Adventure08

im in zurich. when i saw how much it cost to buy a train ticket from rome to zurich, i had to switch some things around so that i could use my eurrail pass to get myself up there for free (free as in 20 euro in booking fees--at least its better than 100). two lost hostel reservation deposits later, i arrived in zurich where i would spend 4 nights with a supercool couple that my parents met while vacationing in tahiti. i arrived by train last night, and did little more than take the scenic route (tram rather than train) to Kevin and Allain's apartment, eat some delicious pasta, and goggle at how clean and modern the city was. also colorful. so many colorful buildings. today both kevin and allain were off work. we enjoyed ... read more

So, we haven't updated the blog in a while, so here's a quick recap of what we've done. I'll go into further detail later. Florence: Lots of museums! We saw quite a bit of art at the Uffizi and Bargello Galleries... too much to name, really. We saw the Duomo and the (fake) Gates of Paradise (although we did see the real competition pieces between Ghiberti and Bruneleschi) We ate amazing gelati and GROM We had nice panini at 'ino The boys went to the Pitti Palace and saw some more art there The boys also went down to the Santa Croce church and saw Michelangelo and Galileo's graves and monuments to Dante and Machiavelli and Rafael We all went to St Maria Novella and saw Massacio's Trinity The boys went to a hotel called... crap ... read more

Hullo! The train over from Cinque Terre to Florence stopped at Pisa, so the guys decided to take an hour and a half detour and see the leaning tower. It was about 20 minutes from the train station, so the three of us donned our backpacks and trekked over. Lots of tourists were in the area, but we got a couple good pictures in and marvelled at the fact that, yes, it's still leaning. Weird. We walked around for 5 more minutes, realized we needed to buy tickets to do anything else, and headed back in time for the next train to Firenze! Detour: success!... read more

The Cinque Terre. "Five Lands." Absolutely beautiful. Our hostel is in Levanto, which is the next town west of the Cinque Terre, five seaside villages. We got up early, had some breakfast, and took an early train over to Riomaggiore, the easternmost city. This is where the trail that connects all five towns begins... We hiked around, found some beautiful panoramas, (Adi bought some fresh foccaccia with olives), then began on the "Via Dell'Amore," the easy path that connects the first two villages. Fifteen minutes (and a bunch of cliffside views) later, we arrived in Manarola for some more seaside fun. It was about noonish, so we decided to have some lunch at a seaside restaurant. It was a bit on the expensive side, but it was definitely worth it: great pasta, great pesto, great sauces, ... read more

Hello from Verbania! This is a short blog post. More detail later: Verbania: Meet Paulo Drive to Nursery Drive home Relax Go for run up hill Walk around lakeside / on island Go for dinner on island on lake Eat well Sleep!... read more

Interlaken, Switzerland. It's raining here too. We took a train from Munich to Zurich, Zurich to Bern, then Bern to Interlaken. After however many hours, we finally arrived at this gloomy mountain city. It's pretty touristy. There isn't that much to do here. Wait. There is a lot to do here, but all the extreme sports cost over 150 bucks. Holy crap. And it's gloomy. And raining. We went to get dinner. It was expensive. This country is expensive. And they don't use the Euro. Who do the Swiss think they are? So different? Pff. Guy time: While the girls checked the internet and took showers, the guys went for a walk for a couple hours down to the river and one of the lakes. It was dark and it was rainy, but it was fun ... read more

Munich! The land of the... well, beer. We arrived at Munich Hauptbahnhof in the afternoon and trammed over to our hostel, 10 minutes away. It was called the Tent, and we didn't really know what to expect. It was a giant tent. With 150 beds inside. Nice! It looked exactly like a summer camp on the outside... bonfire over here, campy kitchen over there, tables and benches and hammocks and other private tents set up. It was kinda late, so we had lunch at the hostel itself. 3 Euro pasta = Amazing. Oh my it was good. Afterwards, the girlies went to the computies to use the internets, and the guys started playing cards. A couple Aussies came over and asked to play with us. Their names were Toby and Robert, and really we ended up ... read more

We left off earlier with Sam and Eleni heading to meet the boys for the night. We were all reunited, eventually. AND we found the group of British boys that seem to pop up everywhere we go. While Sam stayed to hang out with them, the rest of the group trudged off to find the alleged Metronome. It stands in the exact spot where a massive statue of Stalin used to stand. Apparently it took quite a number of explosives to get rid of that puppy. After walking back accross the river and through a dark park, we came upon a playground. Merry-Go-Round and See-Saw time! We were sufficiently dizzy by the time we walked away. Sadly, the Metronome was not running at midnight, but we had our own working metronome in the backpack of our ... read more