Hey there, Sorry its been a day or two. Things have been pretty packed- there's alot going on in Florence- and this hostel only has one computer so we all have to fight over it. And I'm a lover, not a fighter. The hostel we're staying at, The Emerald Palace, is pretty nice. One computer, but its less hot and there's a balcony and fridge. However, the room we're in also sits right next to a very busy and very loud street that you can here even with the shutters closed. Its also a 4 person room, so last night there [View Full Entry]

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The Last Day in Rome This morning we got a late start because last night none of us slept well... we woke up and had a light breakfast of leftover rolls and cheese. We went over to Termini station and caught a metro down town and then a bus to the Via Appia. This is the oldest major road in Rome- it used to be the largest commercial road leading into the city. It is nice, paved and a little uneven. It turns out that we took a bus that drops us off at the end of the attractions on [View Full Entry]

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Greetings from the Vatican It has been a day filled to the brim with history and art. This morning the three of us caught the metro over to Vatican city. It is still very hot, in case you were wondering about that aspect of things... We hopped on to the rather long line into the Vatican museums which moved pretty quickly. It turns out that it was just the line to get into the area where you get tickets, but all in all the whole thing only took about 30 minutes. Instead of telling you about the wonderful 30 minutes [View Full Entry]

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The Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Pantheon Italy is hot. Very hot. It is also humid, muggy and warm. Thankfully there are public fountains with clean, semi-drinkable water that I used to re-fill my water bottle as the day wore on. It is also too hot to eat anything besides fruit and gelato (in my case grapes and chocolate) which we had for lunch. Can't really complain though. This morning we enjoyed a hotel breakfast that was pretty decent, then headed off to the Termini (train station) to reserve seats on our train trips. It turns out that reservations are [View Full Entry]

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Arrival in Rome Wow. We've been on the road for more than 24 hours now. Combine that with time zone changes and its a little bit daunting. The flight to England was not great- I ended up directly behind a young child who screamed for literally the entire time. That wasn't too condusive to resting up. Then we had to transfer airports in England. Emily's uncle "Hedgie" gave us a lift. He's really interesting and entertaining- we'll be seeing him again in England. As our luck would have it we got a flat tire and needed to replace it on [View Full Entry]

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Planning with Emily There's now less than a week left until our departure, so we finally decided to get our act together and figure out what we want to do in Italy/France/Germany/Holland/England. We're still waiting to figure out the hostel situation in Berlin and the flight (or boat ride) from Amsterdam to London. My books (Count of Monte Cristo, Tom Jones and Crime and Punishment) arrived along with the data chip for my borrowed over seas phone. These are fascinating details, but I'll leave it at that for now. [View Full Entry]

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