Plitvice 1/2

Monday morning we caught an 8:30am bus to Plitvice, the national park Kim has been dying to go to because it looks like Rivendell and she likes waterfalls. It turns out Kim is NOT a liar and the park is, in fact, beautiful.

The bus ride to Plitvice was about 5 hours long, but it wasn't too bad. They played Croatian music and we mostly slept... the bus even stopped at a roadside diner, so we didn't starve to death.

Since we had Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday at the park we hiked the shorter trail on Monday and saved the longer one for Tuesday.

The water in the Plitvice lakes is crystal clear, so we can see all the fish and decaying trees in the lakes. These poor fish have NO privacy!



There's not much else to say about the park, so I'll just post some photos for you to enjoy. If you want better photos, photos that weren't taken with a 7 megapixel camera from 2008, just google "Plitvice waterfalls" or wait for Kim to post hers.

Enjoy:

Split!

Sunday was our one day in Split. We had to get up at 6am because, you know, the ferry was docking. We walked to our hostel, which was an adventure because the directions from the ferry on the hostel website were straight up WRONG. They literally said turn right when we were supposed to turn left, then it said go to the end of the promenade when we were supposed to go to the middle.

We finally found the hostel, dropped off our bags and took full advantage of the free wifi to plan the next few days. Since it was early on a Sunday, almost nothing in town was open except the beach. Since it was rainy out, the beach didn't seem so pleasurable so we researched how we were going to get to Plitvice, Zagreb, Vienna, Prague and Hannover and everything else we wanted to do this week. After a while we realized we were STARVING, so we headed out to a restaurant. Actually, it was called a “buffet,”but it appears that here “buffet” just means “restaurant.”

After lunch we wandered the town, where a bunch of vendors had set up booths. We didn't buy much of anything, except gelato, and decided that since it was finally hot out we'd visit the beach to swim in the Adriatic Sea! Because I am lucky and also graceful, I slid down some stone steps on the way to the beach and scratched up the back of my leg and cut my toe (I know, it doesn't even make sense.) To remedy this, I went swimming! It worked fine, I'm all better.



Post-swimming we were exhausted and sandy, so we headed back to the hostel, showered, skyped our parents, ate dinner and went to bed at an acceptable hour for grandmas.


Hostel review: Situs Hostel in Split is one of the few hostels we've stayed in that was not a Hostelling International hostel. It turned out to be basically a 3 bedroom downtown apartment filled with bunk beds, but it was awesome. Our room had 3 bunk beds in it,so 6 people could sleep there, and the other 2 rooms had between 2 and 4 bunk beds, I'm not sure because I never went into them. There was 1 womens bathroom, with 1 shower, 1 toilet and 1 sink, a mens bathroom (with the same amenities), as well as a gender-neutral half bath. It sounds like it would be crowded, but there were lots of people there and almost never a bathroom line. There was also a kitchen we were free to use, which is the first time we've encountered that at a hostel, and a common area with a TV and free computer usage (there was also free wifi). And air conditioning, which was amazing. The guy in charge of the hostel lived like 5 minutes away, and he would stop by to check people in but was not there all the time, which was never a problem. It was within walking distance of everything we wanted to do in Split, including the ferry and bus stations, and overall a great hostel. The only cons were that the lockers were too small to fit our bags, so we were only able to lock up our valuables(not that anything was stolen, it was just sort of strange) and the dorms were coed, so we had to change clothes in the bathroom instead of in our room. Also, there was no breakfast (a lot of hostels either include it or charge a couple euros.) Other than that, it had everything I ask for of a hostel: clean, with a common area and wifi and in walking distance of things...with the added benefit of air conditioning and a kitchen.

Adventures in Transportation

Warning: This blog is rated M for mature because of descriptions of violence. Not recommended for young audiences :(

Today we basically spent the entire day trying to get to Ancona to get our ferry to Split. We had bought tickets for an overnight ferry to Ancona, leaving at 8:30pm and arriving at 7:00am. For only 100 euro we get a private room with 2 beds and a private bathroom, shower and sink … we thought that was pretty awesome. Our room even had a view of the ocean!



We woke up early in the morning because we were in a dorm in Venice and other people started getting up at 5, and by 8:15 Kim and I were ready to give up on sleeping and start getting ready to go ourselves. We were out of the hostel by 10, since we had to be, and ferried over to the train station. Our notes said that to catch a train to Ancona we actually had to be at the OTHER train station in Venice, so we were going to catch a train from the close Venice station to the correct one. We jumped on a train to Bologna (pronounced bowl-own-ee-ah, not bowl-own-ee or bowl-ag-nah), planning to get off at the next stop and find out train to Ancona. It turned out the Bologna train that we were on was the train we wanted after all, so we just stayed on it. If you didn't follow that explanation, here's a summary: we jumped on a train that we thought might be right and it turned out to be very right.

At Bologna we caught a train to Ancona, which was leaving at 2:30 and scheduled to arrive at 5:30. Our ferry left Ancona at 8:30, so we had been planning to buy some bread and cheese to save ourselves the expense of ferry restaurant food. Keep track of these times; they're important later. Kim and I had to sit apart :(! because the train was super crowded. I was across from 2 girls: one was in her late teens or early twenties and was literally carrying a (cute) Louie Vitton bag, wearing (ugly) Gucci shoes that looked like they were made by Ed Hardy, and wearing a hideous D&G watch, which had gold rhinestones spelling out DG on its face. The girl next to her appeared to be her little sister. Just minutes after leaving the train station, the fashion diva opened up her bag an pulled out some nail polish remover, and her and her sister took off their nail polish on the train, so everyone could enjoy their acetone fumes. Next up they started filing their nails, then REPAINTED THEM to mix some paint fumes in with the acetone aroma.

Kim slept through the olfactory drama:


Sometime in between 5pm and 5:15, our train stopped 2 stations before Ancona and made some announcement, Kim and I understood the last sentence “(translated from Italian) we at TrenItalia apologize for any inconvenience,” and people started sighing so we knew the train had probably been delayed. This wasn't really a problem – we had budgeted 3 extra hours into our plans. Soon after, another announcement was made and everyone started packing up, so we grabbed our things and followed everyone to another train, which was nicer anyway, and we thought the problem was solved. After about 10 minutes, another announcement was made and everyone left that train, too. We asked a conductor what was happening, and he said we were to go by bus. We went outside the train station, where everyone was waiting, and waited for the bus. After about a half hour (6:00pm), and talking to one of the train employees, we figured out that the train wasn't sending a special bus for us, we were supposed to take the city bus and use our train ticket as a bus ticket. I checked the bus schedule, and a bus was supposed to arrive at 6pm...since it didn't, we decided to wait for the 6:30pm bus. When the 6:30 bus didn't show up, I reread the schedule and realized that since today was Saturday, a bus wasn't actually coming until 7:45. Since our ferry was at 8:30, and the bus schedule said it was a 45 minute ride to Ancona, Kim and I figured we had to take a cab. We asked around about where we could get a cab, and the train employees pointed us to the cab stand outside, where no cabs were waiting. We asked if they could call us one, and they said something we couldn't understand because it was Italian. As Kim and I were wondering what to do, the crowd of waiting passengers started rushing towards the platforms again! Of course, we followed.

We got onto a train, asked everyone on board if it was going to Ancona, and finally started moving again at 7:15pm . . .1 hour 15 minutes until the ferry leaves! We were getting very nervous, especially since we didn't know where the ferry terminal was in Ancona, or how to say “where is the ferry terminal?” in Italian.

The train we were on was moving VERY slowly, way more slowly than trains ever do! This only made us more nervous. About 15 minutes into our trip, we started to notice that people in apartment buildings by the train station were hanging out of their windows looking at the tracks, and then we saw police tape and a couple of police officers on the tracks next to our slow-moving train. There were dark stains on the tracks, leading up to . . . the mangled legs of a partial human corpse. He was just lying on the tracks, for the neighbors and train passengers to see, with a tarp covering his torso, or what was left of it.

There are public service tv ad campaigns to deter people from crossing the railroad tracks, but we still see people do it all the time. The other day, a woman was standing in the tracks at the station as a train drove by! I wonder how often this happens here?

We got to the train station in Ancona at about 7:45, and after a rushed series of finding out which bus to take, finding out where to buy tickets, running to catch the bus, getting off at the ticket office, checking in, catching another bus to the dock, going through passport control, finding our dock, getting on board, signing in and getting our room key, we were in our room by 8:30! Unfortunately the water onboard isn't drinkable, and we've already spent eight euro on bottles of water! But we're happy to have our own room again, and to be in Croatia in the morning! So, ciao Italia, I will miss you and your cheap, delicious wine.

Things I miss

Unrestricted access to hundreds of outfits...I brought with me 5 tee shirts, 3 tank tops, 1 blouse, 2 pairs of shorts, 2 pairs of jeans, and assorted socks and undies. I am SO sick of these 5 stupid tee shirts! Once I get home I am never going to want to wear them again (and I probably won't, considering some are already getting holes!).

Washing machines and driers....we've been doing laundry in the sink, which takes a while to do but the really frustrating part is how long it takes to dry! In Rome we washed our clothes as soon as we got there, and they were dry 3 days later. When we're staying in a hostel for only a night, or even for 2 nights, laundry is a lost cause because it simply won't dry in time. This next week we're probably only staying in hostels for 1-2 nights each, so laundry will probably be impossible D=

Unlimited, easily accessible internet....some of our hostels have wifi, and sometimes it costs and sometimes it's free, but it's almost always slow. When it costs money we try to save by buying just an hour or two, but then it's so slow it's hard to get everything done (answer emails, make hostel reservations, buy ferry tickets, research things to do, call parents, upload photos, upload blogs). At about half our hostels, the wifi has been broken or “broken” for some or all of our stay, and at others there is simply no internet. Sometimes we just need to look up what train to catch, and in CA what would just be a couple seconds on a computer or an iphone turns into a wifi-hunting extravaganza.

The baby! Seriously guys, I need some news here. Has he rolled over yet? Is he still adorable? Is he fatter? Is he driving and applying to colleges yet?

Driving....I'm so lucky to be able to borrow Drex's car when I need to..its so nice to be able to get places on my own & on time. Trains are nice because we can sleep or blog (like RIGHT NOW) and they have bathrooms and dining cars and we have met all sorts of people on trains. But if we are staying in a small town (read: cheaper) and miss the train or bus, it can be an hour or two before the next one! For example, Kim and I are catching a ferry to Croatia tonight, so today is basically just a giant attempt to get from Venice to Bologna to Ancona in time to catch the ferry, and crossing fingers we don't miss any trains or get on the wrong one. We're getting much better at reading & understanding schedules and fares, though, so this is getting easier. Also, I would NEVER want to drive in Italy...drivers here are insane. It's hard enough being a pedestrian in Italy!

Having my own room....dorms in hostels are great because they are so cheap compared to hotels, and without hostels there is no way we could afford this trip. Hostels can be as cheap as 15 euro a night (or as expensive as 35 euro) but thats still cheaper than a 100 euro hotel room. But, dorms do have OTHER PEOPLE in them, and other people always have 5am flights. In dorms I wake up every time an alarm goes off or someone comes in or goes out, and every time I have to go through my locker I feel bad because I know I'm waking someone up! Kim and I have solved this problem by playing a little extra (usually about 5 euro each) to have our own room in a hostel, which makes an AMAZING difference. When its just Kim and me, I don't wake up at all until our alarm goes off. Unfortunately, private rooms haven't been available in Venice and won't be in Split, Croatia, so we'll just have to make sure we're exhausted enough to sleep :D

Texting! It's such an easy, cheap, fast way to communicate! I miss texting :(

Naps...during second semester senior year I became intimately acquainted with naps. Despite the prevalence of the siesta culture, here I have only taken 1 (1!) nap the entire 2-and-a-half weeks I've been here! Maybe I will have recovered from my addiction by the time I have to start working? I doubt KPMG reacts kindly to employees' daytime naps.

Venice in a Day

Friday was our whirlwind day in Venice. We were originally planning to do it as a day trip from Rome, and we're really lucky we didn't because we hardly had time to see it this way! We caught a 7:45am train out of Rome (voluntarily!) and got to Venice around noon.



For those of you you have been living under a rock, Venice is a city made up of canals instead of roads. There are almost no cars, and you can't drive cars through the streets anyway. The streets are tiny and wind all over the place and it's impossible to follow a map. You can't even ride a bike because there are bridges all over the place, and stairs to get to and over the bridges. People travel along the canals on water buses (ferries), or in their personal motorboat. Or, if you're a rich tourist, in gondolas. Venice is effectively a collection if islands, as the canal “streets” are all over the place, leaving neighborhoods connected only by boats and sometimes by bridges. Kim and I had to take the water bus number 2 or 41 to our hostel, so as soon as we got off the train we got in line to buy water bus tickets.



Once we got to the front of the line, we were told that the water buses were on strike, and weren't running right then. This was troublesome, because it was the only way for us to get to our hostel, unless we wanted to pay an absurd amount of money for a gondola or a water taxi...



Luckily for us the strike was scheduled to end in an hour, so we found a restaurant to kill time at. We had spaghetti with the most DELICIOUS meat sauce. Probably some of the best spaghetti I've had in Italy....nom nom nom. By the time our lazy lunch was over, the ferries were running and we got on one to Giudecca, where our hostel was. Turns out our hostel's ferry stop is just a couple stops before San Marcos Piazza, which is basically where all the action is, so that was ideal.

We dropped off our stuff, and headed out to mask-hunt! Since Kim collects masks, Venice is basically her heaven so this Venice trip was more or less for her. She had researched some mask-makers she wanted to check out, so we spent the afternoon checking out their workshops so Kim could spend her life savings on masks (She only bought 2! I'm so proud.) After that we got some gelato (ginger and passionfruit? OKAY) like we do basically every day, and after wandered around the Piazza....where we saw a SEAGULL EATING A PIGEON. WHAT?!?! Since when do seagulls eat pigeons?! It was terrifying, so we headed back to the hostel to shower and see what we wanted to do about food (pigeons were not an option).

Post-shower, when we felt like humans again, we decided we actually wanted to have a life and go out at night! We actually hadn't done that yet, as we are EXHUASTED every night and usually buy cheap food and pass out. We were exhausted, but we were also in Venice for only about 24 hours, so we had to make the most of it. We got pretty and headed back to San Marcos, where orchestras serenade diners on the piazza while couples “dance” aka sway back and forth. Since we were too cheap to eat at a restaurant with an orchestra, we headed down a side street and found a more budget-friendly restaurant. For once we didn't order pizza or the cheapest pasta possible, we both ordered....drumroll please....steak! It was a delicious change from carby food or ham and cheese. We even ordered wine that cost more than 5 euro, although not by choice, as the house wine was 14 euro/bottle . . . but it was delicious so its okay!




After that I wanted to find a club (surprised!) but the closest we found was a bar with a mostly-empty dance floor having reggae night, which we weren't too thrilled about. We tried to order whiskey sours, but the bartender obviously had no idea what we were trying to order....we told her it was whiskey and sour mix, but she didn't know what sour mix was. She asked if we wanted whiskey and lemon juice, so we agreed and it was pretty good! After 1 drink we left, and headed back to the ferries home.

Hostel review:
We stayed at the HI hostel, which was just called Venezia. The location of this hostel was fantastic. It was on the island facing San Marcos square, and it was right on the water, so we could see it from the ferry before we even got off. The ferry ride from the hostel to San Marcos was like 5 minutes, which is ideal, and the ferries ran every 20 minutes 24 hours a day. The hostel was HUGE. There were 10 beds in our room, 6 rooms on our floor, and 3 floors. My math tells me that's 180 beds....for women. And 180 for men, I assume. The staff was helpful and friendly, although slow, and breakfast was free & edible. The common area was big, and had the World Cup playing (of course) so there were people in it. They had computers with internet for a fee, and they advertised wifi but when we asked about it they said it was broken, so I'm not sure if they had it or not. The whole place was very clean, including the bathrooms, which had hot water AND water pressure. Our room had dividers between it, so there was: a window, 2 bunk beds, a divider, 2 bunk beds, a divider, 1 bunk bed + lockers, so they did a pretty good job of trying to give us privacy in a hostel with hundreds of beds – other hostels just line up the bunk beds in a room and forget about privacy.

Next up: Croatia!

Finishing Rome

Today was our second and last day in Rome. For those of you planning your own trips, it is TOTALLY possible to “do” Rome in 2 days, and if you have limitless energy and you plan ahead, I think it would be possible to do it in 1. Don't get me wrong, you would definitely want to spend more time here if at all possible, but all the guide books say you can't, and I just wanted to say you CAN. Take THAT, Rick Steves.

Today we got up at 7:30, grabbed breakfast on the way to the Metro and were at the Spanish Steps before 9.



We walked up and down them, took photos, checked out the Cathedral at the top, and then didn't really see anything else to do, so we headed to Trevi Fountain which was BEAUTIFUL. Seriously, it was amazing. I want one in my backyard.



Following that, we went to the Pantheon, which is the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built (according to Kim's guide book which I just read).



It is now a Basilica or something, which was sort of disappointing, but that's where Rapahel's (yes, the ninja turtle) body is.

After that we walked across the Tiber River to Vatican City, where we walked along booths selling trinkets, had mediocre pizza at an awful restaurant, and then headed to the Vatican. We got super lucky because there was NO LINE to get in, and then with our student Ids we got in for 8 euro instead of 15!

Apparently the Vatican museum is HUGE, way bigger than any other museum we've been in on this trip. We saw lots of awesome things, including old religious art, sculpture and even modern art (there were a few Dalis, which sort of surprised us) and of course the Sistine Chapel, which was by far the highlight of the museum. There was no photography allowed, not even without flash, and a group of guys were going around scolding picture-takers and making them delete it off their cameras. What a frustrating job! The artwork on the chapel was amazing, including the trim painted to look like marble carvings. Or was it actually trimmed with marble carvings? Kim and I spent a good deal of time staring at the ceiling, trying to figure that out so when YOU go to the Sistine Chapel, YOU can tell ME.

After the Chapel we'd had enough museum, so we headed over to St. Peter's Basilica, the biggest church in Italy. The church was spectacular (and massive). Michaelangelo's Pieta, a marble statue of Mary holding Jesus's body after he was crucified, is in the church, and was beautiful. I overheard a tour guide saying that Michelangelo's carving on La Pieta exhibits a lot more confidence than most artists' carvings because of how deep he carved the folds in the fabric; most artists would be afraid to make the piece so fragile.




Kim and I decided to climb to the top of St. Peter's, which was certainly an ordeal. For 7 euro they will take you up the first 200 stairs by elevator, then you have to climb more than 300. For 5 euro, you climb all the stairs. (There is no 6 euro “elevator up, stairs down” option!) Being the thrifty travelers we are, and because we want calves chiseled from marble, we climbed all the stairs. We got to go in the dome of the church and look down on the alter & the tourists, and then we got to climb to the (almost) top of one of the highest points of the cathedral, and look down on the whole city. The climb was terrifying, at one point the walls sloped at almost a 45 degree angle, and at another a spiral staircase was so tiny there wasn't even a center column, just a ROPE. Kim thinks it was worth it, and if there had been showers and cots at the top it might have been. Or if I end up with calves chiseled from marble . . .

We had planned to maybe see some more sights after the St. Peter's, but Kim and I were pretty dead, so we just bought some postcards and left. We bought some groceries on the way home and had salami and cheese sandwiches + a bottle of wine for dinner for the third day in a row. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do Rome in 2 days with 200 euro.

More Rome

Wednesday morning we got up at 6:30 to see the Pope! We navigated our way to Vatican City pretty painlessly, taking a bus from the beginning of the line (train station) to the end of the line (Vatican City). Our Roma Pass, which gives us discounted or free admission to city sights, is also a 3-day bus and metro pass, so we didn't even have to figure out how to buy bus tickets.

We got there at about 8:15am for the 10:30am audience, which is good because we got in the wrong line and ended up going through security and everything to get into the Vatican grounds and museums, which isn't what we wanted! So we got into a different line and went through different security, finally ending up in the right place. At that point we had a little less than 2 hours to wait for the Pope. I killed most of the time making bad joke puns (Are you thirsty? Would you like some soda Pope? Do you want to go clubbing? I can Pope, lock and drop it!), looking pious



and playing with Kim's camera




When the event started, the Pope walked out and said some stuff in either Italian or Latin, I don't know because I was too busy taking photos!



Unfortunately my camera was dead, so they are on Kim's camera. Then different priests took turns reading a bible passage in Italian, the same passage in French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and what we think was Russian. Then the Pope gave a sermon in Italian, and I have no idea what it was about. After that, the same priests that read the bible passage came up and read a list of groups represented that spoke their language. For example, the guy that read the French passage named all the groups in the audience from France or other French-speaking places, then the Pope blessed them, their families and any religious artifacts they'd brought. Next up were all the Spanish speakers, etc. etc. It was all very exciting, and with 7 languages represented this simple service took 1.5 hours!

Next up Kim and I got out of Vatican City ASAP, and since we were exhausted and dressed approriately for the Pope but NOT for Roman sightseeing (no shorts, short skirts or bare shoulders are allowed to get into the Vatican), we headed back to the hostel.

After a brief break to recuperate and redress, Kim and I went out for.....wait for it, wait for it.....CHINESE FOOD!



That's right ladies and gentlemen, after a full week of pasta, pizza and ham and cheese paninis, we wanted a little change. At the Chinese restaurant, the woman next to us asked Kim in Italian what time it was, and Kim showed her Kim's digital watch (2:15pm). The woman looked VERY confused, and Kim and I were VERY entertained, because of course over here 2:15 means 2:15 in the morning, because if it was afternoon it would be 14:15. DUH.

Post-lunch we headed over to the Coliseum, which was large and impressive, like me in my gladiator days.



And we wandered the Roman Forum and the Palatine. We didn't take a tour or have any info on it, so we didn't really know what anything was except that they were ancient ruins....



After that we got the most delicious gelato ever: mela verde (green apple), pesce (peach) and blackberry ( I have no idea what that is in Italian, and I feel googling it would be cheating) and caught the bus to the train station. We learned the hard way to make train reservations early for the fast trains, so we wanted to make reservations for Friday's trip to Venice. The line at the ticket office turned out to be ONE AND A HALF HOURS LONG, so it's a good thing we didn't do it Friday morning. Behind us in line was the highlight of our evening: a group of 6 British girls, who had just started a trip together, and were doing just about everything wrong. They had some people watching the luggage, some people in line, some people gathering information, and most people having no idea what was going on. They were already fighting (6 people travelling together!?!?! TERRIBLE IDEA) and had blisters from their flip-flops. They were trying to catch an 8pm train, and were stressing about making it on time. Kim and I spent our time in line telling them how to use a Eurail pass, what documents they should have out, how much it would cost, what to see in Florence, how to make the most of their time in Florence, etc. etc. We were nearing the front of the line and they only had 10 minutes until their train, so Kim and I let them cut us. They had taken our advice and assembled their group all together, with their frame packs on, and documents and money out, and were ready to run to platform4. Kim and I watched them go, then took our turn at the ticket counter, when we were done, WE ran to platform 4 (all the way at the other end of the station!) and found the closest 2nd class car....and they were in it! We waved goodbye from the platform and blew them kisses,

Hostel review: Stargate Hotel is the best-located hostel we've stayed in so far. It's only 4 blocks from the main train station, so not only was it quick and easy to find once we got to Rome, but it is really easy for us to get around Rome when we can catch any bus or metro going to the train station and know it will take us to the hostel. This hostel is mostly a hotel (in fact, it's called Stargate Hotel) except instead of queen beds it has bunk beds that collapse, so you can have 2 bunk beds, or collapse them into a queen bed, or 1 bunk bed and one twin bed. I think you can rent the beds individually, or rent a private room. Kim and I have a private room (it was the only option when we reserved, plus we've found that private rooms are WAY better) so we have a private bathroom, air conditioning, and a minifridge! We left one of the beds a bunk bed, and covered the bottom bunk in ponchos and bathroom towels, then strung up clothing lines for wet laundry. We love free laundry opportunities!

Cons include: We have to give back our keys each time we leave, which is sort of annoying, especially if there's a long line at the front desk when we get back, or if the receptionist isn't there (so far that's happened only once). Also, on our key ring with the room key is a key to turn on and off the electricity in our room, so there is no way to leave the electricity on while we're gone, so the minifridge isn't on when we're out. The toilet runs almost constantly, and housekeeping came in while we were out to replace the toilet paper but left red sticky spots all over the bedroom and bathroom floor! Perhaps most annoying of all, the room didn't come with blankets! We were too tired and pj-ed to go down and get them last night, so we were just cold, but this morning the front desk said we could ask for them. What kind of hostel/hotel room doesn't come with blankets?!?!?!?!

Rome

TODAY we went to ROME. We checked into what we thought was a hostel, but is actually just a hotel. Since Kim and I rented all the beds in the room (what!? It was our only option!) we have a private bathroom, minifridge and air conditioning all to ourselves again! So obviously we went grocery shopping and bought more moscato, but this time it will actually be cold.

We also got tickets to see the pope :D

I thought we were just supposed to go to St. Susanna's and pick them up between 5 and 6:45, but you're apparently supposed to reserve them by e-mail and THEN pick them up at St. Susanna's (Rick Steves misled me!). We asked the priest giving out the tickets if we could get some, and he said we had to wait until 6:30. We sat in the church, looking at him in a way some might call “pathetic” but I refer to as “pious,”until about 5:30 when he gave us some tickets and we left.

Then I updated this while Kim did laundry but now I want to do laundry so goodbye everybody! Enjoy!

Amalfi

Monday we took the bus to Amalfi even though the weather looked threatening, because we came all the way here for the Almalfi Coast, we are GOING TO AMALFI! Our receptionist told us to buy tickets from Tabachi (the tobacco shops that sell bus tickets, postage, tobacco, candy, magazines and probably organ transplants) so we went to Tabachi and bought the tickets she'd showed us. In Italy, you're supposed to buy bus tickets before you get on the bus, either at a vending machine or a Tabachi, and validate them using little machines on board. The tickets are good for a certain length of time – 90 minutes is most common, but also 24 hours or 7 days or other options. If you ride the bus without getting a ticket validated, you risk being fined on the off chance a bus employee checks.

I put Kim and my ticket into the on board validation machine, and it whirred and clicked and spit them back out, like it always does. A few minutes later, a man came by checking tickets – and it turned out ours hadn't been validated – either because we inserted them wrong, or the machine hiccuped, or something. Luckily, some random Italian women on the bus vouched for us, and insisted that they'd seen us insert them into the machine! Thank goodness, because I did NOT want to pay that fine. The bus employee lectured us for a while in Italian, then we mentioned we were going to Vietri. He said we'd passed Vietri already! He got off the bus with us at the next stop, and walked us to our connecting bus to Amalfi. He even stood in the road so cars would stop so we could dash across the street because our bus was already coming. It was all very silly, but we felt so bad that we couldn't understand what he was saying to us, and everyone on the bus kept talking about us in Italian!




The bus to Amalfi was a terrifying experience. The road was a tiny, winding cliff edge full of sharp turns and blind turns and SHARP, BLIND TURNS. In CA it would have been a one lane road, or maybe just a shoulder. But here it had traffic in both directions, AND people passing. I was very surprised we didn't seen an accident.

In Amalfi it was cold and drizzly, so we never did get to go in the water, but we enjoyed walking around and looking in the shops. The Amalfi Coast is known for their ceramics and giant lemons, so naturally there were plenty of ceramics with giant lemons painted on them. I was tempted to buy all of everything, but I'm backpacking so I had to use discretion!

Since Kim and I were feeling particularly poor and reasonably hungry, we bought some bread, some cheese, and 2 bottles of wine (what? It's a fruit.) to have at the hostel. When we got there, the atrium of the hostel building was filled with camera equiptment, amps, spotlights.....including a giant spotlight at the top of the stairs leading to our room, so we couldn't close the doors to our wing. Kim and I opened up our bread and cheese, pried into the wine bottles using knives, and while we were enjoying our meal we were interrupted by someone down stairs using a microphone. We peeked down and saw that the downstairs was full of people milling about being loud and important. Since it was 9:30pm, and we wanted to catch an 8am train, we had planned to go to bed soon and went to the front desk to ask what was going on. The desk closed at 10pm, so we wanted to make sure we knew what was happening before then. We were told that they were filming a movie, and they would be filming all night (later conversations revealed they would actually be filming until only 3am). We told the receptionist that we weren't okay with that, and that we couldn't sleep because of the noise. She said it wasn't her fault, that the city had required her to allow the camera crews to film there. We told her that it also wasn't OUR fault, but that we'd paid 35 euro to sleep here, and if we couldn't sleep we wanted our money back. She talked to the film crew, and the agreed upon solution was to....send us to a different hotel!

So, Kim and I packed up ASAP and one of the film company's minions drove us over to a 4 star hotel just feet away from the train station, complete with a mini-fridge to chill our moscato, a private bathroom, air conditioning and free internet! And people wonder why Americans continue to complain loudly.

Pompei

Sunday; Pompei

We had planned to go to the coast on Sunday, but the receptionist advised us that it was going to be rainy, and we should consider going to Pompei on Sunday and the coast Monday, so we did. Pompei was interesting, and much bigger than I expected. It was, by far, the most intact ruins I have ever seen. Some almost-entire buildings were still standing, including frescoes and wall ornamentation.

There were a few bodies, like my new bff here:



And here is a view of Mt. Vesuvius




After seeing the ruins, Kim and I once again hunted around for a sandwish shop or somewhere else with cheap food, but we couldn't find one so we stepped into a smallish restaurant with a list of cheap pizzas posted on the counter, which usually means its a SMALL, CHEAP PIZZA PLACE. Turns out it was a trap. We were led through to a larger, significantly fancier restaurant, with a much more expensive menu! We didn't want to leave, so we ordered a pasta dish....to share. And no drinks. The waiters let us stay and brought us our food, but they DIDN'T LOOK AT US the ENTIRE TIME we were there. They just totally ignored us, and instead stood around talking. When we finished they took away our plates, but didn't even bring us the bill, we waited like 20 minutes before asking for it.

We were forced to comfort ourselves with gelato, then returned to Cava. Our hostel had no wifi, but the city had free wifi downtown. We took our netbooks to the main street, but since it was raining the only reasonable thing to do was sit in an alley and talk to Drex on Skype.

FAIL

Saturday was pretty much a complete failure, so instead of writing a blog I will leave you with a list of the awful/frusterating things that happened to us:

-Checkout begins at 8:30am and our bus was at 8:43am. We thought this would be fine, but the receptionist was late.

-We still got to the bus stop in plenty of time for the bus, but it never came!

-The next bus wasn't until 9:53, so we wandered around the neighborhood looking for a bakery or anywhere to sell us breakfast. No dice.

-The 9:53 bus was late.

-We got to the train station with 10 minutes or so before our connecting train, but we had to buy a supplemental ticket so we had to get in line. The wait in line took us 15 minutes so . . .

-We missed our connecting train to Naples. The next one was in an hour.

-We caught the train to Naples but the tickets we had were for seats that weren't near each other.

-I had to sit across from an angry small child.

-By the time we got to Naples, it was too late to stick to our plan of seeing the city that day. All we wanted was to find some food and move on.

-The man at the train station baggage check kept demanding Kim do something, but we had no idea what he wanted because we don't speak Italian. Turns out all he wanted was for her to put her sweatshirt IN her bag instead of strapped to her bag.

-We wanted to eat pizza because pizza was invented in Napoli. We couldn't find any restaurants that were open because they all closed from 4-7pm! This didn't happen in any other city we've been to before or since.

-The streets of Naples were literally filled with piles of trash, guys loitering about, and hookers.

-It took us an hour of wandering to find a corner store/deli. We got some sort of noodle casserole that turned out to be something mac'n'cheese-like.

-He didn't microwave it enough so it was cold.

-After we had eaten about half of it, a giant gust of wind came and blew nasty Napoli dirt and death particles into our food.

-The train out of Napoli to Cava, where our hostel was, was really creepy and disgusting and smelled like pee.

-Once we got to Cava, we found that there was some sort of religious celebration happening on the square in front of our hostel. We couldn't get to the hostel without walking past clergy, altars, a camera crew, and tons of viewers, so we waited for the procession to process away.

-Our hostel (HI Hostel Cava De'Tirreni - Borgo Scacciaventi) was deserted. It was so empty we had a choice between a 6-bed room on the third story with no windows (but 2 skylights) that was about a million degrees, or a 14-bed dorm with big windows TO OURSELVES. Obviously the more beds the better, so we picked the dorm.




-The hostel had no kitchen, no breakfast, no internet and the reception didn't open until 3pm.

-Our hunt for affordable dinner food returned to results, and we had to get pizza at a real restaurant with a waitress with a giant, fuzzy mole on her face.

-When we finally went to bed, the basilica next door kept shooting off fireworks.

Seriously, it was ridiculous how much Southern Italy hated us.

Florence CON't

While we were in Tuscany, we figured it would simply be RUDE not to taste their famous export. In fact, we were in Chianti, and as any wine buff or college student knows, that refers to a delectable burgundy beverage of grape descent. To be polite and immerse ourselves in the local culture, Kim and I forced ourselves to go on a 10am vineyard tour and wine tasting.

The main building on the land was a bed and breakfast, with a view from the balcony that looked like a painting:



After seeing how and where they make the wine, we went back inside for a taste of some local favorites, because wine is an appropriate breakfast food.

Afterwards we wandered the land, and touched a real Tuscan vineyard!







Post-wine tasting, Kim and I went back to the hostel and ran into this little guy in the hallway:



SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THAT TERRIFYING CREATURE IS

We then caught an early afternoon bus to Florence, and after taking care of some urgent errands (eating pizza, eating gelato, etc.) the museum we wanted to go to was closed! DISASTOR! So instead we wandered around, people watched, and hiked up to Piazza Michaelangelo where we got a great view of the entire city. I have no good photos of that view, but here's a shot of Florence's duomo from the Piazza:



And that was the end of our Florence adventure! Next up: Southern Italy

Florence and Chianti

To my loyal and devoted followers:

I present to you, Day 6.

On Day 6, Kim and I went to Florence, the birthplace of both the Renaissance and gelato, to enjoy these two famous exports.Any experience traveler, or someone with a Rick Steves book (guilty!), would know that making reservations at Florence's most popular museums savings weary travelers ("weary travelers" is something Rick Steves would say) hours of waiting in line. However, Kim and I hadn't had internet for the past few days, and therefore had not made reservations for the Uffizi or the Academia. However, we ALSO didn't want to wait in line. Dilemma of dilemmas! Should we waste all day standing in line to see the art we wanted to see, or should we spend the day strolling the city, enjoying gelato, cathedrals and parks?

Answer: WE CAN DO IT ALL. Kim and I paid 40 euro each to become members of the Uffizi for a year. This gave us "Amici (Friend) del Uffizi" membership cards, which let us skip to the front of the line for any city-owned hotel - including the Uffizi and the Academia. So, we skipped directly to the front of the hours-long line at the Uffizi to see the paintings and sculptures. It was especially interesting seeing the pieces I studied in art history, including



and



After that we went to the Academia, where we saw the most impressive statue I've ever seen:



Obviously that's not my photo,its a Google image, since no photos are allowed, but Kim snuck one because she's a rebel.

After the two museums, Kim and I were exhausted and headed back to the hostel. After recovering, we grabbed Tim, the New Zealand hosteller we'd had dinner with the night before, and went to find some food. It was about 10pm, and even tho Italians are supposed to eat late, every restaurant in small-town Chianti was closed! We wandered until we found one open restaurant..we knew it was open because the waitress ambushed us in the street, insisting it was open! She asked where we wanted to sit,saying that it was easier for her if we sat outside, and mentioned that the veggie lasagna would be a good thing to order because it was already made and easier for her. So, we sat outside and all three of us ordered the veggie lasagna. As we were eating, the waitress came outside and sat at the table next to us, and spent a good hour telling us about her boyfriend, her previous boyfriends, how men are, how girlfriends should be, and generally all sorts of relationship advice. My favorites were:
-Girlfriends shouldn't call their boyfriends all the time. It stresses them out.
-Let him come find you. You don't need to bother him - when he needs you, he can come find you.

After soaking up all her relationship advice, Kim, Tim and I went back to the hostel with the intent of going to bed early. Instead, we ended up playing cards and drinking wine with 2 girls from Canada and one girl from Malaysia until 3am. The next morning, we planning to attend a 10am wine tasting....stay tuned!

Pisa and Chianti

We were so excited to get out of the hostel in Genova that we got up at 6:40 and were out the door by 7:30! We caught a train to Pisa, which was about 2 or 3 hours away. The train's final destination was Rome, so it was pretty crowded when we got on. We got kicked out of our seats by some woman who had made reservations for our seats.... we didn't even KNOW people could make reservations!! So we moved on to the next seat, only to be kicked out at the next stop :( Kim and I wandered the train in our frame packs, desperately looking for a place we could sit down.....when we discovered AN EMPTY BOX. Like, the boxes with 6 seats people reserve in a little box with curtains and privacy and EVERYTHING. So Kim and I pulled up the arm rests and pulled across the curtain, turned on the AC and went to sleep. Take THAT, woman who kicked us out of our seats.

After our naps we arrived at Pisa:


And acted like tourists:



Followed by another train ride to Florence, and a bus ride out to Chianti, in the Tuscan vineyard land, where our hostel was. Kim and I desperately needed to do laundry, so we washed our clothes in the sink



and hung them on travel clotheslines in our room, which quickly became a giant puddle.

After that we went down to the hostel's common area and mentioned that we'd just done laundry in the sink and people mentioned that the hostel actually had free laundry services.....FAIL.

In other news, the hostel Tavarnelle had very friendly people, who we spent a lot of time with in the common room, but it wasn't crowded at all. Kim and I got our own room. Breakfast was yummy and included :D

Cinque Terra

Day 4 Kim and I visited a major tourist trap in the Italian Riviera! Cinque Terra, an hour bus ride from Genova, is a collection of 5 seaside villages full of little shops and restaurants and beaches. We couldn't afford to STAY there, but it was certainly worth a visit!

Here's the coastline:



And a view of one of the villages, Riomaggiore:


While we were there we swam in the Mediterranean, which was awesome. It wasn't too cold, unlike CA beaches.

Milan & Genoa

Day three we took this mountain car up the hill to get a view of Como from the surrounding hills:



Here's us on top!



Then we visited Milan for lunch. On the way out of the Como train station, we ran into another guy from CA, and he asked what I do. I told him I'm starting KPMG in the fall, and it turns out he owns the Pilates studio across the street … strange.

In Milan, the only thing really worth seeing is the Duomo, literally translated “dome” but used as “cathedral.” It's the largest gothic cathedral, and the third largest cathedral in Europe. We toured it and ate lunch at a restaurant nearby, where we were attacked constantly by pigeons and sparrows. We successfully navigated the subway system, and made our way to and from train stations and the duomo without getting terribly lost.

Duomo:


Post-Milan we moved on to Genova, where we had a reservation for 3 nights in a hostel. We got to the train station, and ran into another hosteller from Finland looking for the same hostel. After asking numerous bus drivers how to get to the ostello in broken Spanish, we figured out that we needed to take a bus and transfer to another bus, which we managed to do!!! The ride to the hostel took a whole hour, and it turns out the hostel is at the top of a hill with nothing else on it except RAIN. We asked the receptionist if the kitchen was still open, and he said there was no kitchen . . . but there were vending machines and microwaves. Kim and I decided that microwave meals were probably not the epitome of Italian cuisine, so we decided to find a restaurant. We grabbed some random people from the hostel living room, and went up the hill to a restaurant clearly marked FOOD in neon lights. As we walked up the hill, we heard club music and got super excited about the epic dinner awaiting us.... except when we got there it was a CHILDREN'S BIRTHDAY PARTY. AT 11:30 AT NIGHT. AT A BAR. WITH CLUB MUSIC. It was strange and disappointing.

Hostel review:
We stayed at the HI Hostel, which was just called Genoa. Awful hostel! They took our passport to hold, which made us nervous, AND made us give back our keys every time we left! Both really dumb policies. Our room had 8 people/room, which wasn't bad, and lockers outside the rooms which is ideal so you don't wake up roommates rustling around. The showers had no water pressure, and the whole place was very impersonal and dull. The rooms were sweltering hot at night, and for some reason EVERYONE woke up super early. The only hostel so far where people don't sleep in. The fact that there was no kitchen, and only vending machine food made it even worse. In ADDITION, the hostel is only accessible via an hour bus ride up a hill - a hill with nothing else on it, except residences and that one restaurant. Awful location... bad amenities. Also we bought wifi access, but the wifi died and they didn't want to give us our money back! Boo :(

Luzern and Train to Como

Our second day in Switzerland we packed up and left Zurich for at least 2 reasons: a) its expensive! And b) there really wasn't all that much to do … we saw the cathedrals, and unless we wanted to shop for expensive clothes and gifts, swim in the lake (that option was tempting on Friday, but the weather was much cooler on Saturday) or visit the Lindt truffle factory, I don't know what we would have spent a second day doing. Anyway, at 40 euro per night, we wanted to check out of that hostel.

I suggested we go to Luzern (also spelled Lucerne, like the Safeway generic dairy brand...) because my parents had mentioned how much they liked it when they went. It was less than an hour from Zurich by train, so we caught a train there first thing in the morning. A note about the Zurich train statoin – THERE ARE MORE THAN 50 PLATFORMS. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DAUNTING THAT IS, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU DON'T SPEAK GERMAN? Seriously, the Berkeley BART station has 2 platforms, and I've made mistakes there. But anyway we caught our train to Luzern, and arrived relatively unscathed. Once there, we were very grateful to see that they had lockers we could leave our framepacks in, and being the cheapskates that we are managed to shove both bags into a single locker to save six francs! This six francs was later spent on chocolate:

A good exchange, I feel.

Kim and I attempted to do the walking tour outlined in a tourist brochure, but got distracted by the farmers market/rummage sale happening all along the water. Regardless, Luzern was the most beautiful Swiss city I've ever seen (aka prettier than Zurich). It's full of medieval buildings and cathedrals, and even has a wall surrounding it for protection. Kim is a jerk, so she made me climb up the hill to one of the wall's towers, then climb up the tower even though my thigh muscles never did anything to hurt HER. If Kim's fascination with amazing views doesn't end soon, I'm going to look great when I get home!

Here's the stairs I had to climb up the hill.

And the view:

Following that adventure, we wandered back into town to look and buildings and shops. About 75% of the stores sold Swiss watches, it was ridiculous. Of course, there were also fondue restaurants and chocolate shops.

Also, gift shops sold cuckoo clocks that look exactly like the one in my living room at home. I think my parents probably bought it in Lucerne. Mom, Dad, can you verify that?

Kim and I stopped to split a real, live Italian pizza, which was delicious. Since we had plans to get to Italy the same day, I was thinking that we were probably done with Luzern, so I asked Kim if there was anything else she wanted to see. Kim looked over the tourist map to make sure we'd hit all the interesting spots and suddenly exclaimed, “wait. Is that a LION IN AN ICE CAVE?” So I looked at the map and she was pointing to an icon which did, in fact, appear to be a lion in an ice cave. So of course we had to see it.

It turns out what we were seeing is a war memorial.

After seeing the lion, we headed to the train station because it was already evening and we still had a 3 hour train ride to Italy. We tried to stay awake to watch the Swiss countryside, but we both napped a little, and read tour books to figure out how we wanted to spend our time in Italy.

Our first Italian city was Como, a town on the shores of Lake Como, just south of the Swiss border. Kim and I arrived at about 8pm, and although we knew which bus to take to the hostel we had no euros! For this blame Switzerland- WHY DO THEY NEED TO USE FRANCS. The tourist info office in the train station was closed, and there were no ATMS in the station, so with no map of Como and no way to get cash we didn't really know what to do. Luckily here was a bar in the train station, so we went to talk to the bartender:

Me: Do you speak English?

Bartdender: No.

Me: Espanol?

Bartdner: No. French?

Me: No.

Kim: German?

Bartender: No.

Kim: CUMULATIVELY WE SPEAK 5 LANGUAGES, BUT NONE OF THEM MATCH UP

So, I told him in Spanish that we needed to find an ATM, and explained that we had no euros. He taught me how to say ATM in Italian, which I assume is the same in Spanish (bancoautomatico!) and pointed me towards town, although I couldn't really understand his directions and wasn't quite convinced he knew were an ATM was at all. So, we headed towards town asking random people for ATMS in Spanish. After 10 or so minutes of no luck, I mentioned that for all we know, we could be within walking distance of the hostel (Italian: ostello) by now. So, we started asking people for directions there instead. The first guy we asked told us it was too far and we'd have to bus, but we told him we had no euros and were going to walk what he estimated was a kilometer.

When we finally arrived at the hostel, we were disgusting and sore and exhausted. We checked in and headed for the showers, which was fantastic. After that we asked the receptionist where we could find an ATM...and there was one across the street! A+. By about 10pm we realized we were hungry, and now that we were clean and had euros a meal was in order. Since the hostel office was open until midnight, we sort of assumed the kitchen was, too, so we went in to get dinner. Turns out they had just closed the kitchen, but I guess we looked like weary travelers so El Jefe fed us anyway. Photos of him are on Kim's camera, sorry!

Hostel review:

We've been told that HI Hostel Villa Olmo is much more of a typical hostel than the one in Zurich. 12 people per room, with one toilet, one shower and 2 sinks, although there is 3 of each in the other bathroom on this floor. There are probably a total of 40 beds for women. The beds are super uncomfortable, worse than a dog bed full of wigs. Curfew is midnight (Zurich had no curfew). It is safe tho, and clean. The staff are SUPER nice and friendly, answering the most ridiculous questions, like “how can we find George Clooney's vacation house” and “what is fennel?”