munich, salzburg, venice... and rome!

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Hello hello all!

I am sorry to not have updated more frequently, Im finding internet cafes difficult to come by sometimes! Well first of all I am currently in Rome and so far the trip has gone just great! So ill begin by telling you about our previous cities!

The last time I wrote we were in Munich, Germany. Munich was good, we spent a day in the city itself doing stuff like going to a science museum... oh god i almost died, haha michael was a good sport about letting me complain though, and then we walked in the englischter garten there. believe it or not people actually surf in the river there! i got lots of pictures so ill show them to you when i get home! unfortunately, i ended up injuring my foot (haha who knows how) and it swelled up very large so i had to be careful throughout our time in Munich so that it did not have another bad reaction. after our day in munich, we went to fussen. that is the town where the famous disney castle is. it was great to see it!! the tour of the castle itself was only 30 minutes because it was never completed (Ludwig died), but the surrounding areas were stunning! It really reminded me of Colorado. We played around in an Alpine stream for a bit and then hiked around the hills behind the castle. On our last day, Tuesday, we spent the morning in Dachau. For those of you who do not know, that is a work concentration camp set up by the Nazis. It was a very moving experience, and though it sounds odd Im glad we took the time to see the camp. It serves as a good reminder of human nature and how quickly we can forget what is right and wrong. (how deep, i know)

After our morning in Dachau we went to our surprise location, Salzburg! I love that city, it is so pretty. We did not really do too much there, just walked around and explored. They have a beautiful cathedral there and Im glad we stumbled upon it. There were so many different groups playing Mozart, it was just like a classical music concert wherever we went! On Wednesday, I had planned on going on the Sound of Music tour but I did not feel well so we ended up taking a random train to a town called Golling. Honestly, I have no idea how we picked that out, it was so weird! We spent about two hours there in the morning, it was pretty fun, but there was really nothing to do so we went back to Salzburg. Michael went on a salt mine tour (he later discovered it was geared toward 6 year old kids... but he still managed to have fun! haha) and can you guess what i did? shopped, duh! and ate a delicious apple strudel! yummmmmmmm. our hotel was really far away from downtown so it was a long walk back and forth, so we didnt get to spend that much time downtown at night. our hotel room was pretty funny though because it looked like a hallway with two twin beds somehow fit in there. haha but at least we had our own bathroom! we awoke on thursday morning and hopped on an early train to venice.

we ended up having some confusion with our venice train, we had to transfer trains somewhere in the south of austria and almost could not get on the train since we did not have reservations (we are SO annoyed with the rail system over here! grr). luckily we just got on anyway and were able to buy them for fairly cheap on the train. the ride from salzburg to venice was absolutely phenomenal, it was just as i had pictured the area! when we got to venice, michael and i both had the same reaction, wow so many tourists!! it was insane how many other people were there! thankfully our hotel was very close to the train station so we just quickly dropped our bags off yesterday afternoon and were able to explore the city. there is a region called rialto and is basically just shopping and it was so much fun to explore! i loved looking at all the venetian glass, it was tres cool! we went pretty much everywhere there was to go yesterday afternoon including the Piazza San Marco and a few other various sites. Typical me, my favorite was the shopping district. We had dinner in some random place and then ended up getting lost on our way back to the hotel! I dont know how we managed to do that considering most roads there are water, but well... it was dark so give us the benefit of the doubt!! The actual walking streets there were beautiful, they definitely reminded me of the Shambles in York. We spent this morning in Venice too and went to look for a chocolate shop we had heard so much about, but like so many other Italians, the store owner was on vacation for the month of August! So disappointing!

around 12:45 we got on a train for rome and arrived here (rome) at around 5pm. we dropped our luggage off at our hostel which is in a very seedy location!! haha but the hostel itself is great, and the people who work there are delightful. we went to the trevi fountain and the spanish steps after we left our luggage, it was a longer walk but it was a nice way to become familiar with the city. we ended up getting caught in the rain (if you like pina colatas... getting caught in the rain... okay sorry random song outburst) before we found a place for dinner tonight, but once we did it was nice! we sat right beside the window and were able to watch all the people walk on by. right now im at the hostel about to go to bed so i can get up early tomorrow! were going to vatican city and then probably the roman forum and other various monuments. i look forward to seeing all these sites ive heard so much about!

oh and a funny side note. all the italians are salespeople! today this guy was selling roses and he walked up to me to give me a few, but i told him i had no money. he said thats okay youre just so beautiful you can have them. so i took them but then he looked at michael and said okay just give me what you have (meaning money). i ended up giving him back the roses and we managed to escape his harassing, but gosh i was just so offended he didnt want to give them to me because im beautiful! haha totally joking of course, but i thought it was funny.

okay ill try to update this again tomorrow and let everyone know how our big touring day goes! sorry it took me such a long time to write!! miss you all!

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