From Rome

Yeah, that's right.

Well, it turns out that we have free Internet access at night in our hostel in Rome. That means I finally have enough time to post a message here, as opposed to frenzied emails to a select few while sharing one hour access cards amoung the five of us on the trip. There are, of course, too many stories to be able to tell them all on here, but I'll give a short summary at least.

Dave, Ian, Shelly, and myself started our trip by flying from Toronto to London, England on the 5th of May. We spent four days touring London and seeing all the major tourist spots. The first day is a blur as we were all jet lagged and with one expectipn, hadn't slept on the plane. On the second day, we met up with another Dave, one of my 4B room-mates, who was also touring Europe. Highlights include a tour of the Tower Bridge and taking Abbey Road pictures like this one.

Fish and chips taste great, especially late at night, but you can feel the grease seeping into you. Note: Ian and Shelly are keeping a journal, so I'm going to look at theirs when the trip is over. Personally, I'm keeping a photo journal, and am averaging about 50 pictures a day.

On the fifth day in London, Chris joined us from Toronto. We walked around with him for a while, and then headed earlyish to bed as we had to catch an 8 am flight to Munich, Germany. We woke at 4:30, caught the subway at 5:15, and were on the train to the airport at 6:30. Yeah, the subway took a while. There was construction and everything was very delayed, so we ended up missing the 6:00 train. Anyway, we made it to the airport, but Shelly had bought her ticket for the day before and with EasyJet, there are no exceptions. She was forced to but a new ticket for that evening, meaning the four of us flew and had to leave her in London. She was OK though, and had a good time on her own.

Meanwhile, the four guys enjoyed Munich, including the typical old buildings, one very unique church awash in skulls, and finally the world's oldest beer hall. We went to the airport at night to pick up Shelly and made a little sign like the limo services do.

The five of us toured Munich the next day, and went on a walking beer tour. Basically, this was a tour guide who rode a bike carrying a keg, and talked about the sites as his followers got progressively drunker. The most impressive thing on the walking tour were the river surfers, a group of people who surf a small river in the city.

The next day, Chris and I took some public transit to pick up our rental van, and after a long delay managed to get it back to the hostel. This was our first taste of European driving, although Italy has been much, much worse.

That day, we set off South to see Castle Neuschwanstein. This castle, about an hour and a half from Munich, was the castle used as a model for Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle, so if you've seen the movie (and who hasn't) it's almost unbelievable seeing it in real life. We slept in the small town at the base of the castle's hill that night. That night we made it to Innsbruck, and drove through the mountains all day. I have to say, even after Tobermory, that the Alps are the most beautiful place I've ever seen on Earth.

In Austria, we did some hiking and climbed some crazy slopes, at least three of us did. We were invited into the summer house of an old couple, and had shots with them at their insistence.

The next day, we crossed into Italy. There was definitely a gradual decline in the apparent wealth of the country, as the small towns became shabbier as we moved South. We ate our first Italian pizza in a tiny town that we happened to be passing when we were hungry. Mmmmmm...it really was delicious, although by now I can say that the Italians are famous for pizza because they have nearly nothing else. Well, pasta of course, but that's it. I've eaten pizza five times in the last three days.

That night, looking for a campground to camp for the first time, we weren't having much luck following the campground signs. We stopped at a roadside bar and, using a mix of Spanish, English, and Italianish, I managed to convey that we were looking for a place to pitch a tent. Luck was with us, and the bartender owned the field across the road. He said we could sleep there, so we bought a bottle of water and gave him a E20 tip.

The next morning we made it to Venice, the city of canals. The city is completely geared for tourists, and everything is very expensive. We were told to ignore maps and simply walk around, so that's what we did in the limited time we had there (just 24 hours in the carport). Even so, we managed to take a lot of pictures and see the major buildings. In the central square, people sell corn in bags so tourists can feed the pigeons. What a great idea! They eat right from your hands!

We had two days to get to Rome, so that night we made it to Florence. We were stopped in the train station where we went to ask for tourist information by a man who was offering deals on hotel rooms. We took him up on his offer, even though it sounded shady, but it ended up being OK. We decided to delay Rome a bit, and say Florence for about 4 hours in the morning before leaving for Rome. We saw the statue of David and Duomo.

Then the final four hour drive to Rome, which brings us to just a few hours ago. We left the van in a parking lot outside the city for a measly E1.5 a night. By comparison, some lots in Florence wanted E45 for 24 hours!

Well, this post has been mainly to kill time while waiting for Mel's 5:30 class to end, and to that end it has worked very well as it's now about 6:45 her time. I hope you've enjoyed reading!