Roman holiday

Location: Rome, Italy

What a long day.

I started out by heading to the laundromat to do a load of laundry. I put the clothes in the washer, went to the train station to figure out which train I was going to take to Rome (there was a free 5:09 PM train that looked perfect), and then went back to put the clothes in the dryer. From here I walked the 20 minute walk down to the jewelry store where I had googled that said they had the Florentine Puzzle Rings. I get there, and of course, they are closed. Great idea to go shopping on a Sunday, Abs.

I walk back towards the laundromat and am stopped by a huge group of people. Low and behold, I had walked right into the path of the Carnival parade!! It was really fun (but I didn't have my camera, so I took some on my phone, but it may take me a while to upload those). It started with a really cool old band that was dressed as jesters and then there was a section for each culture represented in Florence. There was a Chinese dragon, some polish clogger people, some gypsies, an african drum band, a mariachi band, and some other stuff. Then at the very end there was this huge bus with people dancing and playing drums and all the kids were silly stringing each other and throwing confetti everywhere and they were all dressed up. It was so much fun!

After the parade, I got my clothes, checked out of the hostel (bye Leonardo and Ricardo!!) and walked to the train station. I got on my train and after about 40 minutes, it still hadn't left. I found some other Americans and we determined that the train was broken, delayed for at least another hour, so we decided to go run and try and catch the other train leaving just before 6. We literally ran up to it as it was pulling away. The conductor waved at us and everything. It was like a scene from a movie. So we went back in the station, found a train that left at 7 and got some pizza and waited. The train took forever to get here, we didn't get in until about 11.

From there, I checked into my hostel and then met back up with some people to go watch the Superbowl. We went to this really neat bar called Abbey Theater and it was standing room only. So, we stood, for the next 5 hours (at this point, I think it's fair to mention that my feet are still soaking wet from the rain in Florence, and they are REALLY starting to hurt). The game was great, although I really didn't have a preference as to who won. I picked the Giants b/c of RW McQuarters (good enough reason in my books) even though the Giants beat the packers and so I kind of hate them. Eli is pretty cute too. Anyways, it was fun, even though we were watching it on Sky so there were no commercials and no half time show :( I heard Tom Petty was great, but we did not get to see him.

Got home after the game close to 7, went straight to sleep (after letting my feet unwrinkle and thaw - they're still dead this morning - Had to ditch the cute boots and pull on the Meryl's for the first time on the trip) and now I'm not sure what I'm doing. I met a guy from LA this morning who wants to go to the Vatican so I think I'll head there. I need to try and get a ticket for Ash Wednesday Mass on Wednesday so I need to see if that's going to be a possibility.

Anyways. I think I am going to like Rome :)

XOXO

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Why would you ever want to go on a diet...

Location: Florence, Italy

Yesterday was an extremely productive day.

I woke up with a fever. I felt soo sick for about an hour and then I got some drugs and perked right up. Problem number 1: It was raining. This is the first day (saying this, I realize how lucky I have been) that I have had to use my umbrella since I've been here. It's really yucky and my feet are very sloshy from all the standing water.

So, what better to cheer myself up than to go shopping :)

I decided to seek out a new outfit. I was also looking for this Florentine Puzzle Ring and a new book in English. I found my shoes first. They're black mid-calf boots with tassel ties and some pretty decent sized heels. Next I bought a pair of dark skinny jeans and a gray low back top. Finally, to complete my new outfit, I bought a black puffy jacket with a fur collar (the Italians are OBSESSED with their fur lines puffy jackets) and a gray wool hat. I couldn't find a bookstore with English books or my ring so I am off to try and do that today.

After shopping, I went to get some glue to fix my Carnival mask and some other necessities. I did some more transferring of pictures to a DVD (and flirted with my now pretty steady friend that works at the music store and chats with me while I'm sitting there for an hour waiting for the pictures to transfer). From there, I walked down to the gallery Ufizzi which is a rather large museum near the river by Piazza della Signoria.

The story of the museum is that it was an old office building (Uffizi in Italian means Office) that was built in the late 1500's. It was owned by the Medici's and they used it to display a lot of their artwork that they had collected over the years (as a sign of power and wealth to those who visited the government buildings). After the last Medici (Anna Maria) died, the collection was turned over to the City and from there, it was turned into a museum because of the importance of so many of the works inside of it. I got pretty lucky, as I only had to wait about 20 minutes to get inside, but often in the summer, the wait can be up to 5 hours.

The paintings inside were great. I didn't get an audio guide so I was at the mercy of the small plaques at each painting but I did gain a lot from it. Including a new favorite artist (or artists)! Their names are Filippo Lippi and Filippino Lippi (father/son - that's why I can't remember who did what). The dad was Boticelli's master and their work is wonderful. They depict emotion better than I have ever seen in a painting. Their characters all have their own personalities and they do amazing things with their eyes. They all look at each other and usually only one of them looks out of the painting to the viewer. It's really interesting to follow their gazes from one ot another and to study their emotion. A lot of this also shows up in Boticelli's work, especially in "Spring." Boticelli's "Birth of Venus" was also beautiful. My other favorites were the special collection of Napoleonic large scale French murals that were on the 1st floor. There were these two with harbor scenes (supposed to be of Livorno I think) and they were so huge and so gorgeous.

So after the Uffizi, I came back and was chatting with Leonardo (one of the brothers who owns the hostel) and we decided that I needed to go get a real authentic Florentine meal before I left. He made me a reservation for this place called 13 Gobbi down by the river and I took a shower, put on my new outfit and headed out. He warned me that people don't really eat alone in Florence, so there may be a decent amount of staring, but after a pep talk from Karen in Prague, I realized that I can't pass up this opportunity for amazing food.

So I get to the restaurant and tell them that I am the reservation for 1 to which the host replies "Oh perfect, well it's your lucky day, I am getting off work now and I'll sit with you!! Date with me?" Ha, well he was kidding, but he did come talk to me quite often while I was eating so it was nice. Now, you get the details of my amazing 3.5 hour meal.

I started out with some white house wine. It was very good, probably a chardonnay, pretty woodsy, but nice. I had some crunchy bread with oil and vinegar and then came my salad. I had a Pecorino and pear salad with a balsamic reduction. It was served on a bed of lettuce and cabbage and was absolutely fantastic. The Pecorino was SOOO fresh and the pears were a little under-ripe and a little crunchy as well. It was perfect. They had sat me at this perfect little table by a garden and it had a great view of the kitchen so I got to watch them cooking everything. They had literal, whole pigs hanging from the ceiling as well as peppers and heads of garlic. On my other side was a huge crate of wine in the garden. The table next to me was a circle table of about 8 men who were all dressed in suits and they talked like straight up godfather. They were so funny, using their hands and kissing every person who walked in the door.

My first course was Spaghetti with grape tomatoes and tuna eggs in some sort of Parmesan sauce. The sauce was an Alfredo, but it wasn't as thick or overpowering as American Alfredo... it was almost buttery, but not too creamy and it just barely coated the noodles. Basically, you didn't just taste sauce when you ate them. It literally was the best pasta I have ever had in my entire life. In the mean time, I see them pull my cow off the meat rack. It was a whole cow back which they then cut the bones off and then filleted. The cut my veggies off of the vines they are growing on in the garden. Everything was so fresh.

At this point, they gave me 15 minutes to settle. We switched to red wine as well. The red was delicious. It was a little sweet and not too dry. My friend Donaldo brought me a huge knife at this point and said "This is to kill your boyfriend." I laughed and thought, do you really think I would be here alone if I had a boyfriend? So my steak comes out next. It was just a normal filet cooked perfectly and seasoned just enough with some oregano and pepper. The best part of this dish were the potatoes. They were grilled garlic potatoes which tasted like old fashioned McDonald's french fries but they had absolutely no breading or fried anything. They were just so buttery and delicious.

For desert I had a Crem Caramel which was very good (not as good as the rest of the meal). I think maybe I just don't like Crem Caramel that much so maybe that's why I didn't particularly care for it. The restaurant was very busy but they never rushed me out. I could see parties of two waiting at the door (even at 10:30) but they never once asked me to leave or anything. I had a cafe to end the night with a little milk in it and it was amazing. It was so rich without being too strong or overpowering. Excellent!!

When I was leaving, Donaldo asked me to go have drinks with him (and I actually wanted to because he was quite cute) but he said he probably wouldn't get off work for another hour and I didn't want to just hang around and wait for him. So I headed back up to the Fish pub (my now regular hang out spot) and started talking to the first people I saw inside. They were two guys from Ohio studying in Rome who were on vacation in Florence for the weekend. We ended up sitting and drinking there for a while before heading to a VERY American disco down by the Duomo. It was fun, but nothing special, so I headed back home around 2:30.

This morning I got up (feeling much better than yesterday, thank goodness) and decided to go to mass at the Duomo. I did not understand one word of the entire service, but it was a total experience. It is amazing to me that I don't speak that language at all but I still can follow mass. I basically said the mass in English in my head and prayed out loud in English when I was supposed to. They had a pamphlet with the readings and the gospel in English so that helped me follow along as well. I didn't need to understand the priest for the homily because I was just so entertained watching him. I have no idea what he was talking about but I could tell I liked this guy. He talked so much with his hands and was so over-dramatic. It was great!! At one point he did say something in English, but I think he may have been making fun of some people not paying attention. Taking communion was much needed and it was great to just sit there and stare at the huge dome and the amazing fresco on the ceiling. The echo inside the building was also unreal and I felt like I was in a movie it was so huge.

Today I head to Rome. My friends from last night have a nice sports bar that they're going to be watching the Superbowl in so I will probably hook up with them. It doesn't start until 12:30 AM so it's going to be a late night for sure.

XOXO

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Homecoming!

Location: Florence, Italy

Ok, well, as much as I love not being a vegetarian... I am CRAVING some veggies right now. Last night started with another bowl of goulash and ended with yet another fried cheese sandwich. I mean, give me some green. I would probably eat an entire head of lettuce if I was given it. We didn't even want to go get food. Toma was a little hungry and wanted some garlic soup (which we still have not gotten, three days in prague and no garlic soup) but then as soon as we found a place for her to eat, we all decided to get food.

After this, the plan was to go back to the beer factory (the place with the taps at each seat) and then to the discotech, but... we never made it to the discotech. We got in a race with these 4 Irish guys at the beer factory and didn't leave until almost closing time. We actually beat the four Irish guys AND a group of 4 English men as well. The English guys actually came up to us when we were leaving to congratulate us on a late start but a "noble comeback." We drank 16 liters of beer. 16 Liters. Not sure how we had room in the tummys for fried cheese sandwiches, but we made it.

Today started early. We chatted in bed while Toma and Ange got up and got ready to leave (their train left at like 11) and me and Karen laid in bed until we absolutely couldn't anymore. Got up, packed and started the journey for the airport. After saying goodbyes, I got on the plane, flew to Milan and then took the bus to the central station to catch my train back to Florence.

So, I go up to make a reservation and the guy says that all of the trains are booked until 6 (it was about 2:30). So I have to just suck it up and sit around until that train leaves. I find a nice little panino and park it on a bench on the far side of the station and start reading (by the way, I finished the book A Thousand Splendid Suns today and it was WONDERFUL - definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a read. It's an easy read, but extremely sad and extremely moving). I had been sitting there for about 20 minutes when this guy comes up and starts talking to me. At first, I think he's a bum and I'm not being rude but I'm watching my pockets and holding my purse in my lap. Turns out though, he was just this normal 20 year old kid who had been robbed like 3 weeks ago as soon as he got to Milan from Holland (he wanted to come work here) and he had no money, no phone, no passport, nothing and he had to get a job to make enough money to buy a train ticket back to Holland so he can regroup. He even got like beaten up when they robbed him and they took his shoes and his jacket as well. Craziness. I think he may have been on something, or maybe he was just messed up from the crazy emotional roller coaster he's been on, but he said he just wanted someone to talk to to keep him awake until his train leaves.

He was a very strange human, but the conversation was easy, so we talked for about 2 hours until I had to get up and go. I grabbed some salami, cheese, bread and chocolate and headed for my train. I snoozed a little, finished my book and ate my dinner and arrived in Florence at a little before 10. I'm back at Sampaoli and loving the familiarity of the place. Ricardo greeted me and we chatted about my travels since last week and I feel like he is a good friend now. Not sure what the plan is for tomorrow, but it will definitely be low key.

Maybe Ufizzi Gallery?

Maybe the laundromat?

Who knows.

XOXO

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Do NOT try the green fairy

Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Well... the pub crawl was... great. Really great.

We started the night by going to this neat little Czech restaurant near the central square and got some beer and goulash. It was SOOO good. They had these potato cake things in the goulash that were like fried garlic mashed potatoes. They were delicious. Afterward we went to this great little restaurant to get desert and then headed towards the beginning of the pub crawl. We met up with a guy from LA (who owns the pub crawl deal) and chatted for a while until a group of 5 Brazilian boys came to come on the crawl with us.

We started at a little bar where we had a power hour of free beer, absinthe, and wine for an hour. It was a nice atmosphere, but rather boring because we were pretty much the only people there (it was 9 o'clock so I guess we started a little early). After this we headed to an Aussie bar down the road which was great. There was a hippie guy playing guitar (think classic rock acoustic, it was great) and we danced and sang and chilled out for a while watching Soccer and talking English to people. After this we headed to this great nightclub. It's the largest night club in Europe and has 5 floors, each with a different theme. We spent most of our time at the American discotech themed one where there were quite a few people dancing to some good old fashioned American rap.

From here we went to a really cool rock bar. I had never seen anything like it and to be perfectly honest (although most of the other girls weren't too happy about the choice),. I really enjoyed it. They only played pretty hardcore rock music, mostly 90's early 2000's stuff. Think Rob Zombie, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Bush, etc. The guy to girl ratio was probably 9:1 which was awesome and we stayed there for quite a while before heading to our last destination which was another dance club right across the street. When we decided to leave that bar at about 4:30, we (of course) thought it would be a great idea to walk back to our hostel past the McDonald's and get some late night. I officially ate my first Big Mac ever and we sat there for probably a half an hour (a couple of the girls got 3 and 4 sandwiches) and then we got a cab back to the hostel (which, was probably a mistake considering our cab driver was LITERALLY insane, almost killed us twice and did not speak ONE word of English). We got back around 6:30.

Woke up at like noon and took showers, ate breakfast buffet and slowly dragged ourselves out of the hostel. We didn't have much time for sight seeing so we decided to go to the Jewish Museum and then shopping. The museum was absolutely amazing. There were like 5 different buildings that we went to. The first was a Holocaust memorial where they had the names of the 80,000 Praguean Jews that died in a concentration camp near here. They're listed by surname and by family. There would be a group of like 8, a grandma and grandpa, mom and dad and then four kids. The youngest one I found was 3 but I'm sure there were more younger that I didn't find. It was sooo sad and extremely moving. It brings up all kinds of extremely difficult emotions to deal with. The persecution of these people throughout history has been horrible and it doesn't make any sense. It makes me really sad to think that Christians could treat a group of people so horribly, especially since SO much of our beliefs are EXACTLY the same. I mean, don't get me wrong, I understand that not believing Jesus as the savior is a pretty large difference, but I mean when you get down to the basic principles and morality of our religions, they are almost identical. I mean, Jewish people are God's chosen people and whether you agree with their beliefs or not, it's appalling that we, as Christians, could treat such a sacred group so horribly. *sigh*

I'm off my soapbox. The synagogue was gorgeous though and everything is very still intact. The guys have to wear the little kippahs (the little skull caps that basically cover their bald spot :) ha, jk... but you know). They were very plain and we were eavesdropping on a tour guide telling the group all about the front of the main room where there is a spot to kneel and how you're supposed to be lower than the ground or something. Obviously I wasn't paying THAT good of attention. After this memorial, we went to the old Jewish cemetery which is where ALL of the people that died from 1400-1700 were buried (since the people weren't allowed to leave the little quarter). There are 12,000 tombstones, many right on top of another and apparently they think that a lot of the bodies are just buried like 10 or 12 deep so they estimate their are more like 40,000 bodies buried there. Eventually, they built another cemetery across the street (where Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis - is built) but the generation it was built for, was all killed in concentration camps, so it's almost completely empty.

After this, we went to two more synagogues and a museum with old burial artifacts (it was really neat to read about the whole traditional burial process of Judaism - and sad to think that the Germans ripped them of all of this tradition when they would just slaughter them). There were also a couple examples of old traditional dress and some paintings from really long ago showing different ceremonies. We also looked at this book of children's paintings and poems from when they were in the nearby ghetto and it was so sad. These little 7 year old kids are writing these poems about the most deep things. There was this one called the last butterfly talking about how she's seen her last butterfly because there are no butterflies in the ghetto and how she wants to go home but she is afraid that she has seen her last butterfly. So sad.

After we went here (these girls are a REALLY bad influence on me not eating American food in Europe), we went to KFC and got those awesome bowls with the mashed potatoes, corn and chicken all in them. It was amazing. We were instantly tired so we trekked home to nap and while they're chilling in the room, I'm updating you :)

I shouldn't need a nap though, I had like 8 hours of sleep last night and I don't think we're going to go as hard tonight because we have to all be on planes/trains around 10.

Oh, Prague has been wonderful!!

XOXO

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Tap your own beer

Location: Prague, Czech Republic

We found THE coolest place last night. It's a sports bar where you sit at a table for four and you each have your own individual tap. And there is a little revolving LCD screen on top of it that tells you how many liters of beer your table has drank. AND THEN... on a big screen TV on the wall, it shows how much your table has drank in relation to the other tables and has it in a sports book kind of layout so it's like a game to race eachother. We drank 3.2 liters of beer and it was only 240Kc which is like 12 bucks. it's like $1.20 a pint. Incredible.

Today, we took a walking tour with this guy named Paul and it was great. We left at noon (which made for a very casual lazy morning - oh and our hostel actually had REAL breakfast. It was an all you can eat buffet of cereal, eggs, toast, rolls, cheese, nutella, yogurt, juice and tea and it was wonderful). We started by walking down to Vaclavske nam which is Winceslas Square and is where the national museum was (the main street I was walking down yesterday). We got an intro to Prague and heard a little about the history. We saw an old memorial to Jan Palach and Klan Zajic who were these two 19 year old kids who burned themselves alive in 1969 to protest the Soviet invasion. People still leave flowers there daily.

From here (Nove Mesto or new town / 1400's new) we walked down the street past a couple cafes and then stopped at the bottom to go into the Mustek train station which is where the old bridge went from old town to new town and because the city has risen so much over the past 100 years, the bridge is in the metro station. It was really neat. The city has risen up because they are afraid of floods here (there have been quite a few REALLY bad ones) and they just keep gradually building the roads higher and higher. Most of the buildings "ground floor" is in the basement and makes for a ton of underground clubs and restaurants. After we left the Mustek we walked down to the Stare Mesto which is old town.

Old town is amazing. The buildings are so beautiful and there is a huge square in the middle with this famous clock. The clock has the hours of the day, the minutes of hte day, the days of the year (which all have a different name related to saints that did things on each day) and the astronomical signs. On the hour, the little skeleton rings a bell and shakes his head up and down saying that he is going to kill the other people on the clock and the little saint guys shake their heads no to say that he can't get them. Somewhat uneventful, but the thing is OLD (1410) and the guy who built it got his eyes burned out because the towns people didn't want him to reproduce it anywhere else.

Next we walked to Josefov which is the old Jewish Quarter. it was literally a walled in ghetto where Jewish people were "kept" and weren't allowed to leave. For 400 years before WWII all of the Jewish people in Prague were kept in this area and lived there. Absolutely insane that it was going on for that long. It's very cool though. Everything in the quarter is in hebrew and there are tons of synagogues, cemeteries and shops. After WWII, all the Jews were shipped to Auschwitz and the Prague Jewish population went from 120,000 pre-WWII to about 1100 now. Most of the city is a museum now.

From here we walked across the Charles Bridge which is this really old bridge that crosses the Vltava (the river that runs through Prague). The bridge has 30 statues on it and has all kinds of stalls with little knickknacks and a guy playing this circus music machine. One of the statues is a crucifix with Hebrew writing on it and the story behind it is that the Jews did something (like revolted or something) and the city of Prague erected this huge crucifix with the words, "Holy, holy, holy is the lord" in Hebrew in gold letters underneath it to basically mock them and put them back in their place. YIKES!! There's another statue of this guy who was a martyr for the city (St. John). His story is that the king came to him and wanted to know what his wife had said in confession because he suspected that she had a lover and the priest wouldn't tell him so the king cut off his tongue and then threw him off the bridge into the river. The statue is of him and underneath it, there is a little plaque with a carving of him falling over the side of the bridge and it's good luck to rub him as he's falling off. So, of course, I did.

On the other side of the river we walked up this HUGE hill (Prague is EXTREMELY hilly and it's very steep to walk around) and up to this cute little restaurant where we had a little mid afternoon snack of potato soup in a bread bowl with a liter of Pilsner. Oh this is the life. (Oh and Karen just brought me a beer because she felt bad that they're all talking in the room and I "have to update the fam" - Ha!! - Velkopopvicky Kozel Svelty is the name of the beer, how's that for Czech!! - On a side note, this language is SOO difficult, There are accents on every letter and it is impossible to try and sound it out). After our snack we walked up to the Prague Castle.

The Prague Castle is the biggest castle in the world. It is this HUGE complex of buildings, churches, villages and shops where the President of the Czech Republic still lives (we saw his car, so we know he was in there). St Vitus Cathedral, which is the Cathedral in the castle, was beautiful and the inside was full of interesting little secrets. There was a tomb to the saint that was pushed off the bridge (the one with the lucky statue) and it has tons (literally, like 3000 lbs) of Silver above his tomb. There is also a secret room where there is a door with 7 locks on it, and each important person in Prague has the 7 keys and it leads to a staircase that takes you up to the room where the crown jewels are kept. They have guards here like they do at Buckingham palace or Windsor Castle and we saw the keys on one of the guards, they are HUGE old skeleton keys - very cool.

After wandering around the castle, we walked back down the hill and caught the metro up to the top of the hill where our hostel is on. I ate a banana and some nutella and now we're preparing for our authentic Czech meal (goulash) we're about to have and our pub crawl.

Hopefully I'll survive. Just need to pace myself.

XOXO

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Hey... I'm Czech

Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Oh man, have I been taking the warm weather for granted. After my nice city bus, airport shuttle, plane, city bus, metro connection that I took this morning to get here, I finally arrived in Prague at about 12:30... and it's COLD!!!

The travel was decent. Not too many problems on the way. The plane ride was beautiful. We flew right over Switzerland and the alps which were so pretty. They seemed to go on forever. Everything was white. And so many of the mountains were so covered in snow that you couldn't see the rocks at the top. I mean, plateaus of snow so big and so untouched. I also saw a few places where there were avalanches and you could see the lines where the snow had fallen down the mountain. It was great. And then, just as quickly as they had started, they were gone. And we were flying over very flat, very green land. The flight was quick as well and the directions to the hostel were very easy to follow so I was here in no time.

On the flight, I had this great idea that I was going to extend my trip by a day and just do now, what I had originally planned to do from Prague before I changed my trip to go to Florence first. Even if I didn't extend by a week, I could spend the next 7 days doing eastern Europe and then head to Rome. I would still have plenty of time. But then as soon as I got on the ground... and realized how cold it was (which it's really not even that cold) I decided to screw that idea.

After dropping off my bag, I walked up the hill behind the hostel to this cute little park where there was a dog park and tons of people. From there I walked down to the center of old town down a really neat shopping street. I walked past the National History Museum as well a really old theater. At this point, I was frozen and hungry so, feeling a little home-sick I popped into a Subway to get a sandwich (hey if I'm going to eat American fast food at least I could be healthy about it). So I eat my turkey and ranch sandwich (the ranch was NOT ranch and I only got like 1.5 slices of turkey) and walked back out to realize that I was still frozen and needed to (at the very least) go home and put my long underwear on.

So I caught the metro back to my hostel and stopped on the way at a supermarket to grab a fresh jar of nutella and some other necessities (including peanut butter, apples, bananas, lemon wafers, bread, salami and cheese) and headed back to make myself a little feast. The salami turned out to be a kind of bologna tasting mess of meat but the cheese turned out to be Gouda so it was all good.

I'm back pretty early so there's not much going on yet, but this place is supposed to be one of the rowdiest places in Prague, so hopefully it will pick up here soon. For now, I'm off to have a nutella and banana sandwich :) Yummm!!!

XOXO

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One of the most beautiful places ever

Location: Lugano, Switzerland

Nice long day. Started out kind of rough. I woke up early so I could try to make th 8:25 train to Como, but I took too long eating breakfast at the hostel so I dragged a little before leaving for the train station at about 8:45. The plan at this point was to catch the 9:25 train, but unfortunately, I left my passport in my backpack and so I had to turn around and go back to the hostel to get it. You would think that I would have this thing figured out by the third time around, but no. This time, my Eurail train time-table book was out of date and the 10:25 train that I thought I was going to get on was non-existent and I had to catch the 11:25... so I was only 4 hours late. Not too bad a start. Already, at 11, it was SOO warm outside. I'd say it was close to 70. I was not only hot in my pea coat, but I was hot in my vest. My legs were hot because my boots were a double layer on my jeans... It was AWESOME!

So the train was quick and not too exciting. Northern Italy looked so much like Green Country in the winter... aka, not green. It was really pretty, but in homey kind of way. Everything was brown or, at most, a yellowy shade of light green. The trees were all bare, which was great and it made me feel nice to know that Tulsa Co. can be as pretty as Italy :)

I got off the train in Como and wasn't really sure where to go. I met a nice British set of couples who were equally as lost and they let me walk with them down to the lake. I walked around the lake for about an hour and then bought a sandwich at a local restaurant and sat on the wake break and ate and watched kids feed the seagulls. After this I walked around to the Como Duomo (Ha!) and snapped some shots before grabbing some gelato for the road and heading back up to the train station to head off to Lugano, Switzerland.

Half way to Lugano, the train stopped and turned off, and I was kind of scared that I had gotten on the wrong train. After sitting for a couple minutes (and noticing that no one else was getting on or off) a group of 4 Swiss Border Patrolmen with their nice big machine guns boarded the car and walked right towards me, stopped, smiled, said "bonjour" and then continued walking (at this point, when they didn't check my passport, I was a little perturbed since I went home to get it). From here, the train was absolutely stunning. We started driving around the south side of Lago Lugano and crossed it at one point and the city was on the bank with the Alps in the background. It was a perfectly clear day and so amazing. Once I got off the train, the hike down to the water was only about 15 minutes (but straight downhill... woohoo for the way back up). I walked down and strolled along the outside of the lake (which is MUCH larger than Como) and down to this little park that lines one side of it between the city and the marina.

First off, Andre, thank you for convincing me to come here, because I never would have stopped here if not for your recommendation. Second off, this was the most perfect place I have ever been. There was absolutely nothing between me and the most beautiful views in the world. I walked around the lake for about an hour before settling on a spot to watch the sunset. I thought about getting a picnic dinner, but... I didn't have any Swiss franks to buy food with so I couldn't. I found a spot near the marina and parked it. I sat there for over 2 hours just watching the birds, the waves and the sun. I had a perfect view of the alps, the hills on the other side of the lake, the lake and the sunset. I was also graced by a Yellow Lab puppy at one point with no owner (she eventually showed up a couple minutes later mumbling in Swiss and cursing at the puppy for leaving her) but I really enjoyed playing mommy to the abandoned puppy. I named him Lugo. I don't think that means anything, but that was his name. Possibly a combination of Lugano and Lago. Anyways, he was precious. I almost completely exhausted the battery on my iPod as well. I sat and watched the whole sunset and then walked slowly back up to the train station to catch the 7:05 train back to Milano.

The train was uneventful save the part where the Swiss border patrol came and checked passports and then the Italian border patrol came and checked passports and interrogated us about what we were doing and exactly what was in each of our bags (He thought it was weird that my camera case was in the compartment and proceeded to take it apart).

I got back to the hostel and had thought I could go to the supermarket to get dinner, but it was closed so me and Mido (the hostel owner) and two of his friends as well as another girl in the hostel tonight, Emily, went to eat at this cute little pizzeria near here. I got a great pizza with mushrooms, mozzarella, mascarpone, tomatoes and peppers.

Tomorrow I catch a plane to Prague and start a new few days of craziness. Can't wait!!

XOXO

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Is everyone Catholic?

Location: Milan, Italy

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. I started off late because I slept in and took my time getting up as I was somewhat behind in sleep. I caught the bus to Piazza Santa Babila which is a large shopping Piazza in Milan and is the start of the nice street that leads all the way from my hostel to the Castello Sforzesco.

Nothing was open (because it was Sunday) which was probably a good thing, because I was definitely feeling in the mood to spend. I walked down the back side of Via Dante to the Piazza Scala which is a really nice little piazza with the Scala Thatre which is a famous Opera House and this great statue dedicated to Di Vinci. It is also the gateway to the backside of the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele which is the oldest indoor shopping mall in the world. It houses a bunch of upscale Milannese shops like Louis Vuitton and Prada and has a bunch of cute restaurants as well. It's huge and extremely nice. There are murals painted at the top of all of the junctions and the ceiling is made of glass.

From here, you walk out right in the middle of the Piazza Duomo. The piazza itself is huge. There is a large statue in the middle with a guy on a horse but other than that, there is absolutely nothing in it. Except... annoying men. There are these guys who will walk up to you when you're taking pictures or just standing admiring the Duomo and they will put bird seed in your hand and then ask you for money for the bird seed. Even though you didn't ask for it. Then there are these other guys who have these lame woven bracelets that they literally throw on you and then ask you for money for them. They literally drape them over your arm as you're walking by and then chase after you. You have to start just shaking them off on the ground and ignoring the swearing that follows it. It was quite a relief to go inside the Duomo.

First off... from the outside, this is the most beautiful church I have ever seen. It is so massive (the 2nd largest cathedral in the world) and so intricate. The spires that come out of the top are so massive and carved so beautifully and there are so many of them. The inside feels like being in an empty warehouse. I arrived just after mass had ended and so you could smell all the incense and it was still a little cloudy from it all. It made for the most eery atmosphere. I took a couple pictures of the main nave and then walked to the side to pay some respect - lit a candle and prayed for a couple of minutes. You would not believe how many people were praying. And it was so strange because EVERYONE is catholic. There was a certain place where they had holy water and if you didn't take it and know what to do with it, the little priest guy wouldn't let you pass. There were probably 20 benches full of people praying and there were thousands of candles lit at the ofteratory table. And the organ music in the background didn't help to make things less spiritual. It was strange but I just sat there in this ADD sort of state for the longest time. It was like I couldn't pray because there wasn't enough room in the air to fit another prayer. I waited for a long time kneeling on the pew before I finally got out a couple minutes of dedicated goodness and then got up so someone else could sit where I was. There were probably 10 people also saying the rosary in various places around. I can't imagine how it's going to be at the Vatican. I mean, this is close enough though. This is like the suburbs of Christian headquarters. I didn't take many pictures of the inside of the church although it was the first Catholic one I've been into where they let you take pictures. For some reason, I just wanted to keep this to myself. Ya, ya I know, I'm selfish, but I'm not sure a picture would do this place justice and I didn't want to try. I guess you'll just have to see for yourself :)

After I walked inside the Duomo for a good hour, I went up on top which was SOO much easier than the one in Florence. There were only 120 steps to the top and they were all in groups of 4 so I was never really scared. Once on the top, the views were great. It was a clear day and you could see all the way to the Italian Alps to the north. The city laid out in every direction (although you weren't as high up as you were in the Duomo) you could pretty much see everything. I think the reason it didn't feel as high up as well was because the buildings here are much taller than they were in Florence. Here, they will easily be 6 to 8 stories tall where as in Florence, there wasn't much over 3 or 4.

After I came down from the duomo, I walked down the Via Dante towards the Castello Sforezsco which is this huge old castle that sits right in the middle of the city. It has a ton of museums in it and has a lot of cool parts that were damaged during WWII (it was weird here, because this was the first place I was at where the Allies were the ones who did the damage...). On the way to the castle, I was stopped by a huge crowd that was watching a parade. Low and behold - a Communist parade!! It was thousands of people marching with Communist banners and crazy outfits on. They all walked to the Piazza Duomo and then had some sort of rally that, of course, I couldn't understand because it was in Italian. It was really interesting to watch though.

I walked down to the Castello and grabbed a foccacia to go. The castle was great, huge, big moat, big walls, lots of fake purses. There wasn't much going on inside though. The museums didn't house anything I deemed necessary of €20 so I moved on to the Parco Sempione which is this huge park that used to basically be the backyard of this castle. The park was really nice. There were some people practicing some form of Asian fighting where the guys were actually hitting each other (although it was more of a dance and was choreographed) and the girls were doing these really slow warrior dances with big swords. It was interesting, to say the least. I also walked down to see a group of black market purse dealers pretend to be playing soccer in the park with their bags of fake purses under the tree while they were waiting for the police to leave the Castello.

After this, I walked to the Piazza Sempione which is basically just the other end of the Parco and then back to the bus stop to catch the bus back to my hostel. On the way, I stopped for about 15 minutes to watch these break dancers dance at the base of a mall staircase. There were about 100 people stopped to watch them and they were just a bunch of guys in their early 20s dancing for fun. A couple of them were REALLY good and would get shouts and applause when they finished their little move, not only from the crowd, but from their own friends. I also caught a nice sunset down the Via Dante which was a nice finale to my evening.

Once back at the hostel, I learned that we had a nice dinner cooked for us thanks to Mido, the guy who runs our hostel (very close to Mimo, the guy at the last place). He cooked us this fantastic Penne with Peppers and Mushrooms and Zucchini in a really light tomato sauce and there was a big salad with REALLY fresh mozzarella and tomatoes on iceberg with a balsamic dressing. It was a really great meal!! And he gave me 2 stella artois' which was very nice :)

After that, him and his friends all went upstairs to hang out, so I may be currently in charge. He said he'd be back in two hours... Haha, not sure what that means :)

Anyways, I'm off to Switzerland tomorrow pending that the train strike is over. The Italian trains have been striking for the past day or two so I'm hoping that they've had enough and will let me ride tomorrow.

XOXO

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