I'm in Vienna now, but I thought I'd finish transcribing my earlier entry on Bolgona and Venice from my journal. Derek showed me how to change the crazy Austrian keyboard to normal at our old internet place in Salzburg (hence my last entry involving normal spelling) but I can't change it on this computer, so..... Sorry you have to read through the ys and zs. When we last left off, our heros had just arrived in Venice and had dropped their bags at their hostel.... For the afternoon we did whate we do best--wandered. Eventuall we hit a point wehre we were too tired, cold, and hungrez to go on so decided to go back. of course, actuallz reaching a destination is much easier said than done in Venice, what with the tinz roads which meet ... read more

So, I'm finally back to the land of reasonably priced internet (though still not cheap) and I prewrote a huge blog entry on the train today, but we've run into a snag. I'm getting used to my punctuation keys being in weird places, but now the actual LETTERS on the keyboard have been moved around! This Austrian keyboard has the Y and Z keys switched up, which is causing major slowdowns to my typing. AHHH it's SO annoying! Ok, I can't take this. I'm just going to type as if they're in the normal spot. I'm sure you'll be able to decipher what I'm trying to saz. say. It's been positivelz ages since mz last travelblog entrz, so I thought I'd trz to get the major events down in mz journal so thez don't slip off ... read more

So, yesterday Derek and I got up as early as we could manage, packed up our bags, and transferred everything to our new, wonderful hostel (Allessandro's Palace Downtown). Then we scooted off on the Metro for the Vatican. As I mentioned before, it was free that day since it was the last Sunday of the month. I expected it to be a bit busy because of this, but I was no where NEAR prepared for the crowd we were to encounter! When we got to the entrance of the museums, we encountered a line that stretched completely down the road and around to the corner. It seemed to be moving pretty quickly, though, so we walked to the end of the walled area (the city is surrounded by a huge, brick wall) to join the line. ... read more

Well, Derek and I reached a new low today. We were kicked out of a children's playground. Hey, how would we have known there are playground guards in Athens? Why can't big kids have fun on the swings, too? It was rough. This very angry security guard yelled at us "THIS PLAYGROUND IS FOR CHILDREN ONLY!" And we were kind of like, "oh, uh, sorry about that," and began to gather up our things, but he kept at it. "How old are you?" "HOW old are you??" he demanded. We were trying to ignore that question but we could tell he wasn't going to let it go so we meekly muttered "21," to which he replied in a very lofty voice "WELL this playground is only for 14 and under. You're not under 14." "OK, we're ... read more

Although I've really enjoyed my time in London, it seems like it's been full of us continually encountering obstacles and having to figure out a way to overcome them. We've been doing pretty well at coming up with solutions thus far, but it's getting a bit tiresome. First we had to find that internet cafe to book our hostel online before we could check in. Then there was the bed bug incident. Then yesterday we realized that it was becoming pretty much impossible for us to book a reasonably priced Eurostar ticket so that we could take the train from London to Paris today. Although we are supposed to be eligible for a youth rate of $45USD after 11am on Mondays, it seems to be essentially impossible to book such a ticket online. Coupled with the ... read more