venezia is that it's right on the ocean, so the tides cause problems. At high tide, spots in the city tend to flood with up to 3-4 inches of water. We found that out the hard way when our route was blocked by a veritable lake - we had to backtrack around it since neither of us had adequate footwear. (My boots are only somewhat water-resistant.) In St. Mark's Square - a very popular tourist attraction - they set up temporary raised paths every day so that people can still get from A to B.

Our hotel had advertised free wifi, but I ended up paying $5/night for it. I spoke with the manager though and I may get a refund. In fact, the hotel overall was underwhelming - but it was a place to sleep. Oh well.

We had real Italian pizza one more time before we left Venezia. I'll never like American pizza quite as much now. Our last meal in Italy was pasta - it was very good but not as different from American dishes as the pizza.

I'll never forget what Venice looks like at night. The moon reflects off of the Grand Canal and makes the scene look like something out of a movie. The sight escapes description by words - my only advice to you is to go to Venezia and walk the streets by night yourself. The silence envelops you and you can look out across the water for ages.

Eventually we had to leave Venezia - and Italy. We took a night train out after saying farewell to the city on the water. I'll say this, though - Venice is one of the places that I know for sure I'll be back to. Arrivederchi for now, Venezia!

Impromptu Sidetrip

 

Our train was heading to Budapest, Hungary on part of a side trip we created. Hungary was never on our original itinerary, but we had a few days to kill while we were waiting for a package from home to arrive at our next waypoint. The ride there was certainly an interesting experience, if not a restful one.

We were in a 6-person compartment again, but with assigned seats this time. We were sharing it with two friendly Poles, a Hungarian with two dogs, and a Russian. The Poles spoke a little bit of a lot of languages - mostly English and Polish though. The Russian guy shook his head when asked if he spoke English. The Hungarian dude rambled at us in Hungarian with an English word thrown in every few sentences.

We struck up a conversation with the Poles - the guy with the dogs wanted to join in as well and talked at all of us in Hungarian throughout the train ride. The Russian guy was silent.

We had to pass through Slovenia and Croatia to get to Hungary. Slovenia implements the Schengen Agreement so we had no trouble with customs. However, the dogs started barking if anyone knocked on the compartment door. They barked for an hour straight at one point, which caused the Russian guy to tell us to "Shoot the dogs, please.". (Evidently he did speak English and just wasn't in a friendly mood XD).

One of the Poles saw my class ring and thought I was engaged. I was amused XD but had to admit that it was only a high school ring.

The Hungarian guy also thought I was German - which was one of 5 individual instances on this trip where someone has mistaken me for a German. One time someone even told me that I speak Spanish with a German accent, which completely mystified me.

Anyways, the Poles and the Russian guy got off about 4 hours into the trip. We had 10 hours left to go with the other guy talking amiably in Hungarian XD. We got some sleep, but unfortunately Croatia is not a Schengen country. We were woken up about every hour and a half by armed border guards who wanted to check our passports. There was one time 4 guys lined up outside our compartment, and each of them wanted to see our passports...

We got here safely, though. I think this blog post is fairly long as it is, so I'll tell you about what happened when we got to Budapest in another post!

< Derek >

Roads to Rome, Rails Away!

Roma

Following in Derek's lead I shall forthwith endeavor to utilize only the true names for the cities we visit. Anglicizing names has caused us to occassionally not recognize the names of cities on maps. We should all call cities and countries the names they were originally given!!

Visiting the coliseum was great, but would have been WAY BETTER without the annoying tour group. Since we signed up for the two levels of the Coliseum that only opened that day, the dungeons and the third level, we were obligated to travel in the tow of a guide who spoke heavily accented English.

As the guide pointed out, what you see today at the coliseum is basically a skeleton of what it once was. All of it's valuables have long since been looted and much of the marble and limestone used in its construction has been repurposed. In my opinion they should do less maintenance and more restoration. You have to rely on your imagination, but it isn't hard to visualize the seats and cheering spectators cheering the battles bellow as you climb the upper levels.

The tour was very informative but utterly intolerable. She spent to much time talking I tended to zone out and just wander the area until she was done. I couldn't go far since the areas we visited were locked and closed off to everyone else. The dungeons were cool, but not as much as we'd hoped. Apperantly the armories and chambers we had hoped to see were destroyed to make way for the metro. FAIL. We did get to see how the coliseum worked, and how lions and tigers used to be elevated through the wooden floor above to pounce on unsuspecting gladiators.

Overall walking in the footsteps of gladiators is a great experience, but if this was going to be the highlight of your trip I'm afraid you may be disappointed. This may be a good point to mention that I am totally in favor of bringing back the Coliseum.

We lounged out by the Coliseum, and Derek actually fell asleep XD. I tied his shoelaces together. He's been warned not to fall asleep while I'm bored so it's not my fault. It was pleasant to nap in such a cultural spot, and even more amusing to watch all the illegal African and Indian salesman sprinting away as a police car entered the area. These guys are in every country we have been in yet.

After that we checked out the forum. Honestly I can't remember if this was all the same day or not, but the forum was cool. Roma must have been truly enormous back in the early AD's.

At some point we rented segways in an uncrowded area. They were cheap and we managed to turn turtle off on both of them! Tag is fun on speeding segways!

We've gotten into the habit of abusing the free breakfasts. Technically we're only supposed to take on croissant each for the free breakfast, but we took enough to last us through dinner. We're cutting costs any way we can.

Overall I agree with Derek that Roma did not live up to its hype. It was certainly enjoyable and worth visiting, but it was a bit romantacized... and dirty.

Getting to Venizia

So we boarded a night train to Venizia to save time and money. It was free (using Eurail) and we had a compartment of 6 chairs to ourselves. The chairs slid out and met in the center, so we pulled them all out and formed a sort of giant couch. It was actually pretty comfortable to sleep on. We snacks and listened to music and got a good night's sleep.

We woke up at 5 A.M., knowing we would arrive in half an hour. At 5:10 we arrived at a stop called Mestre. We were getting a little anxious since the train was stopped there for half an hour. When we left Mestre it was 5:40, already late for our arrival time. The name of our stop was Santa Lucia, and we kept careful watch for it. At some point we realized that our train was now travelling the opposite direction as earlier. We stayed on the train for three more stops until we had had enough and I managed to communicate with a conductor well enough to understand that we were on the wrong train.

We got off at the next stop with absolutely no idea where we were. We were no longer even certain that the train we had been on had ever been destined for Venizia. It seemed unlikely that we had missed our stop. Sleeper trains can't arrive early right? We eventually discovered we were only a few stops down from Santa Lucia, but that the train we had been on was heading away from Venizia.

After waiting 20 minutes at the station, we boarded a student train that was destined for Santa Lucia. We got there still uncertain what exactly had happened. We had checked online, at the statoin, and on the platform. The train we were originally on was supposed to end in Santa Lucia. But it didn't.

We found our Hostel with too much trouble despite the 45 minute hike. It did not live up to it's reputation from the start, since the advertised "free wifi" was actually very expensive. The room was alright I guess... It was mainly the wifi that pissed me off. On top of that I was sick. Being sick while travelling sucks, let me tell you. But I wasn't about to put Venizia on hold for that.

We met someone at the Hostel who had been on the same train as us from Roma. He says he arrived at Santa Lucia at 5:26, right on time. He was one the same train as us, there is no doubt of that, but we were still at Mestre (which turned out to be the stop just before Santa Lucia) at 5:26. So how is this possible?

There is one possible explanation. We were seated towards the back of the train, while he was seated in a car closer to the front. Derek and I believe our car was disconnected from the rest during our extended stay at Mestre, at which point it was reattached to a different train and led in a different direction! I don't understand why they would do this without imforming anybody, but it totally screwed us over.

Venizia

Anyway Venizia is beautiful. There are no cars at all, only pedestrian paths and boats. The place is warm and inviting, and not too hard to navigate. During our time in Venizia we spent hours wandering paths around the canals. At one point we found a very large statue of a naked boy holding a frog. There was a security guard packing heat watching over it. He looked intense. Great dinner conversation though right? "So what do you do for a living?" "I stand guard over a giant naked child."

There were lots of the typical Venizian canal boats, and men paddling them along with their striped shirts and red saché on their hats. We took a small trip to Murano, an Island nearby that is world famous for its glass blowing. We watched a man making a tiny glass elephant. It was truly incredible to watch molten glass take form.

There is nothing worth seeing on Murano besides the multitude of shops selling glass sculptures of all descriptions, sizes, and prices. Unforunately they are very strict about their "No Picture" policy. It was definately worth the trip though. We had small backpacks on, so the "you break it you pay" signs everywhere caused us to be very careful.

All the churches look pretty much the same here. I counted at least 7 with the identical dome and spire on top. Why are there so many churches? There are way too many churches.

At high tide lots of the footpaths are underwater. The locals wear boots, but the tourists often have to find alternate routes. There was some big famous church we went to. I don't bother to find the names of all the churches since its all voodoo magic to me, but it was very beautiful. The entire square was underwater. There were wooden walkways erected for the tourists queueing to get into the church. There were also restuarants in the square whose tables were sitting in 3 inches of water. That can't be good for sales...

We spent 2 nights in Venizia, which is more than enough. It's a pretty small island and we had seen pretty much anything anyway. We were planning on heading to Switzerland, but in a last minute change of plans we decided to take a night train to Budapest (pronounced Budapesht by the locals). We needed to kill a few days since Derek's packages wouldn't arrive at our destination in Switzerland until after us at our current rate. We also had extra travel days we wanted to use so... well here we are in Hungary!

Getting to Hungary

This night train was a little more... eventful than the last. We once again had a compartment of six seats, but this time it was full. Seated with us were a Caronlyna and Bartek (I think that was his name, I couldn't pronounce it) from Poland, a Russian guy with massive fists who at first claimed to not speak English, and a man from Hungary with his two small dogs.

The Hungarian guy was extremely talkative, despite the fact that nobody but the Polish pair spoke any Hungarian, and even they only knew a few dozen words. I'm pretty sure the Hungraian guy was homeless, but either way he was very friendly. He also seemed to travel alot, since he kept his passport in a small travellers bag around his neck and enthusiastically flipped through my travel book, describing which places were nice and which were not. He would make disgusted sound and face, like he'd just tasted something foul if he didn't like a place, repeating the name of wherever it was. It was quite amusing.

At some point one of his dogs started barking and wouldn't stop. At this point the Russian revealed that he could indeed speak English, directing a few choice words at the dog in question. It was late and noboby wanted to deal with a barking dog.

On the bright side the Russian now dropped his charade of not being able to speak English and joined the conversation. He was actually quite funny. I think his name was something like Raspun... whatever it was it sounded very much like Russian. We had tried earlier to pronounce some of the Russian words in the key phrases section of my travel book, but even pronounciation guides could not help us with those words.

Raspun and the Polish pair got off at Vienna, leaving us with the Hungarian and his two dogs (one of which appeared to be menstrating on the floor. We managed to get some sleep, but it turns out Croatia isn't as easy to pass through as other parts of Europe. Every 2 hours we were woken up to have our passports checked. At one point a line of 5 or 6 guys walked past the room, each one checking our passports within a few seconds of the last. We must have had our identities check a dozen times by the end of the night.

The Hungarian got off a few hours before us, so we had the compartment to ourselves for a short time. When we got to Budapest we gathered our bags and prepared to disembark. We discovered they don't give you much time to do this, so by the time I got to the door I actually had to hop off of a moving train.

We weren't originally planning to stay the night; there was a night train to Munich were going to take. We decided to see if there were rooms anyway. Unfortunately everything appears to closed in Hungary on Saturdays: the banks, ATM's, internet Cafés, all closed. We walked out with not real idea what we were going to do. I spotted a Mcdonald's and voted for a break there while we determined our next move. It was lunchtime anyway, so we settled for a taste of America.

Thankfully Mcdonald's had wifi and we were able to find accomodation at a very cheap Hostel. For 12 euros each we have a private room with a very comfy bed and a TV (though all channels are Hungarian of course). The Hostel also has cooking facilities and nice bathrooms, free wifi, and a computer. The directions are a bit stupid, since at the entrance it says the hostel is on the first floor when it is actually on the third, but it is the best value for price we've had yet.

So here we are. It is our first night in Budapest. Tomorrow we explore! For now I sleep.

Bye everybody!

David out


Monday, October 18, 2010

All Roads Lead to Rome

So we're in Italy at last! It's the home of pizza, pasta, and loud angry people. :P

Firenze was our first stop in Italy. (That's the actual name of the city - we've just anglicized the name into Florence. I'm going to try to call cities by their proper names from now on.

We stayed in a decent hostel near the river that runs through the center of town. It turns out that there's not a ton to see in Firenze unless you're an art lover, but we made do.

We decide to take a side trip to Pisa our first day. The train trip was only a few Euros, but we had an expensive day anyways. The main attraction of Pisa was, of course, the famous Leaning Tower. There wasn't much else interesting about the town; in fact, the tower itself would be pretty unremarkable if not for the fact that it /looks like it's about to fall over/.

We took the obligatory touristy pictures of us holding the tower up, then bought tickets to climb up to the top. They cost 15€ each. What a tipoff! But we had to do it just to say we did.

Climbing the tower was an experience in itself. You couldn't see outside while climbing, so the only way to tell how slanted you were was how hard climbing felt. On two sides of the tower, the stairs were normal. On one side, it felt more like walking across flat ground. On the last side, my legs burned as if on a steep slope. But the stairs looked the same to us on every side. Very bizarre. (Yes, I know the tower is cylindrical and therefore has no sides; I'm simply referring to each of four quadrants as sides for ease of language.)

You could get out and walk around on the 4th, 6th, and 7th levels of the tower. The 6th was the one with the bells, and the 7th was the top floor. Awesome view across Pisa, by the way.

We had real Italian pizza that afternoon. After looking at some of the weird choices on the menu (one of them being raw ham), we decided to just get a regular ham pizza. It was fantastic. The tomato sauce we use at home is way too sweet, in retrospect.

I had a frazzling encounter with a loud, angry Italian that night. He shouted at me in Italian for moving his laundry out of the dryer.

We had only booked two nights for Firenze and so we had to check out the following morning. But we left our packs at the hostel and explored Firenze for most of that day. The two biggest sights in Firenze are the Statue of David (which we skipped, since we refuse to pay to see art for the most part) and the Duomo, a huge cathedral.

This next part will take a bit of explaining. I had a need to see the Duomo because of a specific dome on top of it. My summer reading book for Freshman year history was called Brunelleschi's Dome, and it was horrid. It was 200 pages explaining in a very dry manner the challenges that this guy Filippo Brunelleschi faced in constructing this dome. Great, the dude transported his materials by river, I had thought. When will I ever need to know that?

Long story short, it was almost painful for me to finish reading the book. Everyone I knew agreed it was the worst book they had ever read. And so when I remembered that Brunelleschi's Dome was in a city I was visiting on my Eurotrip, I decided I had to see what the big fuss was about this dome.

We did see the Cupola di Brunelleschi. Although not mind-blowing, it was a truly impressive work of architecture, and having read the book, I could appreciate the difficulties involved in building it. I guess sometimes, things pay off in unexpected ways!

I went inside the Duomo itself. David stayed behind since he was wearing shorts. It was a very impressive building, and the fresco on the underside of the dome was beautiful. I lit a lumini for my family back home in the middle of the cathedral.

That was it for Firenze, really. We explored a bit more and had some delicious fresh waffles with gelato on top, but after that we headed off to the train station.

They say all roads lead to Rome. Ours did, at least! After a frazzling encounter with a loud, angry Italian (deja vu), we hopped on a metro and headed out to our hostel. It was the cheapest we could find, and more importantly the only one that had space, so it was far from the center. This meant that we had a particularly stressful time finding the place, even for our standards. But we found it and settled in to a reasonably sketchy hostel.

Breakfast was minimal - cereal and prepackaged croissants. We only paid 12€ each per night though so I'm surprised we got free breakfast at all. This is undoubtably the cheapest hostel we've stayed in.
We went into Rome in the morning to see some of the sights. Or to do as the Romans do. Whatever. We spent a good half hour looking for a nonexistent cyber cafe before we gave up and saw the Trevi Fountain instead - which was very impressive, by the way. After that, we decided to try to do something we had both wanted to for the whole trip: rent segways.

Segways are those cool auto-balancing two-wheeled contraptions you see tour groups on. We didn't want to take a tour, though - both of us have developed somewhat of a dislike for tour groups since they clog up the attractions and give tourists a bad name.

We finally found a cheap place in Roma that would rent us segways and took off. Narrowly dodging passersby, we made our way to the Parthenon. Riding a Segway was very odd. You control it by leaning - leaning to one side makes it spin in a circle, or turn if you're moving. Leaning forward makes you accelerate. And leaning backward brakes. The weird part is that the Segway is computer-balanced. So when you lean forwards, it accelerates, but also tilts your feet backwards to compensate. It feels like you're going to fall off when in reality you're perfectly balanced.

My Segway was even better when I discovered that there was a button on the control that looked like a turtle. It was active, so I pressed it to see what would happen if I deactivated "turtle mode". My Segway's top speed immediately went from 8mph....to 14. XD it was awesome. David's Segway refused to deactivate turtle so I rode in circles around him.

We saw the Spanish Steps later that day. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what they look like, since there were multiple flights of steps in the general area. But we know we saw them at one point or another.

Dinner was from an extremely cheap grocery store we found. We got a big dinner and some things for the next day for around €7.20.

There was a surprise waiting for us back at our hostel - we found that someone had stolen our rechargeable batteries and the charger. It's a huge inconvenience for us because of the SPOT, but they weren't worth very much.

Today we intended to go into Rome and see the Vatican. I'm not Catholic and David's an atheist, so neither of us was interested in the religious significance of the city. We just wanted to see the famous sites, like the Sistine Chapel. After learning that we would have to wait in a two-hour line and pay 20€ to get in, though, we decided to just see the outside of the Basilica and move on.

We saw a castle today as well, but didn't do all that much else interesting. Our tickets for the Colosseum are reserved for tomorrow though - we'll be some of the first people to see the dungeons in decades. Tomorrow is the opening day. We'll also be heading out on a train to Venezia in the evening.

Overall, Rome hasn't lived up to expectations. The transport system is not too great and it's a fairly dirty city. I'm certainly looking forward to the Colosseum tomorrow though :D

< Derek >

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Florence, Rome, and the Misadventures inbetween

Florence

We found our hostel in Florence without too much trouble; Derek managed to find it despite my constant pestering. Our hostel was decent. We had wifi (though with another annoying log in system) and no bed bugs, unlike in Nice. Yes people bed bugs are real, and we have dozens of bite marks to prove it. Our room in Florence had twenty-two beds in it, giving it the feel of a military bunker.

Our first day in Florence actually consisted of a day-trip out of Florence. We travelled to Pisa to find the legendary leaning tower. Unfortunately the train station is on the complete opposite side of Pisa as the tower, so it took us a while to get there. We were accompanied by our Vietnamese roommate, Bing. Bing likes taking pictures. The tower is next to a few other historic buildings I didn't bother to get the names of.

The Leaning Towemof Pisa really does look like it's about to fall over. The top edge is 5 meters offcenter, which is pretty significant for a 56 meter tall building. It cost 15 euro to go up, which was a bit pricey but well worth it. Climbing up a slanted building is truly an interesting experience. You follow a staircase around the tower that varies from being angled slightly uphill to slightly downhill. The view from the top is excellent, revealing then enitirety of Pisa. Bing had made it very clear he would not be climbing the tower (I suspect a fear of hieghts) so Derek and I tried unseccesfully to get his attention fron the top, though I believe we succesfully pissed off the security guards who were working up there.

For the first time in my life I paid to use the bathroom. 30 cents down the drain... Well at least they were clean...

In Pisa we also had some fantastic and cheap pizza, though to be honest I prefer Bertucci's. In Italy we have yet traverse a block without seeing at least one pizzeria.

The next day we explored Florence a bit. We saw Brunellecshi's Dome, which really stood out when we found it. Derek went in to take pictures, but as I was wearing shorts I was apperantly indecent and not allowed in. We explored Florence a bit longer and took a train out later that day.

Getting to Rome

Despite being an hour early for the train, we somehow only managed to board within 10 seconds of the doors closing. We seemed to be taking an extra long time at one stop, which I suspect had something to do with the strong smell of smoke we detected at this time. The train ended up arriving over an hour late. When it arrived, the few other passangers in sight took off quickly. Derek and I grabbed our bags and tried to leave the train. The doors wouln't open.

We tried multiple doors and pushed every button. They wouldn't open. There didn't seem to be anybody else on the train. For all we knew we'd be stuck there till morning, as our stop was last on the line. We spotted someone else moving towards the front of the train, and were soon let out by a conductor on the platform. As we headed out I noticed somebody sleeping in one of the trains compartments. I knocked on the glass to wake him up as Derek and I got off the train. I said "termini" to the drowsy guy, trying to communicate that this was the last stop. He grumbled and went back to sleep.

As we got off the conductor spotted the sleeping guy and went inside the train to get him out. Derek and I were assembling our bags on the platform when the guy I'd woken up starts asking if I was the one who woke him up. He was speaking itilian so I only got the gist of what he said.

When he understood that it was me that woke him up, he started freaking out and yelling. He was going on and on, saying something like I can take care of myself and he'll take care of himself blah blah blah. All I did was wake him up so he didn't get stuck on the train. I guess he was a bum who wanted to be stuck on the train, but me waking him up hardly had an affect on the conductor finding him and kicking him out.

Since Derek and I were the only people on the platform besides the clearly unstable bum, I decided to be nonconfrontational. I did the smile and nod thing, ready to smash his nose with the heel of my hand if he came to close. After a while he stomped off. Derek and I shouldered our packs.

Thus began the most annoying hostel search ever concieved. We had directions to the hostel courtesy of the costumer service email we'd recieved. We boarded the correct metro then the correct bus. That's when the trouble began.

The directions told us to get off at a stop called Basilino or something. We discovered there were 7 stops called Basilino. The directions said to look out for a restaurant called Le Papere. We did not see it, but since I hadn't realized there were 7 Basilino stops we got off at stop number 2. We realized it was the wrong one, and since we hadn't seen the restaurant we got back on the next bus that passed and searched diligently for the landmark. (we found the restaurant in question the next day, and it is nearly impossible to identify it before you have passed it, and even then it is only possible only if you are looking backwards.)

When we reached the last Basilino stop the driver called us to the front. It was the last stop and we were the only ones left on the bus. He asked where we were trying to go. I told him and he laughed. He knew where it was alright. When I asked he pointed the way we had come. His was the last bust for the night. We got out and walked two miles all the way back to the very first stop.

Well in the end we found the place. It was dirt cheap for a reason. It's not very nice. Cheap beds, flat out scary neighborhood, way out of the way. Oh well. It's good enough for us, but I wouldn't reccomend it to others.

Rome

I like Rome. Today we saw this truly enormous fountain, which was pretty cool. We wandered around Rome until we found what we had been searching for: Segway rentals!!

Segway are awesome!!!!! Leaning forward and back to move is confusing at first but we quickly got the hang of it. The segways plowed along at a decent 8 miles an hour, when you could avoid the crowds that is. Derek was able to disable "turtle mode" on his and his max speed doubled. "turtle mode" would not turn off on mine :(

Despite getting completely lost we found ourselves at the Pantheon. We locked the segways and had a quick look around. It was pretty cool to look around inside and imagine the real history that happened there.

We hghtailed it back to return the segways so we didn't get charged for another half hour, then made our way to plaza de spagna. We saw the Spanish Steppes I think... Honestly I'm not sure if those were them or not but the area was cool anyway.

The steps or whatever it was tha we saw led up to an area that towered over the city. You could literally step from the steps onto the rooftops of the buildings below. I guess that's why they like to film action movies in Italy; you can't get those rooftop chases back home.

The ancient Egyptians were well known for building giant stone obelisks covered in hieroglyphs. It seems the Italians have become famous for stealing them. In the few hours we spent wondering around Rome, Derek and I saw 5 of them.

I have a brief warning for those planning to use the metro in Rome. Our roommate put it this way; it's nice to see that when the government can't afford to paint their trains, the community steps in to do it for them. If that sarcasm was too subtle for you, it means the trains were completely and utterly covered in graffiti. Also there only two lines; A and B. Sounds simple right? Well it is. Too simple. It means that stations are very far apart, and that every train is crammed to bursting. Not a metro I enjoyed.

When we got back to our Hostel we discovered the battery charger we left during the day was missing. It seems to have been stolen, which is extremely annoying and odd. The adapter was left behind, which would make the charger useless here anyway. It's just annoying that we'll need to buy a new one. Well it's the only thing that has been taken so far, so it could be worse.

We found out that the dungeons of the coliseum are opening for the first time in over forty years the day after tomorrow! We're going to try to get tickets!!

Ok I've got to go!
David out!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Adventures of a Lifetime

The Adventures of a Lifetime

So the past few days have been pretty interesting. I left off my last post at Versailles, which David covered pretty well, so I'll move on from there.

We took day trips into Paris from Helen's house. It only cost about 5 euros each way for the bus/train combination - plus, the train ticket can be used once as a metro ticket. We saw a cool flea market and bought French berets XD. I've been wearing mine everywhere. I think David prefers not to look like a tacky tourist like me though. :P

Helen's daughter Catherine had plans to go to a party while we were in town, and she invited us to come along. This wasn't a normal party though. This was a party in the Catacombs, the 200-mile maze of tunnels underneath the city of Paris. 

We agreed to meet her at midnight outside of a designated metro station. When we got there, we saw young adults and teens climbing down into a grate in the sidewalk - undoubtedly the entrance to the catacombs. We waited until 12:45 and decided that she probably wasn't coming, for whatever reason - or perhaps we had missed her. Either way, we still wanted to go to the party so we followed a group of kids down the rabbit hole.

The grating was thick, solid metal. It had an opening that you had to put your hand into to find the lever to open it. You've probably walked across hundreds of these in various cities. But this one was different. Inside we found a steep, twisting stone staircase. It was pitch black inside once the grating was shut. Luckily I had brought along a headlamp so I could see as we climbed downwards. According to one of the youths we were following, we had gone down 20 meters (65 feet).

Each group going to the party had a guide - someone who had memorized the route through the catacombs by heart. It would be very easy to get lost in the dark tunnels, so we kept up with the guide. It took us a full half hour to get to the cavern where the party was, which was probably so that the police couldn't find it. (This was technically an illegal party, since nobody is allowed in the catacombs. But a police car drove past while some kids were climbing down the grate and didn't stop, so I assume they have bigger fish to fry.)

There were stretches of our journey where we had to crawl through narrow passageways. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic. 

The party itself was nothing like what I expected. It was in the middle of a group of larger rooms with higher ceilings - people hung out and talked in the other rooms if they didn't want to be in the thick of things. The party cavern was hopping, though. They had somehow gotten party lights, booming speakers, and a freaking /mix table/ down into that cavern, and techno was blasting. People were dancing and we joined right in, after promising our guide to meet him every hour. Everyone was very friendly, and they were just there to have fun. One guy used a torch and an alcoholic drink to breath fire - check out my YouTube page at youtube.com/user/phprogrammer to see it for yourself. (Look for Party in the Catacombs.) 

I had a fantastic time down there. When I tired of dancing, I did some exploring of the surrounding caverns. I always kept close enough so I could hear the music, though, since I didn't want to be wandering for eternity. 
When we got back to the top, I saw that my hand had inexplicably turned silver. Someone told me that's what happens if you touch the walls of the catacombs.

Around 3am, everything abruptly stopped. Music and lights turned off. Nobody seemed to know why, but the crowd started to disperse into various tunnels leading off of the party cavern. We figured that there had been a problem with the electricity (where did they get it from, anyways? Was there a generator or something?) so we found our guide and started to make our way back topside. People were still arriving at this point, too. 

When we finally got back up, we had a heck of a time getting back to Helen's house. She had given us a route map for a specific night bus but it turned out that bus was no longer in operation. We found one that went to Versailles but unfortunately we still had a 40-minute walk to Buc. We got back around 6 in the morning and started to pack since we had a 9:40 train to catch. We were exhausted, but we didn't have much of a choice.

The train made it to Nice without any problems at all. We were actually on time for it, which goes against our rule that states "No matter how early you plan to arrive for a train or bus, you will always be sprinting at the last minute to catch it."

Nice was nice. It's on the Cote d'Azur, and the water was a spectacular shade of blue. We checked into our hostel and basically collapsed for the rest of the night. They had a huge collection of movies so it was all good.

Unfortunately it rained for the whole next day. We really didn't do anything of interest since the only things to do in Nice involve swimming. 

We went for a swim on the rocky beach the next day. The water was a bit cold but pleasant, and as mentioned above the sea was beautiful. 

One of the things that caught our eye was a half day trip of scuba diving, organized through the hostel. It cost 42€, which was reasonable. David cleared the trip with his cardiologist and we signed ourselves up! Scuba has been one of the things I've been dying to try ever since I learned about it, so I was pumped.

In the morning we walked down to the port and filled out the necessary paperwork. We got wetsuits, masks, weight belts, and fins, and hopped into the boat with our instructors and another more experience group of divers. On the way to the dive site, we had a quick 10-minute intro to the important skills...how to defog your mask, pressurize your ears, etc. The experienced group went in first with the instructors, leaving us alone on the boat. They were out for 40 minutes or so.

When they came back, the instructors had us hop into the water. My instructor hooked me up to my buoyancy vest, air tank, and regulator, and we swam over to the dive site. He kept his hand on my vest the whole time and pretty much controlled the experience. I put my regulator in and we started to descend by letting air out of the buoyancy vests.

I could hear my breathing underwater. I sounded exactly like Darth Vader XD it was creepy. But it was amazing how clear and blue the water was off the Azure Coast. As we went down, my ears noticed the pressure change surprisingly quickly and started screaming in pain. I equalized the pressure every meter or so though and that neutralized the pain. We descended to about 6 meters. Small schools of fish swam around us, without any apparent fear. I saw sea urchins and exotic varieties of fish. We skimmed over the rock ledge and looked out over the drop-off point. I want to learn to go deeper by taking a class back in the States.

The sights we saw were cool, but the real novelty was swimming without having to worry about coming back up for air. I could take my time looking at everything and just breathe naturally when I needed to.

After about 25 minutes, we came back to the surface. I heard a sound in my ears like air draining from a balloon and figured my ears were equalizing automatically.

We changes back into our dry clothes to be warmer - although it's worth mentioning that the wetsuits were very warm. They had wine for everyone to drink as we relaxed on the way back to the port. (Not the best thing for keeping warm, but the sun had come out and I wasn't too concerned.)

It was a fantastic experience. Worth every penny that we spent, in my opinion.

We said goodbye to France that night with crepes. We had ordered bus tickets to Florence for 4:00am the following morning - basically the only way to get out of Nice. We were in the middle of a transport strike in France and almost none of the trains were running. 

Au revoir, France! We had some great times there - from the Pyrenees to the Catacombs to the Cote d'Azur. 

I'm writing this from our hostel in Florence, Italy. Ciao! The only problem here is that neither of us speaks Italian so the language barrier will be even more of a problem here. Oh well - we're heading out to have lunch and explore the city. 

Edit: Pics added!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

SHOUT OUT!!


I wanted to post a SHOUT OUT to whom ever found this blog using the search keywords "Eurotrip Nerds Naked"

I am now going to proceed to read into this search term way too much.

So what is that? A request? I don't know of many other Eurotrip nerd blogs out there, so I can only presume this message was meant for us. That means someone out there is looking for naked pictures of us.

Flattering... I guess...

Well I would proceed to say something along the lines of "send me your pics first and then we'll talk", but, unfortunately for our internet stalker, I am already in a relationship.

So I must therefore conclude that their pursuit shall be fruitless. Since the search term used was "nerds" and not "nerd" it appears this individual is interested in only the package. All or nothing. So I am afraid they shall be forced to leave with nothing.

To assuage the tidal wave of woe that must certainly besiege you upon reading these words, o stalker of the interwebs, I provide you with a bunny with a pancake on its head.


Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Find the odd picture out!

All but one of these pictures have one thing in common. Your challenge is to determine what that thing in common is, and which picture is the odd one out. Comment if you think you know!














































Monday, October 11, 2010

Derek's Europe Videos!

Today is a rainy, miserable day, so I decided to finally upload all the videos I've taken to YouTube. All of the videos have descriptions underneath them, and they've all been discussed previously on the blog. Here are the links:

My YouTube "channel" where you can choose from any of my videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/phprogrammer?feature=mhum


The next one is Part 1 of a 5-part series on the Correfoc. The first video is the only lengthy one, so if you're impatient to see the cool parts, skip to Part 2. Each video has links to the others on it.

Don't view the next two movies if you have moral objections to bullfighting. I'm posting it as a valuable insight into Spanish culture - if you don't like it, move to Barcelona. :P


Sorry, I don't have any software tools that will let me rotate this video 90 degrees.



Enjoy!

< Derek >

More Paris Pics










Hey look I got shot. and a sphinx.











The last place you'd check for a security camera. And Look! I found a new setting on my camera!!!










Eiffel Tower pic. Couples like to put locks with their names on them on this bridge.

Pyrenees PIcs











A cool peak and a cool view from a peak










Don't you love the hole-in-the-ground toilets? Also a cool view


Some Photos from Madrid
















Outside of the bullring and a statue




















The bull fighting ring and our two our roommates from Toledo, Peter and Sophia















The common room ceiling in Cat's Hostel Madrid and a very creative salesman


Sunday, October 10, 2010

Thoiry Pictures


Wolves are my favorite animal. It was really cool to see the pack hierarchy during feeding time.


Well hello there tiger!


Awesome.


Up close and personal!


My second favorite animal! (yes ladies and gentleman, that was a joke)


Sleeping snow leopard. They're so cute!


Snow leopards are one of my favorite animals in the world! They're so elegant and beautiful...



Why are there so many ostriches? (technically this isn't an ostrich, but i don't care)


Now there's a cat I'd like to bring home.



Such a cute Tamarin! I wish I could keep it!

Some Pictures from Paris

The Eiffel Tower looks amazing at night








Pretty good view, huh?

The Arc du Triumph as seen from the Effel Tower










There was probably something good behind Derek's face...








I'm BACK!!!

Hi David is BACK!!

I know you all missed me!
Right?

Anyway the hostel we're in HAS QWERTY KEYBOARDS!!!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

To celebrate I'm putting up a very long overdue post. Since Derek's pretty much recapped everything, I'll just post a few thoughts.


Toulouse


Frankly not worth the effort. It is a cool little town, but there's really not much to see. It's far more expensive than we thought, and we ended up wandering pointlessly with heavy packs and nothing to do. Our experience was not helped by the fact that my travel book mixed up the phone numbers for the hotels, and we ended up hiking to the wrong one. Lesson learned: confirm the name of the hotel when you call!!


Pyrenees


If you're willing to sit through the train and bus rides, this is definately worth the treck. I should note our lesson learned from the Pyrenees: websites are not always accurate. The campsite closed ten days early, so we ended up in the refuge Derek mentioned. We could have had quite a night with the huge quantity of beer they left sitting around. We didn't, but we could have...

The area is beautiful. There are spectacular mountains cliffs and waterfalls. We arrived in the quitest of the down season, too late for hikers and too early for skiers. Nevertheless we picked a mountian and conquered it. It was a long treck up. We passed more cow pies than most people see a lifetime. At some points the climb was almost vertical, and the false peak had us convinced we were nearly there at one point, when in actuality we had a ways still to go. The views at the top made it all worth it.


Thoiry


Thoiry is a great side trip from Paris because of its excellent safari park. Check the feeding schedules of the animals when you come in. When we went through the glass tunnel in the tiger's exhibit, the smaller tiger tried to attack Derek. Whenever he turned around it pounced at him, only to be foiled by the glass. Apparently Derek looks especially tasty to big cats.

At the safari park there is a play area with tunnels and slides and things designed for people approximately half our height. Needless to say, we explored it thoroughly. We also played Marco Polo in the extremely muddy labyrinth. This resulted in a need to rewash our freshly cleaned clothing. Totally worth it.

As Derek mentioned we stayed with my second cousin Mark and his family. It was a lot of fun meeting everybody!!


Versailles


Versailles was a pretty cool place to visit. My European citizenship got me in for free, so to make up for the gloating that followed I treated us both to ice cream. The palace itself isn't all that worth-while, but the gardens were fantastic. We were very surprised by the japanese anime-style figures that appeared throughout the palace. While I can appreciate a pretty anime girl in a tiny maid outfit as much as the next guy, I had the strange feeling it didn't fit in with the palace's architecture and other contents. The giant, golden, two-faced frog-on-LSD thing seemed far better matched to the surroundings.

On a side note the gardens are beautiful, but are also mainly populated by couples. I feel Derek and I are being mistaken for a couple a lot.


Paris


Nevermind. This post won't be short. Yeah I know. I lied. But you know what? I don't care. Paris is worth it. :P


Ok this one is a no-brainer. If you go to France and skip the tourist capital of the world, then I'm afraid you are not welcome here. I LOVE PARIS!! PARIS IS AWESOME!!! There is so much to see, so much to do, SO MUCH TO EAT!!! Have you ever tried a fresh, warm croissant from a true Parisien bakery? IT'S THE MOST DELICIOUS THING ON THE PLANET!!!!!!

We climbed the Eifel Tower at sunset, and saw the Louvre for free. We had the most delicious croissants in the world (have i mentioned those?), visited Paris' oldest patisserie, and devoured chocolate crepes. I drank over ten liters of orangina in less than a week. I like orangina. A lot.

Looking down at the city from the peak of the Eiffel Tower is amazing. Expecially at night. You can see the entire city, from the Louvre, to the Arc de Triumph, to EuroDisney. It's called the City of Lights for a reason. The Eiffel Tower also looks its best at night, and the lights covering it flash on and off at the hour.

When you go up the Eiffel Tower you can buy a tiny Eiffel Tower keychain for three euros. You can buy 6 of the identical keychain at the base of the tower from one of the hundreds of illegal salesman for a single euro. And don't worry about finding these guys. There really are hundreds of them. They nearly outnumbered tourists.

The Pompidou Center is also a cool place to visit. We didn't go inside, but the plaza is full of performers. One guy was in the middle of a gigantic chalk drawing, which was at least 20 feet on a side. It was quite excellent actually.

Our last night in Paris is one I shall never forget. We were staying with a family friend near Versaille. Her daugther invited us to a party in the catacombs. Heard of those? They consist of endless miles of narrow stone passages over 60 feety beneath the city. They were originally stone quarries, but over the past centuries have served as a dumpster for corpses, as well as secret highways for Franch rebels during the Nazi occupation.

A guide led us to the party. After sneaking into the catacomb entrance, we followed him for over a mile through the narrow passages. Without a guide you could get lost for years underground. At times the tunnels were large enough to stand, but sometimes we had to crouch. At one point we had to get down on hands and knees to fit through the tunnel. As a result of the route, there weren't any fat people at this party. The party itself was in a more open area of the catacombs.

I don't know how they got the speakers and strobe lights in, but they were there. I don't know where they got the electricity from either. There was even a DJ board set up! It was the most lively party I'd ever attended. When the French have underground parties, they truly mean underground, and they truly mean PARTY! At one point somebody used a candle and an alcoholic drink to breath fire! Everybody in the party was in their late teens or early twenties. I can't imagine the effort it took to organize it! We didn't know anybody there, but it didn't matter. Evferybody was friendly and having a great time. Usually I'm not all that into dancing, but at this party I must have danced for hours. We followed the same guide out as we had followed in. This was the best party I have ever attended.

Regretfully we had to bid farewall to Paris. Today we travelled to Nice, a beautiful city on the shore of the Mediteranean. I'll hopefully have lots to tell you about that tomorrow.

***EDIT: We were supposed to be meeting someone at the party but she never showed up. We found out later that she was caught by cops trying to sneak into a different entrance! XD


****GENERAL WARNING****

Watch out for beggers and scam artists, which are often the same thing. A group pretending to be deaf tried the same trick as the so-called UNICEF workers. People will shamelessly come up to you and beg for money. We're students people! WE DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY!!! I have little respect for people who beg for money buy offer nothing in return.

On a side note we have just discovered that one person found our blog on a search engine using the keyword search "babes naked". I count this as a total win.
OK That's all for now
David OUT