The flight from Paris to Zurich was short and painless, much like Oakland to Burbank. From Zurich to Athens we met a really nice Greek/German girl named Eve who helped us find our bus once we arrived in Athens. We took the bus to Placa and followed a couple Canadian girls to our hostel, the Student & Travelers Inn. As it turns out, I don't think any of the staff there was Greek, but all the Brits and Aussies were very helpful. We slept until checkout time (we didn't get to the hostel until 1 or 2am) then got up, stored [View Full Entry]

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From Genova we took the train along the coast to Nice. We hoped to push straight through to Paris that night, but all the trains were full so we allowed ourselves to be recruited into the Les Myosotis Hostel, which turned out to be one of the nicer hostels we've stayed in. The proprieteuse offered us use of the kitchen and said "You eat, you drink, you do what you want. If you have boyfriends, you f#!k, I don't care!" We told her we'd be fine just sleeping, but thanks for the offer. We waked down the main foot traffic only [View Full Entry]

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The aquarium, our only reason for stopping in Genova, was a fairly short (if winding) walk from the train station down to the waterfront. It claims to be one of Europe's greatest attractions, and it really was pretty amazing. I like the feel of the Monterey Bay Aquarium better--Genova was a little sterile feeling--but it was really cool to see what's going on under the Mediterranean. Along with a coral reef display and thousands of smaller fish, they had two bottlenose dolphins, a family of harbor seals, and a small but busy hummingbird forest. They had a whole tank just of [View Full Entry]

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Unsure of exactly what time we'd reach the Cinque Terre, we decided to book a hotel ahead of time for the first of the 5 towns the train hits from Pisa--Riomaggiore. We hauled our packs up the steep main street to the Ca Dei Duxo hotel, and were then lead right back down the hill to our little apartment, which had everything but a kitchen. We put down our stuff and walked two doors down to a little market and got focaccia, pesto, juice, fruit and cookies and headed toward the harbor to watch the sunset. Sunbathers were turning in for [View Full Entry]

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Two of our roommates from Florence, Jasmine (a Mexican-American woman from Palo Alto) and Inma (a Spanish woman), decided to join us on the train to Pisa, and we had fun speaking Spanglish and sharing travel stories. The town of Pisa was completely shut down, which was surprising with so many tourists still around. It did seem as though everyone just got off the train, walked to the Piazza deli Miracoli, then hopped right back on. The Tower was definitely worth seeing, though. As it turns out, the ground under the Piazza is "shifty" and all the buildings surrounding the famous [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Florence early Saturday morning, August 27th. After visiting the tourist office, we walked a few short blocks to the Ostello Archi Rossi. They have a lock out for a couple hours during the day, so we just stored our packs there and headed into town to see the sights. The first stop was the famous Duomo. We waited in line to enter the church, then waited, paid, and walked up 500 or so winding steps to reach the lower rim of the frescoed dome. Many steps later, we walked out onto the very top of the dome--the hightest [View Full Entry]

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We sat at the train station in Paris for hours, and I wish we'd realized how expensive food would be (26 euros each!)-- we would have brought a picnic instead. We shared a 4 person couchette with a middle aged French-Israeli couple who spoke at least 4 or 5 languages with moderate ease. We shared our dinner table with an Australian mother-son pair who gave us some great advice about Greece. We awoke at 8am at the end of the line in Venice/Santa Lucia, the whole day ahead of us. Having no discernible hotel plans, we were easily convinced by a [View Full Entry]

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From Paris, Aneesa, Rosie and I boarded the Thalys to Amsterdam. Having already booked a spot at the Euphemia Hotel, we took the traim straight there when we arrived at 11pm and went to sleep. We were so tired from the wedding madness that we slept in on the morning of the 22nd and didn't leave the hotel until after noon. The first stop was the Van Gogh museum, which inspired me to finally ask my grandpa to teach me some of that new fangled impressionist painting he always talk about. We spent most of the day--in fact, most of our [View Full Entry]

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Rose and I arrived in Paris early on the morning of August 17th and took the Metro to Emily and Jos´house. It was wonderful to see the two of them, even though they were immediately distracted by the disappearance of their car (turns out someone set fire to the motorcycle parked next to it and both were towed away after the blaze.) I took Rosie to the Eiffel Tower, as promised, but the lines were so long she decided it would be more fun just to hang around underneath. We hopped the BateauBus and rode it to Notre Dame. We helped [View Full Entry]

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From my journal, killing time on the plane: Boarded the plane this morning at 8am after an all night packing frenzy. BART to SFO was easy and we arrived with plenty of time to spare. Slept through most of the flight to Boston and were treated to a stunning view of the harbor and islands outlying the town at sunset. Our arrival and departure gates were right next to each other, which made things super easy. It is between 6 and 7pm Boston time and we are in the air, about 6.5 hours from Paris. From 35,000 feet the clouds look [View Full Entry]

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