5 Countries

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May 10, 10:00AM: I just spent an hour writing a travel blog that was NOT saved. The server is down. I am going to try to recreate what I had so eloquently wrote earlier. As I write this, I am standing in a VERY long line in Rome, waiting to deposit my luggage so I can explore Rome in a day, unencumbered. I have been warned several times about thievery so any time someone gets too close to me, I give them the evil eye. This plase is really crowded with people.

Since I last wrote, I have visited several countries: Switzerland, Leichenstein, Austria, and now, Italy. Edelweiss arranged a driving
three country tour. Let me try to give you a brief overview of each.

Switzerland: Very clean, very expensive, very beautiful. We drove through St. Moritz to get close to the summit of snow-capped mountains. We were very high up, driving around loopy roads. Some people needed Dramamine to get past the nausea and dizziness. It was quite snowy at the top and we even saw some skiers. Gorgeous.

Leichenstein: A country with only 35000 inhabitants. Leichenstein exists purely for the passport country stamp that you can get and the
purchase of Swiss Army Knives. I did both.

Austria: Again, very clean and very expensive, but the most beautiful of all. The part we visited was surrounded by both the Swiss and the Bavarian Alps. The people are very proud of their country and can be seen on the autobahn picking up litter. If only we did that in America.

Yesterday I left Garmisch, Germany and traveled to Salzburg, Austria to spend the day. I took a hop on, hop off sightseeing bus tour.
Salzburg is very baroque in style and classical music can be heard everywhere. After all, Mozart was born and discovered there. The city
layout is very difficult to understand, so after a little bit of going in circles, I found myself at a little cafe by the Salzburg River where
I had the best potato soup, Viennesse apple strudel, and coffee that I ever had. Then it was back to the train station and on to Rome.

While at the train station, this elderly German gentleman struck a conversation with me. He used to work for the US Army and spoke very good, strongly accented English. Again, he warned me about thievery on Rome. He was very interestong to talk to. However, I had this feeling that he hangs out at the train station to have someone to talk to.

Sleeping on the train is a real experience. Sleeping, if you want to call it that, consists of having a smaller than twin size bed with a duvet, closing your eyes, and listening to the railroad tracks underneath you as well as the sounds and the shuffling of coaches switching tracks. I had a private sleeper with a private shower and toilet. The shower is about 1x1 in size; to take a shower you rinse with the shower head for five seconds, soap, and repeat for as many times as necessary. It actually felt pretty good and hot.

Pause-------------

The time is now 4:50PM and I am now on the train to Florence, Italy where I will stay for about three days. Today, in Rome, I got on another hop on, hop off sightseeing bus where I met the nicest Australian man who had been in Rome for a week. He ended up being my personal tour guide. We hopped off the bus and walked through the Piazza and the Pantheon and viewed fountains and sculptures and numerous old ruins. We had lunch in the square - pizza, bruchetta, wine, and the most heavenly gelato-while listening to the various musicians and looking at the many artists displaying their wares. All of this under clear, sunny, warm skies. Well, by now - I'm suddenly very tired (probably the wine and that "great" sleep I had last night) and was ready to call it a day and catch my train to Florence. We talked a little longer, while waiting on the bus, about jobs (he's an hotel concierge at a five star hotel in Australia) and family. I asked him did he have any kids and he said (friends, ready for this?) he's gay. Ha! Ha! My luck!!! I most certainly was not attracted, but, if I was, that's the kind of luck I have.

One other observation; I must say that love is in the air everywhere here. Wherever you walk, you see lovers holding hands, hugging, passionately kissing, etc. These are very affectionate people.

Well, I'm going to stop writing now and send this off via email, as the blog site is still not working. Happy Mother's Day!!!

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