September 2007 Archives

Sat. 09-01-07 -- London, England and Paris, France
Originally published on: 09-07-07

This morning was our last day in London until we return in October. I got up early (before Kara) and walked around a bit looking for an internet café. However it was around 7am so nothing was open. That means I'm still not able to transfer our pics to my website. So I went back to our hostel and used their computers (no USB devices allowed) and typed up a few more journal entries.

By then it was around 8:30am so I went back to our room to wake Kara up. Once she was up, we made breakfast and lunch; ate the breakfast and stored the lunch. We packed up our suitcases and checked out and caught the tube to Waterloo Station. We had a little over an hour to kill so we walked back over to the Imperial War Museum. This time we watched a film about Crimes Against Humanity, briskly walked through the espionage exhibit, got some close up time with a few of the tanks, and finally walked through an exhibit about WWII through the eyes of the children at the time. When we got to the museum, they let us check our big backpacks, so it was really an excellent (and free) usage of a bit of downtime.

At noon we walked back to the train station and checked in. We still had to wait for maybe a half hour, but then we were allowed to bored the train.

Not much to report on the train ride. The train went fast, the Chunnel was dark, and I used the time to plan our Paris activities. Using the torn out Paris sections of 3 guide books (Rick Steves', Let's Go, & Lonely Planet). I came up with a list of what we might want to do, and I shuffled them around to make them fit. I wasn't quite sure what we were going to do today though since we wouldn't even get to our room until about 6pm.

Once the train arrived at Paris Gard Nord, we went to the ticket counter to buy our tickets to Normandy for the 4th. I went to the first counter: Me: "Bonjour" Her: "Bonjour" Me: "parlez-vous anglais?" Her: [shakes head no]... So we backed up and waited for the window that said ENGLISH SPOKEN. When there, we got our tickets to and from Normandy (Caen) with little difficulty. Then we asked about the night train to Irún (Basque country in Spain) for the 6th, and she said no beds... Well crap, we're supposed to meet Jeff & Jessie there on the 7th! We left the counter and talked and looked over the schedule. We thought maybe we could catch a day train on the 7th, so we got back in line and asked about that. The guy said there were availabilities on the 12pm train which would get us there by 4pm-ish. That would work, but we still need to get final confirmation from Jessie before we book it, so we said thank you and filed that info away for later use.

With tickets dealt with for a while, we got Euros out of an ATM & headed down into the Metro. It looks like Paris has a pretty sophisticated underground network, but they don't have the automated ticket dispenser thing ironed out yet (more on that later). I had to purchase two tickets to our stop from a counter, and we had issues because I was apparently butchering the French pronunciation of 'Port Royal.' After repeating it a few times, the man at the ticket counter finally said "Ahh, Porh Rah-yaleh" and printed our tickets! The ride was not long, and then we were on the street in our neighbourhood. We hoofed our big packs a few blocks down to our hotel on Rue Berthollet. A quick check-in and a ride up a tiny elevator, and we had finally made it to our room.

We hadn't yet decided what to do with the remains of the day, so I took the tour book to the bathroom. A short while later, I was a pound lighter and I had a plan! (the gross poop reference is a tribute to Micah).

We took a train to Notre-Dame and as soon as we emerged from underground, we saw the massive cathedral facade. We got up close and took a bunch of pictures. The facade has tons of detail, it was very cool to look all around it and see all the statues. We walked completely around the cathedral, then we walked to the other end of the island we were on and got in line for a night boat cruise on the Seine. We had to wait around 30 minutes, but that ended up being good because it let the sky darken and the building & bridge lights to come on. The boat ride was good, we saw a lot of buildings along the Seine, and of course the Eiffel Tower. Continuing the "things look different in person" tour, the Eiffel Tower was bigger and fatter than I thought it was. It was all lit up and it was cool to see the elevators moving up and down on the inside.

The boat tour lasted about one hour, so it was around 10pm when we were back on the street. We walked back to the metro station and discovered that the ticket window was closed for the night! We tried using the lone machine in the station, but it wouldn't take our credit card OR our coins! So basically we were screwed, no way on the Metro! I had read that you can buy Metro tickets at tobacco shops, so we walked around a bit to see if we could find one... no luck. We found a bus station, but the sign said our line was no longer running. So it was taxi or walk, and since we were about a mile from home, we decided to walk. I was a little worried since it was like 11pm by this time and we're walking the streets on our first in a foreign city. But there was still a lot of people on the street, so I figured it was safe enough. Well, it would have been a good plan had we not got lost... We ended up spiralling around our street until we finally found it. In all we probably walked an extra 1-1.5 miles. By the time we finally found our hotel, we were exhausted and hungry since we had not had dinner yet. There was a little corner store, so we went in to see what kind of food we could buy. There wasn't much selection, so we walked out with 3 small bananas, a 7up, and a beer... When we got to our room, we were so tired that we must have been delirious, because we started laughing hysterically at what the shopkeeper must have thought of us going shopping around midnight for 3 bananas & some beverages.

This week we hit the tourist spots in Paris, make an overnight trip to the Normandy region, return to Paris for a day, and meet up with Jeff and Jessie in San Sebastian.

Photos:
Paris
Normandy
Return to Paris
San Sebastian

Sun. 09-02-07 -- Paris, France
Originally published on: 09-08-07

This morning we woke up at 8:30 because we had lots planned! Since this is the first Sunday of the month, entrance into the Louvre is free! But we wanted to get there early in hopes of beating the crowds.

We got there around 10am and the crowds were already there in full force! We entered through the glass pyramid and went straight to the Greek & Roman statues. I love looking at marble statues, there is so much amazing detail! We saw the Venus di Milo and Kara wormed her way through the crowd to take a picture. Then we made our way to the paintings and sought out Mona Lisa. The room was SO CROWDED, Kara practically had to body surf to get close enough for a picture! After Mona Lisa, we quickly moved through the room we were in and headed for the nearest exit! Kara and I just aren't much into art, so we were there just to see the famous stuff.

After we left the Louvre, we walked to the Musee de Orsay metro stop and bought one day pass & rail tickets to Versailles. The train came right away and the ride was about 40 minutes or so. When we got there we were hungry for lunch and there was a sandwich place in the train station. We ordered 2 sandwiches and a bottle of coke. We left the station and found a wall to sit on and eat our sandwiches (the coke tasted different).

After lunch, we walked to the entrance of Versailles and we were already impressed! The courtyard was huge, straight out of a fairy tale castle. We walked through the main palace and the interior was very lavishly decorated. Audio guides were included with the tour, but we found them too chatty, so we would only listen to a portion of each entry as we walked through the rooms. After the palace, we walked through the Dauphin's apartments and the princesses' apartments. All pretty cool, but maybe a little boring... and that's when everything got 100X better!

We took a trolley through the expansive gardens over to Marie Antoinette's estate. We walked through the Petit Trianon which seemed like a very nice but pretty regular house. Then we went for a walk through the "backyard." There were tons of little pathways around and over ponds. We stopped at a Greek style temple/gazebo called The Temple of Love. Then we walked back to Marie's hamlet. This place was absolutely unbelievable! It felt like a Disneyland about peasanthood. There was a little mill, and a farm, and a chalet, all of the buildings were so cute and quaint. I was pretty amazed with the place. After that we caught the trolley to the Grand Canal, a HUGE artificial body of water. Then we walked up and through the magnificent gardens. The fountains were all turned on (they only turn them on for a few hours each week) and everywhere you turned there was a different and spectacular fountain. It was seriously stunning to see such extravagance spread over such a large area. We probably saw 20 to 25 fountains, many of them different from the rest. Seriously amazing!

When the fountains turned off, we left and walked back to the train stop. We were starting to get hungry, and when we passed a McDonald's, it was too great a temptation! I ordered a Royal with Cheese (Samuel L. wasn't lying) and I got a beer with my meal! Oh, there was Dijon mustard on my burger, and Kara's deluxe potatoes came with spinach dip in one of those little sauce packets! I felt guilty when we were first going in there, but the experience was unique enough that I felt justified when I left! We were pretty worn out, so we took the train back to our hotel and hung out there before we went to sleep. We also washed and hung our first load of laundry in our room. We had to devise a way to hang the laundry line, but it seems to have worked well.

Mon. 09-03-07 -- Paris, France
Originally published on: 09-09-07

This morning we didn't have a lot we needed to get done, so we slept in until 10am. We slowly got ready then took the metro to the Eiffel Tower. The tower really is WAY bigger than I thought it was. We paid the €11.50 each to be able to ride all the way to the top. We rode up to the 2nd floor and got out to look around. The city spread out in all directions as far as I could see. It was neat to see the Seine snake around, and I spotted the Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, & Notre Dame. We took the elevator to the top floor and from there, everything was so tiny! It was really windy up there too! We circled around the platform, took some pictures then went back down to the 2nd floor. We were getting hungry for lunch, so we checked out what kind of food we could get on the tower. The fast food place had a meal of 2 sausages, fries & a coke for €7.40. We bought that, sat on a bench and split the food. After lunch, we walked down the stairs to the first floor, walked around, and finally took the elevator down to the ground. It was neat seeing the city from so high, but the Eiffel Tower wasn't in the skyline! :(

We walked away from the tower toward Trocadero Square and took more pictures of the tower from there. With an album-worth of pictures, we left the Eiffel Tower behind and started toward the Arc de Triomphe. We could see it peeking through the trees, so we knew we were heading the right way.

Once we finally found the underpass to the Arc, we walked under the Arc for a while and then sat down. We received an email from Jessie this morning confirming that Sept. 7th in San Sebastian is a go. So while we were under Napoleon's Arc, we decided how best to conquer France and Spain for the next week! We came up with ideal & backup plans for train trips and wrote them out on a piece of paper. Our through was that if the person at the ticket window couldn't speak English, she could probably still book our tickets. The only place we know where we can buy train tickets is at the train station, so we hopped the metro to the nearest station (Paris has like 6). Once there we hunted down the ticket office and tentatively approached the counter. The lady we got spoke English pretty well, so we didn't have much difficulty getting our desires understood. The noon train on the 7th was no longer available, but there was a 7am train that got us to San Sebastian by 1:30pm. Stage 1 of our trip booked! We were happy to find out that there were still beds available on the night train to Barcelona on Sept. 9th. Stage 2 booked. Our final step was a train to Nice on the 11th, and sadly we discovered there is no night train from Barcelona to Nice. The best we could get is an 8:45am train on Sept. 11th, which means not even 24 hours in Barcelona. However neither of us had any deep desire for Barcelona when we first planned the trip (we weren't even going to go to Spain until the idea of the Jeff & Jessie rendezvous came up on our last night on Maui). The train will get us to Nice around 7:30pm, so it's about an 11 hour trip including a 2 hour layover in Montpellier. A long trip, and I kind of feel like it'll be a waste of a day, but on the bright side we could really use a down day, and the scenery along the French Mediterranean coast should be nice! So with that our trains to Spain and back to France were fully booked.

With a sense of accomplishment filling our sails, we hopped the metro back to our hotel. We are checking out of our hotel early tomorrow, so I wanted to pay our bill tonight. We needed cash to do that, so we asked the hotel desk manager where we might find a cash machine. She gave us some vague directions and we set off. We had to wander around a bit but we eventually found one. As we were wandering, we found this quaint courtyard with a church and playground and a few cafes surrounding a fountain. It was idyllic small town in the heart of the big city. I wanted to sit down at an outside café table and soak in it for a while, but Kara & I were too intimidated by the language gap to attempt it. I felt lame as we walked away, but we'll have 2 more nights in Paris after we return from Normandy, so I have a few more chances to try it!

When we got back to the hotel, we used the free computer to send and email to Jeff & Jessie to let them know when and where we are arriving. We also sent emails to a few hotels in San Sebastian to see if there are any availabilities. With that done, it was time to find dinner. We are tired of store bought meals, but we are intimidated by French restaurants, so what ever shall we do? We came up with the perfect plan, go to the Indian restaurant we passed on our long walk home a few nights before. I mean Aloo Gobi as Aloo Gobi in any other country, right? So we retraced our steps from a few nights ago and found where we went wrong. This time the walk seemed much shorter probably because we weren't tired & lost! We were able to read the menu, Kara got Aloo Gobi and I got Poulet (Chicken) Tikka Masala. We also ordered garlic naan, which was so tiny compared to back home (about 6 inches in diameter, a perfect circle). The food was really good (Kara says her Gobi was the best she's had in a long time). We mostly spoke English, and they understood us.

After we returned to the hotel, I devised a way to get our pictures from London & Paris onto my website. The free computer at the hotel isn't locked down (software-wise) so I was able to install my image resizer, an FTP client, and attach the camera to get our pics off. The sign says that gusts should limit their use to 15 minutes, but I must have been on there for 45 minutes or so! :s

With that finished, I went back to our room and packed up most of my stuff since we are checking out tomorrow... We're going to Normandy for about 24 hours, then we'll be back in Paris (same hotel) for 2 nights, one day. So far this trip is a blast!

Pics from London and Paris are up! Enjoy!

Tue. 09-04-07 -- Bayeux, France & The Normandy Beaches
Originally published on: 09-12-07

Today was pretty incredible! We got up early this morning because we had a train to catch to Normandy. We got to the station just fine, but then we didn't see our train on the board that showed which track to go to. We wondered if we had bought our tickets for the wrong train, but no, a quick look at our tickets confirmed that we were at the correct station on the correct date/time. I spotted the help desk, so we went over there and showed the guy our tickets. He flipped his monitor around and showed us that we needed to go to track 23. Sure enough, our train was on track 23, I'm still not sure why it didn't show up on the board!

The train ride was smooth and uneventful. We saw a few quaint looking farmhouses but mostly it was flat farmland. When we arrived in Caen, we went to the rental car company and got our car (€113 for one day including insurance). Kara navigated while I drove us from Caen to Bayeux. Driving in France isn't much different, though I often had to have Kara translate a street sign with our guidebooks. Another difference is no yellow lines on the road. A two lane highway is divided by a dashed white line and small roads often have no lines even though they have traffic in both directions. So I kept feeling like I was driving onto one-way streets! The only other major difference is round-abouts where you have to circle around the intersection until you find your street to turn off.

So, we made it to Bayeux without any major snafus, but we didn't have a map of the city to find our hotel. So I parked the car and walked to the tourist office where they not only gave me a map, but circled where the hotel was on the map. It wasn't far from where we were parked, so we just left the car and walked our bags over to our hotel. When we got there, there was no one at the counter, so we had to stand there and wait for maybe 10 minutes! When the lady came, she didn't speak English, so checking-in was confusing. Our room was supposed to cost €68/night, but she tacked on tall these fees (which I'm guessing was just B.S.). So our bill actually came to €78. Part of the additional fees were for breakfast and when I told her that we didn't want breakfast, she either didn't understand or played dumb so as to keep the charge on there. As if we weren't ripped off enough, she made us pay right away, and in the confusion of her pointless blabbering in French she (and I'm assuming this was intentional) short changed us by 10 euros! I didn't realize it until we were at least a half hour down the road. So our €68/night room ended up costing €88... Oh well, I've learned my lesson on trusting that I'm being treated fairly.

So we dropped our bags in our room and then walked back to our car. On the way we stopped in at the grocery store and bought lunch. We ate the lunch outside on a park bench, then got back in the car and headed out to Arromanches to start our D-day tour. Arromanches' claim to fame is as the sight where the Brits created a huge artificial harbor to drop tons of troops, equipment, and supplies on France in a short amount of time. They did this by creating a breakwater wall by sinking their own ships and 100 yard long concrete barriers off the shore. A good number of these concrete 'mulberries' are still visible from the Normandy beaches. We arrived in Arromanches & parked our car up on the cliffs above the town. From there we could look down to the sea and see the remnants of the artificial harbor. We walked around on the cliffs for a while, then we bought tickets to the 360-degrees movie about the D-day experience. The film was a mix of modern day Normandy mixed with footage of D-day and the days after. The movie was a good reminder of what the soldiers had to go through. After the film, we walked down to Arromanches town and walked on the beach. It's strange to realize that the Normandy beaches look & feel just like any other beach. If it weren't for the monuments, you'd think you were at the Oregon coast or any other cold water beach. It's almost impossible to keep in mind that this was a place of great death only 60 years ago.

We took a trolley back up the hill to our car, and then drove west along the coast to Longues-sur-Mer. There, in a field 300 yards off coast are 4 great big gun batteries build by the Germans. The enclosures are almost all completely intact and 3 of the guns are still there and pointing out to the sea. I've seen a number of gun batteries in my lifetime (Oregon & Washington coasts, most recently Diamondhead Crater) but these were the first I'd seen that actually were used heavily in the war and they are also the first enemy fortifications I've seen! I kept having to tell myself (all day) "people died here." I thought "one day Germans were manning these guns, and then one day the Allies captured them." It seemed so unreal! We hiked down a nearby road and found the lookout pillbox for the guns. Both stories of the box were open, so we went inside and peeked out the slits. I stood where German soldiers kept lookout for Allied ships! We hopped back in the car and drove down a narrow road to the shore and looked back to Arromanches. We were quite a ways down the coast, but we could still see the concrete blocks off shore.

Our next stop was the American Cemetery that overlooks Omaha Beach. We took a long walk through the memorial and cemetery, and it was staggering to see how many tombstones there were. Every one of them is perfectly aligned, so it is kind of mesmerizing to watch the patterns as you walk past the graves. It almost seems like an optical illusion, like it isn't real, and then I got close enough to read the names on the nearest row. Then it was very real, all of these crosses were real people that died within a few miles of here. Even now I know that it is true, but I can't really fathom it... After the cemetery, we drove down and walked on Omaha Beach. We walked down on the sand, and then walked back on the top of the grassy sand dune next to the beach. I tried my hardest to picture the carnage that took place, but I failed. I could only see a peaceful, beautiful beach with rolling waves and squawking seagulls.

We drove west along the shore of Omaha Beach (it's quite long) and ended up in the Charlie section of the beach. There was a monument to American soldiers built on top of a large German gun battery where the giant gun is still attached. The monument was a thank you from the French to the soldiers and it spoke of "the hundreds of brave men who died within sight of this monument, some even killed by the gun on which this monument was built." (not an exact quote, paraphrase). Reading that gave me chills and helped me, if just for a second, picture what happened here.

After Omaha, we went to the Pont du Hoc Ranger Monument which, as I had read earlier, was the most heavily bombarded Germany position on all of D-day. I had read it, but I hadn't thought through what that meant until I saw the first HUGE crater. Kara said "Is that a bomb hole?!?" and I said in astonishment "I... guess... so?" Then we looked up and saw that the ground out to the cliff was like swiss cheese. There were giant craters everywhere, the place was completely torn up! There were also a number of German concrete batteries & pillboxes, but most were split and broken and scattered. It was a bombed out wasteland and the far-flung chunks of concrete formed an eerie Stonehenge of death & destruction.

Our final stop was the German cemetery outside the village of La Cambre. I wasn't quite sure how I should feel about visiting the place. The visit to the American cemetery filled me with feelings of awe and respect, but I didn't really feel anything going into the German cemetery. I even felt a little guilty like I shouldn't be there because I wasn't there to pay respect... I was there to gawk as a tourist. But seeing the endless rows of graves gave me what I hope was an appropriate feeling... sadness that so many people have died in war. Where the U.S. Cemetery is bright white with perfectly cut handsome crosses, the German cemetery had dark nameplates (2 names per plate) and roughly hewn stone crosses. The cemetery was still attractively laid out (with a monument/mound in the center that you could climb and see that the graves truly do reach as far as the eye can see) it just had a dark and sad feeling. As I left, I saw a mural by the foundation that maintains the cemetery. Their poster said that they maintain this (and many other war cemeteries) as a monument for peace. I hope it's effective...

With our D-day tour complete, we drove back to Bayeux and grabbed dinner at the grocery store (baguette, stinky cheese, 2 pears, & tabouli salad for €5.11). We cut it all up in our hotel room and ate it while watching CNN international news (wow, this room has a T.V.) This room also has a shower which we both thoroughly enjoyed using as it has been our first shower since we left London! All clean and all caught up on my journal... time for bed!

Wed. 09-05-07 -- Bayeux, Caen, and Paris, France
Originally published on: 09-13-07

Back in Paris for a few nights, we're back at the same hotel and everything! Today was semi-laid back, but we saw a few things. This morning we got up around 8am to get our included breakfast from our hotel. Once we finished eating we went for a walk in the brisk morning air (we could see our breath). We walked to the Bayeux Cathedral which was almost empty at 8:30am. The cathedral was very big and had high ceilings & stained glass windows. Below the alter was a crypt which we were allowed to go into. After the cathedral, we walked over to see Bayeux's claim to fame, a 70 yard long tapestry that was sewn in the 1000's. The tapestry was really cool because it told the story of William the Conqueror's triumph over Harold of Hastings' attempt to seize the British crown. As we walked along the tapestry, an audio-guide told the story and the tapestry showed the corresponding pictures. VERY COOL!

Once we finished our sight-seeing of Bayeux, we went back to our hotel, packed up and checked out. A short drive back to Caen and we dropped off the rental car. We wanted to see the WWII memorial/museum in Caen before we left, but we were starting to run out of time (our train would leave in 3.5 hours). The museum was not very close (we'd have to take a tram and then a public bus) so we decided to take a taxi to the museum. It cost €15, but it was worth the time it allowed us at the museum. Once we got there & bought our tickets, we checked our big backpacks at the coat/bag check (sweet relief). The museum had lots of interesting things to look at, but the most interesting section was about German occupation of France. It showed the French people's perspective that I had never really contemplated before. The highlight of the memorial was the two films: "D-Day" and "Hope."

D-Day was really two films or rather one film and a multimedia presentation. The film was a superb presentation of D-day using actual film footage of the war and no narration. The unique aspect of the presentation was the use of split screen. The left screen footage began with troop preparation in Britain and proceeded chronologically while the right screen showed German footage at bunkers in France. For the most part, the film continued this way, Allies on the left, Germans on the right. Warships approach on the left, gun batteries firing on the right. Bombers making bombing runs on the left, AA guns peppering the sky on the right. Troops storming the beaches, Germans firing down from bunkers, etc. It was a very effective presentation.

The multimedia presentation showed the French liberation following D-day. There was a computer generated map that showed German occupied territory shrink over time while flipping through corresponding images and playing quotes of the world leaders of the time. The presentation was quite interesting and exciting. Every time a French city was liberated, a flag would pop up of the country (U.S., U.K., or Canada) that liberated it.

When we left the museum, we had one hour to catch our train. We exited and didn't see any cabs. We did, however, see the bus stop, so we went over to see if there were details at the stop. We felt we understood enough of the French metro signs to try and ride the bus & metro back, so we got on when the bus arrived 2 minutes later. The ride went smoothly, but we got to the train station with only 20 minutes to spare! The transfer to the tram was a little tricky because the tram was full and we had huge packs. We ended up getting on different doors so that we could squeeze in! We made it to our train seats with 17 minutes before the train left, perfect!

The rest of the day was uneventful. We rode the 2 hour train back to Paris, got hamburgers for dinner, rode the metro to our hotel, and mostly hung out here for the night. We washed a bunch of our laundry, and now I think we'll go to bed early (10ish) because we're both pretty tired.

Thu. 09-06-07 -- Paris, France
Originally published on: 09-14-07

Today we got up around 9am and got ready nice and slow. I checked my email and discovered that I had received an email from a pension in Barcelona that said they had rooms. I went back to the room to finish getting ready, and then we hit the computer one more time so that I could send them my credit card number. I was pretty paranoid about someone capturing my card number from the computer, so I typed it out of order (to confuse key loggers) and deleted my sent mail in case some one could get into my email.

Then we set out toward the catacombs which is walking distance from our hotel. After maybe 5 or 6 blocks of walking, we stumbled across an ATM, so we decided to withdraw more cash. As I fished for my ATM card, I realized that I never put away my credit card! I turned to Kara and said "What did I do with my credit card?" as I started frantically patting my pockets. "Did I leave it by the computer?!?!" I asked myself out loud. We started walking back to the hotel, but then I handed my day pack to Kara and ran back the rest of the way. When I got back to the computer, my credit card was sitting there on the keyboard! Good thing I was all careful when I typed it in! I walked out and found Kara on the street walking back and gave her the thumbs up.

The upside of this adventure is that we walked back to the ATM from the other side of the street where we saw a farmer's market. We picked a few bananas for breakfast then waited to be served. We waited for some time without being helped before a woman behind the counter told us in pantomime & French that there was a line & we were not in it! We got in line with our bananas and then noticed the people weren't picking their own produce. The customers would say what they wanted and the person behind the counter would get it and bag it. Oops number two! We decided to get an apple and a pear for lunch too, but we waited until we were served and pointed at them instead. The people behind the counter were quite nice with us even though we were doing everything wrong!

We ate our fruit as we walked down the street, and then we hit up the ATM for 290 euros (an amount that gives us a few small bills). Then we walked to the catacombs, paid, and climbed down the seemingly endless spiral staircase. The catacombs were originally a quarry, and we had to walk through some long quarry tunnels before we actually made it to the rooms with bones. The rooms with bones were pretty creepy at first but they went on for so long that I eventually grew numb to the creepiness. The walls were made up with stacks and stacks of human bones. The were actually laid out in patterns with femur ends poking out and occasionally a row of outward facing skulls. I kept daring Kara to touch a bone, but she wouldn't do it (I wouldn't either!) We eventually made our way through and emerged a ways from where we entered. We found a supermarket and bought cheese, some unrefrigerated moldy sausage, and some fruit juices. Then we went to a bakery and bought a nice big baguette. We hopped the metro to the Eiffel Tower, and had our picnic in Champs de Mars with the Tower as our scenery.

After lunch we walked to a bike shop and rented bicycles for the rest of the day! Paris is a pretty bike friendly city (bike lanes, separate bike paths, even special stop lights for bicycles) but it still didn't make riding in downtown a peaceful experience. It was hectic at times, but it was still very enjoyable! We rode from the shop out to Hotel des Invalides which is a cathedral that houses Napoleon's tomb. The whole cathedral has been converted to this purpose, and it was seriously over the top! Napoleon's remains are housed in this HUGE stone coffin thing and all around are statues and these relief carvings that show scenes of Napoleon's great accomplishments. In these scenes, Napoleon is depicted as an ancient Roman on a thrown laying down his law. The whole thing really did feel beyond what would be considered reasonable (at least to me). Whether it was done for French nationalistic propaganda purposes or the true idolization of the man, it seemed so far above and beyond that it bordered on worship.

We left Napoleon's alter ... er tomb (it was interesting to see, I enjoyed my visit, I just sound grumpy about it now) we visited the World Wars I and II museum that was included on the ticket. The exhibits were mostly in French, so we just walked through kind of quickly and looked at the exhibits.

Back to our bikes and we rode to Luxembourg Gardens. I thought this might be a nice park to ride our bikes through, but it wasn't that pretty. It was mostly gravel grounds and we just walked our bikes through a little section then got back on the road. We rode over to Notre Dame to see the memorial to the French people deported by the Nazis in WWII. It was a simple stone area that was very stark and isolating. A quiet place to ponder rather than a place to read and learn.

With that our day's planned events were done so we rode back to the bike shop. We rode all the way back from Notre Dame along the left bank of the Seine. We passed lots of cool buildings and bridges including the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, and, but of course, the Eiffel Tower. I shouted forward to Kara "look up at the Eiffel Tower as we bike past it, it's a memory that will last!" and we did just that.

We turned our bikes in and rode the metro back to our hotel. We had a dinner of our leftover bread, cheese, and meat along with the pear from this morning's farmer's market. It was so yummy that we took some silly pictures of Kara eating it.

After that it was reading, checking email, and some writing. And now an early night to bed because we have to catch a train at 7:15 tomorrow morning. See you in Basque country!

Fri. 09-07-07 -- San Sebastian, Spain
Originally published on: 10-05-07

This morning we had to get up at 5:30am so that we could catch our 7:15 train to San Sebastian. We checked our email, and we read that Jessie wasn't able to find two rooms for tonight. They booked one room for one night, so we had to look for a place once we got there. We hopped the metro to the train station, got our Eurail Pass validated, and boarded the train.

The train ride took about 6 hours which felt pretty long. However, since we left so early, we got to San Sebastian at 1:30pm. We read in a tour book that there were lockers in the San Sebastian train station, so our plan was to lock up our bags and then walk from hotel to hotel until we found a room. Well that plan didn't last long, because the lockers at the station were out of order! So, we had to lug our bags out of the station and down the street.

First thing I noticed about San Sebastian is that it was warmer than London and Paris. There was still a cool breeze, but there were less clouds and the sun felt nice and hot. The second thing I noticed was how pretty this little town is. The town is located on the northeast coast of Spain and there is a little river that runs through the middle of it. The buildings look old but nice and the whole town is nestled between beautiful green hills.

We walked along the river toward the coast, then crossed a bridge into the Parte Vieja. We stopped in at the tourist information office and I asked if they had a room finding service. The guy handed me a book full of hotel listings and told me my best bet is to go door to door until I find a room. We walked further into the Parte Vieja which is a car-less few blocks of town. The "roads" are narrow, and there are tons of bars and pensions on both sides of the street.

We rang on penion's doorbell and the guy said he had no rooms. We rang another door and no one answered. The third place we rang, Pension Aires, answered and showed us a simple room with 3 single beds for 60 euros. It seemed pretty expensive, but it was within our budget and I didn't feel like shopping around. So we took it. The place was only available for one night, so we'd have to find another place for the next night. The pension owner told me that he'd help me find a place tomorrow, so we were set.

With our room settled, we left our bags and searched out lunch. There were tons of tapas bars where you walk up to the bar and take whatever you like. We didn't really know the system though, so we didn't want to go in and do it wrong. So we searched around until we found a regular restaurant where we could sit down and order food. We eventually found a place that sold Mexican, Italian, and sandwiches/burgers so we grabbed a table. We both ordered burgers, I got one with a fried egg on it. The egg was over easy, so the egg gooed all over the burger and made it VERY yummy.

After lunch, we walked around the town for a while, walked down to the beach and sat down for a while then went to an internet cafe where we typed up some of our journal entries for our blogs. After a little while longer, it was time for Jeff and Jessie to arrive, so we walked to La Plaza de Constitucion and waited for them to show up. Hugs all around when we found them, and then we went looking for a tapas bar. Jessie knows Spanish, so we had a translator that could ask questions!

We found a busy bar and squeezed our way in. The bar had plates of many different appetizer-like things, most of which had seafood on them. We got some beers and started grabbing food that looked good. When we were ready to leave, we told the bartender how many tapas we ate and he gave us our bill. We left that bar and walked around until we found another place that looked good. We ordered more beers and the grabbing of tapas began again. The second place' food wasn't as good as the first, but the beers were bigger, so we hung out there for a while chatting about Jeff & Jessie's recent wedding, Maui, Barcelona, Paris, etc.

We decided to go back to the first place, but they were closing soon... but we did order this sparkling white wine that is popular in this region. I wasn't a fan, but then I'm not a wine fan, so I'm not one to judge. We stopped at an ice cream place and got some ice cream and then grabbed some chairs at an outdoor cafe in the Plaza de Constitucion for a final beer of the night. We planned to meet up at 11am the next morning and walked back to our room to go to sleep. The party on the street is still going strong, so it is quite loud in our room! However we have earplugs which should block out most of the sound.

Sat. 09-08-07 -- San Sebastian, Spain
Originally published on: 10-06-07

Slept like babies with our earplugs in and got up this morning around 10am. We got ready and packed up and the pension owner found us a place. We met Jeff and Jessie down in the Plaza then walked over to our new pension. The rooms were clean, but they were basically spare bedrooms in an old lady's house. 50 euros for the night was nice & cheap so we paid up.

Jeff & Jessie left their bags at their old place, so we walked over there to pick them up. Then we walked back to Victorina's (the old lady's) to drop off their bags. It was like noon by that time and none of us had eaten yet, so we were really hungry! We ended up finding this egg theme restaurant named Don Huevons that served sandwiches and stuff, most with eggs. We ate breakfast/lunch, then we went on a long walk around all of San Sebastian's coast.

We started east of the river, walked along the coast across the river and behind Parte Vieja. We circled around Monte Urgull and then climbed up the coast side of it to get some amazing views of the bay. We came down on the city side and walked south between Parte Vieja and the harbor and then went down on the beach at Playa de la Concha. We all took our shoes off and walked in the water until the beach ended. We continued along the bay and made our way to the funicular (a cable driven rail car that climbs steep hills) and rode up the side of Monte Igueldo.

The view from here was even better than the other monte. The bay is so beautiful with sandy beaches ringing most of the shoreline. There are green hills marking the land on both sides of the mouth of the bay, and a green hilly island dead center in the mouth of the bay. Once we rode the funicular back down, we finished circling the bay and found some abstract sculptures and these neat manmade blowholes in the walkway (when the waves would come in, these 5-6 blowholes would shoot air out at high speed). After we had seen what we could see, we headed back toward our hotel.

Jeff & Jessie wanted to take a nap, so we decided to split up and meet back up at 9pm. Kara and I walked down on the Playa de la Concha again then went to our room to change for the beach. Then we crossed the street and laid down on La Playa de la Zurriola. We relaxed there for an hour or two, then we went back to our room and took showers to wash off the sunscreen. We hung at our room a little while longer then walked over to the Plaza de la Constitucion.

When we met up, Jessie had written down some restaurants that were recommended in her guidebook, so we went in one and sat down at a table. We looked at the menu, and only had vague ideas of what this food was. We made Jessie order for us, family style, and it really worked out well. We got a plate of cured meats which we ate with pieces of bread. Then came a fish dish which was cod in a tomatoes & peppers sauce that was pretty tasty. Then finally came some yummy local cheese with a fruit paste thing and walnuts. It was all good; thank goodness for our translator!

We left the restaurant and went back to the bar that was nice to us the day before. They remembered us from the night before and joked around with us a bit. When you order beer here, they give you just a little bit in a smallish glass. Today when they poured my beer, they put a little in and said "ok?" We said "more" and he filled the glass (which was about the size of a restaurant water glass) to 2/3 full and asked "ok?" with a big smile. We said "more" and he filled it all the way up and acted like he was doing something completely crazy. Even the people at the bar were like "wooooah" as he filled it up. It was all pretty funny because that was clearly a comically large beer for their standards, but it was still pretty small by our standards. We had a few tapas (I had some fish on bread and skewered octopus) and then we paid and left.

We walked back toward our rooms and sat at an outside table at a bar one block from our place. We had a few more half-full beers and then went to our room. We couldn't get the front door unlocked because you have to turn the key like 3 times in the right direction, so the old lady came to the door all annoyed. I think she thought we were drunk (I heard her say "ladrones") but we weren't. We just couldn't figure out her crazy door!

This week we wrap up our time in San Sebastian, do a whirlwind tour of Barcelona, spend some time in the French Riviera, and hike from one end of Cinque Terre to the other.

Photos:
San Sebastian
Barcelona
French Riviera
Cinque Terre

Sun. 09-09-07 -- San Sebastian, Spain and night train to Barcelona, Spain
Originally published on: 10-07-07

First off, I'm not actually writing this on the train, but writing it the next night in Barcelona. It was lights out in our sleeper car almost as soon as we boarded, so I had no time to write. Anyways, to keep up continuity, the rest of this entry will read like I wrote it on Sunday night...

Last night we slept in a hell hole! Well, it wasn't THAT bad, the old lady seemed a little off... The bad part was that our sheets smelled like wood varnish or something. I ended up using a shirt as a pillowcase for half the night but the smell got to me and I couldn't sleep past 5am. We were sleeping in single beds and somehow Kara's bed didn't stink so I crawled in with her and we slept cramped into a single until about 10am.

We got up and had breakfast at a cafe while Jessie found a different place to stay for tonight. The found a room at the pension they stayed at the night before, so we walked over there and left all of our bags.

Today is some kind of Basque pride day, so the steets are pretty crowded. We hopped a bus to Hondarribia, a small fishing village very near the French border. Once we got there, we realized that there wasn't really much to see. We walked a big circle through the town (along the water, on the main road, on a hill overlooking the city) then hopped the express bus back to San Sebastian. When we got back, Jeff & Jessie had to go to the train station to look into tickets, so we planned to meet up in a few hours.

Kara & I went down to the dock and bought tickets for a boat ride to Isla de Santa Clara, the small island in the mouth of the bay. The boat ride was only like 5 minutes, then we walked up the island/hill and found a nice spot on the grass with some shade. We lounged there for about an hour and a half, just relaxing, reading, and soaking in the sun. At one point I laughed to myself and said to Kara, "Do you realize what we're doing? We're relaxing and reading on a little island in a beautiful harbor on the Spanish coast!"

With 30 minutes left to meet Jeff & Jessie, we went back to the boat launch and caught the boat back. When we met back up, we had a few hours to kill before Kara & I had to go to the train station, so we sat down at an outside cafe and hung out there for an hour or two. Kara ordered onion rings, but the rest of us just hung out and drank half-full glasses of beer.

Around 8pm, we walked back to their hostel. We picked up our bags, said goodbye and left in search for an internet cafe. We checked our email and sent a bunch of emails to hotels/hostels in Nice to see if we could find a room. Then we lugged our bags to the train station and waited for our train. We were using our Eurail pass for this ticket, so I wrote today's date on the pass. Only after I did it did I realize that I needed to write tomorrow's date on the pass! You aren't allowed to correct the date because they won't be able to tell if you were scamming, so we had to just write it off as an expensive mistake (at least a $120 value) and just use the next box for tomorrow's date. I was pretty upset with myself, but there was nothing to be done about it but be more careful next time.

Our train pulled up shortly before 11pm and we got on. The sleeping compartment was 6 beds, 3 bunks on each wall and barely any other room. You basically had to get right into bed because otherwise there is not room in the compartment for 6 people! Once everyone was situated, the ticket collector came by, took our tickets and shut our door and turned out the lights. Ready or not, it's time for bed!

Mon. 09-10-07 -- Barcelona, Spain
Originally published on: 10-08-07

I didn't sleep too badly on the train thanks to our trusty earplugs! I woke up a lot and I wasn't 100% comfortable, but I definitely got a good amount of sleep. At around 8:15am, the ticket man came by knocking on our door. He handed back our railpass and said we'd be there by 9am. We laid in bed for a while longer and I peeked out the window at the foot of my bed. Neat, I slept and now we're in Barcelona! When the train finally arrived, we got off and ate McMuffins at the McDonald's in the train station. We were still pretty groggy from our semi-rough night's sleep, but we figured out the metro (easy) and rode it to Las Ramblas.

Last Ramblas is a big street with a very wide walkway in the middle between the lanes of traffic. We found many cafes and stands and street performers as we tried to locate our hotel. It turned out that the maps of Barcelona that I had didn't have labels for the small streets in the Barri Gotic where our hostel is located. So we wandered aimlessly back and forth on Las Ramblas for some time with our big packs on. We were tired and frustrated, and we finally turned down a road that was supposed to have an information office on it. We couldn't find the office, but I looked down a side street and saw a big question mark sign. I had a question, so we turned and walked toward it. The sign ended up being for a restaurant or something, but by an amazing stroke of luck, the next cross street down this side street was where our hostel is located! We found it by sheer dumb luck and a "sign from above!"

We checked into our hostel, but the room wasn't ready yet. We left our packs in the lounge and left to see the city (after a quick look through a guidebook). We walked east on the main road nearest our hostel and made our way over to a chocolate museum. We passed through the Plaza de Sant Jaume which didn't look all that special, but was the Roman Forum way back in the day. After a little wandering we found the chocolate museum and checked it out. It was mostly cheesy (they had buildings and scenes made of chocolate) but it also told the history of chocolate which was somewhat interesting. I learned that cacao beans come from a gourd-like fruit about the size of an oblong grapefruit. I also learned that the spicy chocolate drink that the Aztecs drank didn't have sugar in it (sugar & chocolate didn't meet until Europe). A third chocolate fun fact I learned was that the first European chocolate came through the Barcelona port. And finally I learned that Africa's Ivory Coast is where the majority of cacao beans come from today.

After the museum, we continued on the road and found Barcelona's Arc de Triomf. Barcelona's is smaller than Pars', but I think I liked Barcelona's better. It was build with red bricks and had some cool ornamental spires at the top. After taking a few pictures we headed south through a park that was right there. Once we hit the zoo, we headed west and took a peek in on the train station we're leaving from tomorrow at 8:45am. We continued west toward the harbor but took a quick detour to see the Santa Maria del Mar cathedral. Standard but impressive cathedral, towering ceilings, stained glass windows, decorative facade, etc. We eventually made it to a column monument to Columbus and walked toward the water. We bought tickets for a 30 minute boat ride through Barcelona's port and got right on. We were both amazed at how HUGE Barcelona's port is! There were many large cargo ships and cruise ships parked in the port and there was still plenty of space for other ships. I seriously can't even describe it, the concrete landing spots just went on forever off of the coast! Very impressive.

After the ride, we walked back to our hostel and got into our room. This room is actually like a hotel room, very nice with our own shower and all! We were ready for lunch, so we put the camera on the charger (it was complaining) and walked to a Rick Steves' recommended restaurant. We got a nice outdoor table in a courtyard and ordered el menu del dia which was a 3 course meal (and glass of wine) for 9.20 euro! We had a few selections to choose from for each course and this is what we got: I got tomato basil soup (it was so sweet and delicious), baked fish with potatoes, onions & peppers (fish tasted similar to salmon but was white, the onions were just very lightly sauteed and were scruptious) and pineapple brulee for desert (2 slices of fresh pineapple with a scorched sugar crust ala creme brulee, YUM!), and a glass of red wine. Kara got macaroni noodles with cheese, grilled steak in balsamic oil, the pineapple brulee and a glass of white wine. It was all really good, a very nice treat from our mostly store bought meals. Lunch proceeded at a very relaxed pace which I really enjoyed. There was time between our courses, and we soaked in the cafe experience and talked and relaxed.

After lunch we went back to the hostel to pick up our camera. We got in our room and laid down for a little while to look at the guidebook. We were both pretty sleepy (especially with full bellies) so we decided to take a 1.5 hour nap before venturing back out... That 1.5 hours went by SO FAST! But we got up and walked up Las Ramblas to the Plaza de Catalunya. We continued up the steet into L'Eixample past the Manzana de la Discordia (a block of unique building designed by competing architects). We rode the metro out to La Sagrada Familia, but it was closing soon so we could only see the outside. The cathedral was very unique and it was interesting to see that it is still under very heavy construction (the guidebook says it won't be finished for 50 more years!) After walking around the cathedral, we rode the metro out to the Montjuic funicular.

We took the funicular up the hill and then took a gondola ride up to the castle. It was 8:30pm by this time so it was dusk and the city lights sparkled in the distance as we rode up. Once at the top, we had 30 minutes before the last gondola ride back, so we walked in and around the castle for a bit taking in the beautiful city skyline at night. With 10 minutes to spare, we caught the gondola back and rode the metro back to Las Ramblas. We walked back to our hostel and went to our room for the night. Our room has a private shower so we both enjoyed that (showers have become a luxury to savor) and then some reading and writing. Tomorrow we catch the train to Nice, so it was a short but very nice time in Barcelona!

Tue. 09-11-07 -- Train to Nice, France

This morning we got up at 7:15am to pack up and walk to the train station. We bought breakfast from a vending machine and boarded the train. The train left at 8:45am and the ride was about 4.5 hours long. We got a few glimpses of the Mediterranean Sea as we railed to Montpellier. We arrived in Montpellier at about 13:30 and our next train didn't leave until 15:11, so we had some time to kill.

We left the station in search for lunch, and agreed on a kebab place. The food was pretty good! Then we walked a few door down to the internet cafe, but it was closed for renovations. The guy at the cafe told us where there was another one down the road, so we walked there. We got a computer for a half hour, so we could see if we had a confirmation email from the hotel in Nice. Unfortunately we didn't, so we checked our other email and played with a map of our trip until our time ran out.

We walked back to the train station and looked at the big board to find our track. The sign said our train would probably be 20 minutes late, so we sat down and read until it showed up. When the train pulled up, we got on and took our plush first class seats. A four hour train ride, with more glimpses of the Mediterranean. We read, Kara played Tetris & Dr. Mario, and we listened to a kickass playlist I whipped up on the ol' iPod... I should become a professional DJ! :p I looked up in the tour books where our hotel was located and since we were arriving late-ish, we decided to take a cab.

When the train arrived in Nice, I showed the address to the cabbie, and he said it was only a 5 minute walk. So we set off down the street for what was more like a 10-15 minute walk. When we found the hotel I realized that we went to the wrong one. We had booked at Hotel Petite Louvre, but I had lead us to Hotel Petite Trianon! All that walking for nothing! We hit an internet cafe to confirm that it was indeed the Louvre and that we had received a room confirmation. It was and we had, so we marched back toward the train station where our actual hotel was located.

Check-in was quick, we rode the lift to the 3rd floor, and got into our room. We were hungry for dinner, so we left our room and walked around until we found a place that looked good. I got a pizza that had tomato sauce, cheese, kalamata olives, and anchovies on it! It was pretty tasty, but as usual those anchovies are too salty! With our bellies full, we walked back to our hotel room.

Since we are staying in Nice for 2-3 nights, we decided to do ALL of our laundry. There are 2 sinks in our room (there is a bathroom and a kitchenette) so we each grabbed a sink and washed our own clothes. With our laundry done, we turned on our AC and climbed into bed. So, nothing very exciting today, but it was nice to take it easy & get our chores done.

Wed. 09-12-07 -- Nice, France

This morning we woke up at 9am and didn't get out the door until 10! We stopped by the grocery store (Monoprix) and got food for breakfast and lunch. We walked down the street until we hit the beach, then we sat on a bench and ate our breakfast.

While we ate, an elderly woman sat next to us and said "Bon Appetite." We both chuckled and kept eating. We kind of talked to her about the pigeons that were circling and laughed about it. Only, she spoke in French and we spoke in English! But we each knew what each other was saying, standard small talk about greedy pigeons.

After breakfast, we walked along the beach toward the harbor. The beach alternates between private and public sections. On the private beaches, you have to pay 12 euro for a spot with a chair! However, a chair would actually be nice on these beaches because there is no sand. The beaches are all smooth flat-ish stones about the size of a squashed apple and smaller. It looked pretty, but it doesn't compare to the comfort of sand (more on that later). The sea was SO BLUE! and the water right next to the land was the lightest baby blue because of those light rocks beneath the waves. We had quite a beautiful view as we walked to the harbor.

When we got there, we noticed that the boat tour we were interested in doing leaves at 3pm. As it was only 11:30am, we put our name down and they told us to come back at 2:30pm. While we were at the dock, a SCUBA shack caught our eye, so we decided to check it out... They offered a guided boat dive including all of the equipment for 39 euro. That seemed like a pretty reasonable price, so we went in and talked to them. They had availabilities tomorrow for 9am, so we paid up and got a voucher for tomorrow.

With hours to kill, we walked back toward old town and climbed up Castle Hill, a big stone hill with old fortifications on it. There was quite a bit to see there, plenty of awesome views, some ruins, an old man-made waterfall, etc. We found a nice bench up there and ate our store bought lunch.

We wandered down from the hill on a back way and found ourselves right in old town. We walked around the narrow streets for a while and came across a nice plaza. We bought a crepe filled with chocolate and banana (what is up with us and bananas this trip?!?) and sat down and ate it. We explored old town a while longer but still had an hour to kill so we went to the beach and lay down for a while. We only had our light jackets to lie down on, so we couldn't get too comfortable on the rocks. But we managed, so we soaked up some rays and read our books until it was time to head back to the harbor...

Back at the harbor, we bought our tickets and eventually boarded the boat. The cruise was nice, it was about 1 hour long, and it cruised up and down the coast near Nice. They pointed out the houses of the rich and famous, we saw Elton John's, Sean Connery's, Bill Gates', etc.

After the boat ride, we walked to a bike shop where we rented bikes for an hour. We rode along the coast on the nice wide promenade for about a half hour, then we rode back to get our bikes turned in on time. It was great zipping down the coast on the bikes because we saw a lot of beautiful coastline that we would otherwise have not seen if we were just on foot.

After the bike ride we went to the beach again and hung out there for a while just relaxing. We started getting hungry, so we walked back to our hotel, but stopped by the grocery store. We bought tomato and basil ravioli and a baguette and then cooked it in our hotel kitchenette. It was actually kind of a treat to have a warm meal that we prepared! After dinner, we hit up an internet café for an hour or so and then we went back to our hotel to get a good night's sleep for our dive the next morning.

I added a new link on the right sidebar for a map of our journey. I'll update it each time I hit an internet cafe so that you can see where we are even if my detailed journal posts are lagging behind.

Also, a bunch more pics posted, check em out!

Thurs. 09-13-07 -- Nice, France and Monaco

Got up in time to make the roughly 30 minute walk to the harbor to get there by 9am. We stopped by a farmers' market to buy some fruit for breakfast (you guessed it, bananas!) We checked in at the SCUBA shop and they gave us our gear. The wetsuits were 5 mil and had hoods, so this wasn't Maui temperatures we're dealing with! We got on the boat and cruised out quite a way on the Med. Sea.

Soon enough we were in the water and exploring a dive spot they called 'coral cave.' The water was nice and clear (and not too cold for me) and we saw lots of cool stuff. There was some sort of sea grass covering most of the ground where we descended. The fish were less colorful than Maui, but there were plenty to look at and a few really cool ones like these tiny baby fish that were electric blue.

We made our way to the coral cave and went in a bit under the overhang. The guide shone his light up at the ceiling and the whole thing was covered in this very red coral. We stayed under for 48 minutes with a max depth of 18 meters, and saw: a bright red sea star, lots of interesting plants, an urchin that we picked up and it suctioned to our hand, and a few large schools of fish.

When we got out, they served us this interesting anise flavored liquor mixed with water that is apparently very typical in this region. One of the French guys we were diving with talked to us the whole boat ride back. He was pretty cool, he learned English by living in New York for 3.5 years.

Once we were back, we went back to our hotel to take showers. Once we were cleaned up, we spent some time planning our next few days of travel, then walked to the train station to buy our tickets to Monterosso (the north most town of Cinque Terre aka the Italian Riviera). The tickets were only 52 euro so we decided not to use a travel day on our pass, and we just paid the cash for the tickets.

With tomorrow's travel plans squared away, we walked toward the bus station to hop a bus to Monaco! We hadn't had lunch yet and we were running a bit late, so we stopped by McDonald's for a quick lunch. The bus ride to Monaco only cost 1.30 euro per person, and was a nice drive in the coastal cliffs along the Med. Sea. It took maybe 30 minutes to get there, and we exited the bus onto the soil of the 4th European country we've visited!

We hiked up this very long and wide walkway/stairway to the Prince's Palace. There were great views of the coastline from up there! We walked around a bit and went into the cathedral where we saw Princess Grace's (aka Grace Kelly's) tomb. We continued along the hillside and walked through a cool botanical garden before making our way down the hill. We needed to get change for our bus ride back, so Kara bought Toblerone and Coke and I bought a Cuban cigar. We rode the bus back to Nice, then hung out at the beach while I smoked my Cubano.

It was getting to be dinnertime, so we headed back and stopped at the store. This time we bought a can of ratatouille, penne pasta, pesto sauce, and a baguette. I cooked tonight, so I served dinner in courses! I heated up the ratatouille while the water warmed for the pasta. We enjoyed our Provencal first course while our Italian 2nd course cooked. Then the penne pesto was ready and it was quite good. I cooked WAY TOO MUCH pasta, so we bagged it in a ziplock and figured we could eat it cold on the train tomorrow for lunch! After dinner we cleaned up our mess of a room and then I walked down to the internet cafe to use the computer for an hour. Nice has been nice, pretty relaxing but with just enough to keep us a little busy. Next stop Cinque Terre and we're showing up without a room reservation! Eek!

Fri. 09-14-07 -- Nice, France and Monterosso, Italy

This morning we got up at 8:30am and packed up our stuff. We got to the train station at 9:45am with 20 minutes before our train left. I really love this whole train thing. There's no 2 hour check-in airplane BS, you just show up, get on your train and away you go! Our first train ride was 3+ hours long and got us to Genoa a little late at 13:29.

Our next train left at 13:49, so we frantically looked around for our connecting train before we realized it would show up on the platform right next to the one we arrived on! When the train arrived, we hopped on and discovered that our seats weren't next to each other. We found 2 open seats and sat next to each other to eat lunch (our left over pesto penne from the night before) then Kara went to her official seat as more people got on at the next stop. Apparently there was some sort of mix up because we both had window seats even though we were supposed to have an aisle and a window. A lady even came to tell Kara that she was in her seat, but they both had tickets for the same seat!

Even with all the confusion, we made it to Monterosso at around 3:30pm. We didn't have a hotel reserved, so we went to the tourist office and asked if they had room information. The girl at the desk asked how much we were looking to spend and actually called a place to see if they had room. She showed us where to go on the map, and as we walked toward it, we realized that this was way out in the middle of nowhere in new town. We didn't even walk all the way there before we turned around and decided to see if we could find a place on our own in the heart of old town.

We walked down the coast and through the tunnel to old town (schlepping our bags, of course) and then we tried to find pensions on the two maps we had. We mostly wandered around town until we recognized a "street" on the map and turned toward Casa Manuel B&B. I say "street" because what it really was, was a long and windy staircase that went on forever! We got to the top all exhausted and sweaty, but there was no one at the gate. We looked around a bit and eventually a young guy (Manuel?) showed up. He said he didn't have rooms, but he'd call a place and see if they had a room for us. They did, so he said an old woman would meet us at the bottom of the stairs. "She's pretty old, so she doesn't know much English" he said as we walked away.

We got to the bottom and stood around for a few minutes before Kara noticed a woman beckoning us to follow her. We followed her down the street and up another winding street/staircase until we got to a doorway. She opened the door and showed us a pretty nice apartment with a full bath and kitchen. "Cuanto costa?" I asked. She held up six fingers, so I said "sixty per night?" and she said "yes." Not bad, so we said "ok." She said "pay now or pass-a-port-ay" and since I didn't have exactly 120 euros, I handed over my passport. As she was leaving, I tried to ask her where she stayed so we could pay her. This concept was far beyond our language barrier, so we ineffectually tried to communicate for a while. Finally she got across that she does not live here, and this apartment isn't hers, but Stefania's. Stefania will come by tomorrow at 9am to get the money and give me back my passport. Ok, we had a plan!

Once we got settled, we decided to walk around our new home town for a bit. We walked down to the harbor and walked out to the end of the breakwater. From there we could see all of the other 4 towns of the Cinque Terre. After the harbor, we explored a bit and climbed up the stone hill to a convent and cemetery. We peaked into the chapel and then walked all through the cemetery. From up on the hill, we could see a long way down the coast, and could also look down on most of the town. As we were making our way back down to town, the church bells started ringing, so we stood over the town and listened to them ring for many minutes.

We came down from the hill a different way than we came up, and after a while we realized that we were coming down the street our apartment is on! We got back to the main road, Via Roma, and walked up it a ways and stumbled upon a grocery store so we went in and bought food for dinner. We took the food back to our apartment, then we walked back out to find a snack and get a drink. We found a café that was right on the water that gave snacks with drinks, so perfect! I got a big bottle of local beer and Kara got a chocolate gelato milkshake, and our snacks were kalamata-style olives and potato chips.

We walked home and made dinner (we watched Italian TV game shows while it cooked). Dinner was good, more penne pasta, this time with bolognaise sauce. It was dark outside by the time we finished dinner, so we walked back to the breakwater to look at the Cinque Terre cities sparkling in the night. We stayed down at the harbor for a while just talking and cuddling, then we walked back and went to bed.

Sat. 09-15-07 -- Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore, Italy

This morning we got up around 8:30 am to get ready for "the big hike!" The five towns of Cinque Terre are connected by a rough footpath that winds along the sea cliff edge. The hike is about 7 miles from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, so our plan was to spend all day hiking the trail, stopping at each town to look around, and finally take a boat back to our starting place. And that's exactly what we did!

The path between Monterosso and Vernazza was very rough! There were tons of steep stone steps that seemed to go up forever! This first leg of the trip passed through terraced vineyards and we got great views of the coastline. It took us about 1.5 hours to arrive in Vernazza.

Vernazza was more bowl shaped than Monterosso (which sprawled along the coast). We got a piece of very cheesy focaccia bread and shared it while sitting down at the harbor. Then we climbed a bunch of stairs to the old castle tower and walked around while looking down at the city. There was a spire that had a tight spiral staircase that we climbed to the top. We wandered around the city a little more, then we got back on the trail for our next 1.5 hour hike to Corniglia.

The tour book said that this leg was easier than the last, but that was wrong. There were just as many (or more) stone steps on this section as there were on the last. We were pretty worn out and running out of water by the time we hit Corniglia.

Corniglia is a hill town that doesn't really have shoreline access. The buildings are all smooshed together on this little hill and the streets are narrow and tight. We found a free water spigot and filled our water bottle back up. To leave Corniglia we had to climb down the hill to the train station on a staircase that went on forever. As we were going down, we passed exhausted people coming up from the station with all of their luggage. That didn't look fun...

The third leg of our trip was much easier than the fist two. It was only 45 minutes long, pretty flat and even partially paved! Because of this, there were way more people on this path. Instead of being high in the hills, this one hugged the coast, so there were lots of pretty views.

We arrived in Manarola ready for lunch! We found a focaccia/pizza place and ordered a couple of slices. Mine was really good, it had black olives, mushrooms, prosciutto, and herbs on a focaccia crust. After lunch, we walked around Manarola a bit and we really liked this town. It had close rock hill walls, so the town was built up along the walls, a town in a stone bowl. The open side of the bowl spilled the town down into the tiny harbor.

We left Manarola and walked the last 20 minutes along the very easy Via dell'Amore. We arrived in the last town, Riomaggiore, and took the elevator to the top of town. We wandered around a bit and then headed down the main drag toward the water. We found a gelato place right next to a bar, so Kara got gelato and I got a beer and we sat outside and enjoyed our reward.

We were both pretty wiped out from the hike, so we walked down to the harbor and bought tickets for the boat. We had about 20 minutes to wait, so we went to the beach, took our shoes off and stood in the surf. The cool water felt so good on our tired feet! The boat ride back was nice, we got one last view of each town, as well as the rough hike we did.

The boat dropped us off in Monterosso and we walked back to our apartment. We dropped off the backpack, then went to find some dinner. There was a place nearby (Bar Davi) that gave appetizers if you ordered a drink, so we got drinks and ate the food. We were still hungry, so we ordered some bruschetta with tomatoes & anchovies on it! Anchovies are caught in this region and are very popular here, so I figured we ought to try them! Kara ate it without the fish, so there was double fish on my pieces. It was very fishy and salty, but it was pretty good. After dinner, we walked to the train station and bought tickets for tomorrow morning to Pisa. Then we walked back to our place, took showers, and climbed into bed to rest our tired and achy muscles.

This week we make quick stops in Pisa and Florence, explore ancient history in Rome, church hop in Vatican City, and lounge in the sun on the Amalfi Coast.

Photos:
Pisa and Florence
Rome
Amalfi Coast

Sun. 09-16-07 -- Monterosso, Pisa, Florence, and Rome, Italy

This morning we got up at 7:30 am to pack up and catch an 8:45 am train. Our plan was to end up in Florence for the night with a short pitstop in Pisa. As the location of this entry shows, things didn't go exactly as planned!

We caught the train out of Monterosso, and arrived in Pisa around 11am. We checked our bags at the train station and figured out how to catch the bus to the tower (the tourist information office was closed, so we were on our own to figure it out). A bunch of other people must have figured it out because the bus was completely packed! Fortunately it was a short ride, and then we all filed out into the Piazza.

We didn't stay there long, just long enough to take some pictures of the tower, and walk right up to it. The tower is leaning pretty far, but it's about what I expected. It was neat to see, but it was mostly just a checkmark on my list of things to see before I die. We hopped the bus back to the station and tried to catch the next train to Florence which was leaving in 15 minutes. Unfortunately the line at the bag check slowed us down, so we ate McDonald's (they are in almost every station) and waited 30 minutes for the next train.

The train to Florence took about 1.5 hours, and on the ride over, I discovered that Accademia (where David is) is closed on Monday (tomorrow)! This was the main thing we were coming to see in Florence, so we had to hurry over there today as soon as we got in town! We didn't have a room reserved in Florence, so we checked our bags at the station and walked over to Accademia. As we walked up, I noticed big closed doors and an 8"x11" piece of paper taped to it. The paper said "The gallery is closed due to striking workers." The whole reason we came to Florence, and we can't see it! It was pretty annoyed so I said "F*** Florence, let's go to Rome... I mean if they won't even open up their museums..." I fear it was a rather American thing to say, but then I'm a proud American, so there!

We walked back to the train station, but passed by the Duomo on the way. Florence was crazy crowded and the tourbooks said it was pretty expensive, so I'm glad we left (sour grapes). We got back to the station and looked at the board for the next train to Roma. We didn't notice the express at first, so we thought we'd be waiting around for an hour. I was playing with one of the ticket machines when I noticed that an express (it would get us to Rome in a little over an hour) was leaving in about 15 minutes.

We ran to the ticket counter and got reserved seats (they were required), now we had 11 minutes. We ran to the bag check and got in line to get our bags, now we had 6 minutes until the train left. When I was second in line, I asked the guy in front of me if I could go first because our train left in FOUR MINUTES! He said sure, so we got our bags and RAN to the train as fast as we could! Fortunately we were in the first car, so we got on with 2 minutes to spare... SHEW!

The ride was nice and quick and around 5pm we showed up in Rome. We didn't have a place to stay, so we started wandering around. The first place had no rooms available. The second place only had dorm beds available. The third place only had a 3 person room for 140 Euros (ouch). The fourth place had a decent room with a private shower (toilet down the hall) for 65 Euros! We took it, but it was only available for one night, so we still needed to find another place. Because we gained a day on our itinerary (no Florence) we had to play with our schedule to see how many more nights we wanted to book.

This opened a whole can of worms, because the whole next section of our trip (Amalfi coast) was completely unplanned and was on my to-do list to figure out. While we were doing this, we figured we should nail down our Italy night trains too, so we could book them ahead of time... So basically we spent our fist night in Rome figuring out the next week of our trip. We decided to stay with 3 full days in Rome, and use the extra day in the Amalfi Coast/Mt. Vesuvius area. That meant a night train form Naples to Venice on 9-23 and a night train from Venice to Switzerland on 9-25.

With this stage planned out, we were eager to actually reserve these tickets. We walked to the train station, and we played with the electronic ticket machine until we had found exactly the trains and times that we wanted. Then we went to the ticket office (waited forever in line) and booked our next two night trains. Both of these will be in couchette rooms of 4 (our last night train had 6 beds) so that will probably be nicer. The only bad thing is we are arriving in Venice at like 5:30 am! I don't know what the heck we are going to do until everything opens, it should be... interesting.

We got the trains booked up (138 Euros) by 8:30pm so we walked outside to see if we could find a room for the next few nights. But it was getting late, the streets were a little freaky, we were hungry, and we could only find one hostel, so we gave up and had dinner instead. We found a little place, where I had pizza and Kara had tortellini. We finished our dinner, then went back to our hotel to shower and relax. Tomorrow morning, we have to figure out where we are staying, and I'm still not sure what we are going to see!

Mon. 09-17-07 -- Rome, Italy

I ended up staying up late last night planning out our 3 days in Rome. For today I planned for us to tour the ancient part of Rome, but first we had to find a hotel for the next 3 nights.

We got up at 8:30 and walked a loop in our neighborhood, stopping at hotels/hostels in our price range that were recommended by our tour books. The first place we found was booked, the second place didn't answer, but the third place had a drab room with two single beds and no toilet or shower in the room for 65 Euros per night. We thought about continuing our search, but we were eager to start actually seeing Rome, so we just settled on this place.

We walked back to our old hotel, and picked up our bags. We walked them over to our new hotel (maybe a quarter of a mile away) and dropped them off. OK, we were finally ready to see some of Rome!

We bought Roma Passes (3 days of public transportation and free/discounted entry into some sights) and hopped the metro to the Colosseum. As we left the metro station, it was right there in front of us, wow! We walked over, and there were tons of tourists all around. There were also a bunch of people harassing us to buy English language tours through the Colloseum. Because of the Roma Pass, we were able to skip the GIANT line to buy tickets and just saunter right in! It was pretty incredible to see this giant structure still standing after 2000 years! It looked huge from the outside, but somehow looked smaller than I expected on the inside. I guess that's a good thing, no bad seat in the house! We walked around inside and took a lot of pictures. It was pretty neat to see where the actual gladiators fought, but it was also weird to think about how people came to watch empire-sanctioned death and gore.

After the Colosseum, we walked around the outside a bit, then left to look for lunch. We found a little Italian place (I guess they're all Italian here!) and got pasta for lunch. Then we walked back toward the Colosseum and entered the Roman forum. This place was beyond description! There were so many building in various stages of ruin, it was truly breathtaking! There was one building, Basilica of Constantine that still had one wall up with 3 gigantic arches. I was in awe at how huge they were! We saw the spot where Julius Caesar's body was burned, and we saw the 8 remaining columns of the Temple of Saturn, built in 850 BC!

After walking all through the forum, we went up to Palatine Hill where the Roman Emperor's palace was. There were a lot of ruins here including some tunnels that we could walk through. We stood on the spot where the Emperor's throne was. We looked down the hill onto Circus Maximus where the chariot races were held. It was all pretty amazing to be seeing these places of ancient history!
We left Palatine Hill, passed through the forum once more, and climbed the stairs to Capitol Hill. On the way we stopped at Mamertine prison where Peter and Paul were held. They have a blocked off pillar where they claim Peter was chained to. Up the rest of the stairs to Capitol Hill, the square that was designed by Michelangelo. We sat there for a while to soak it in, then walked down the grand staircase also designed by Mike.

We were back in the busy city, but there was still one more site to see... the Pantheon. We walked for 10 or so minutes until we arrived at the back side of the Pantheon. We circled around to the front and backed up to see the giant entryway with the great stone pillars. We went inside and were amazed at the enormous dome way above us. This temple was built 2000 years ago and it still looks pristine on the inside. The dome has a 300 foot 'oculus' aka 'a hole' in the top to let in daylight (and the occasional rainstorm). We gaped at the dome for a while then wandered around before going outside to sit on the fountain steps outside.

We saw people eating gelato which made us want some! So, I looked up a recommended place in the tour book and we walked 2 or so blocks to it. We bought 2 medium sizes (you pay before you order it) and then we found out that medium gets you 3 flavors! I pulled out our Italian to English phrasebook and translated enough flavors until we knew what we wanted. Kara got chocolate, caramel, and cheesecake. I got chocolate, hazelnut, and pistachio. We both were very happy with our flavor concoctions! We slurped our gelato as we walked back to the Pantheon, then we sat back down at the stairs and just relaxed for a while.

When we were feeling ready to head back, we got up and walked through the Pantheon one more time. Then we walked to the main street and caught a bus back to Termini station. We settled into our room when we got back, then had dinner at the Italian restaurant downstairs. I got lasagna and it was REALLY good! Then we went back to our room where we hung out and got ready for bed.

Tues. 09-18-07 -- Rome, Italy and Vatican City

This morning we got up around 8:30 am and headed out to Vatican City. As we got on the bus, it started raining a little which didn't worry us much since we'd be inside for most of the day.

When we got to St. Peter's Basilica, there was a HUGE line to get in! We got in the giant line and started waiting, but then it started raining hard! It hadn't rained much since we've been in Europe, so we stopped bringing our jackets in our day pack, which means we had no way to stay dry! I left Kara in line and ran to the street to find an umbrella seller where I bought one for 5 Euros. I hurried back to Kara then we huddled under the umbrella.

The line moved an OK speed, and after a while we made it into the church. The church was absolutely gigantic and extravagant. Our tour book told us the size of things, but it didn't actually look as large as it said. An optical illusion or something (or no scale perspective because everything was so huge). We walked around inside, then we went below the church to the crypt/tombs of the popes. It was a bunch of dead old guys to me, but some people were really into it. When we passed Pope John Paul II's tomb, I saw people crossing themselves, a woman knelt, and one guy even rubbed a cloth on the ground near the tomb. I guess he was running low on magical pope dust...

We left St. Peter's and walked over (in the rain) to the Vatican Museum. We mostly wanted to see the Sistine Chapel but we figured the museum would be a good place to spend some time out of the rain. Apparently everyone else thought that too, because the line was freakishly long! We waited for a long time, then we finally got into the hot, crowded museum!

We walked around the museum, saw lots of statues, an unwrapped mummy, and a bunch of tapestries. We were plenty bored of the art by the time we finally made it to the chapel (they run you through a one-way gauntlet of art before they'll let you in). The Sistine Chapel was different than I expected. The ceiling was lower than I thought it would be, and the walls were all painted which I didn't expect. It was pretty cool to see Michelangelo's painted ceiling, though it was a literal pain in the neck!

After gazing at the ceiling for some time, we left the chapel and had to walk through countless rooms of more art before we were allowed to leave. Once we escaped Vatican City, we were pretty hungry so we walked to a Rick Steves' recommended restaurant. We both got pizza (Kara = 4 cheese, me = sausage & mushrooms) and it was SO GOOD!!! My pizza was on thin crust, with no tomato sauce, just cheese, lightly cooked mushrooms, and bits of very tasty sausage. YUM! But the place charged us 2 euro for tap water, and two euro each for a cover charge! We felt a little ripped off when the bill came to 30.50 euro for lunch, but then the food was so good that maybe it was worth it!

After lunch we hopped the metro and transferred to a bus to get to the Christian catacombs on Appian Way. We bought tickets for a tour of the Catacombs of San Callisto, but we just missed the beginning of the English tour, so we had to wait around for a half hour (it was nice to relax, the surrounding area was very peaceful). Our guide was an Indian priest that was very friendly and informative as he walked us through the catacombs.

These tunnels were built during the Christian persecution in Rome as a secret place to bury the dead. The catacombs are very big, four floors over 33 acres! We only saw a small part, mostly just tunnels and body sized holes in the wall. There were no bones there because the Christians eventually moved the bones to church grounds because tomb robbers had smashed up the tomb slabs in search of valuables. It was very interesting to hear the priest speak of "the time of persecution" and "the freedom" when talking of Christian history. I knew that Christians were persecuted and killed by the Romans at the dawn of the church, but actually being here while being told again made it seem more real.

When our tour ended, we emerged into daylight, and Kara & I walked down to the gate where we entered from the road. But when we got there, the gate was locked shut! We walked back to the ticket office and found our guide and asked him how to get out. He told us that we had to exit a different way and take a different bus. He walked us to this other exit, and we talked more about the catacombs on the way. He told us how the catacombs were rediscovered in the 1800's by sheer luck and he pointed out old air shafts and staircases that were built by the early Christians. It was a pretty cool little private tour we got, so I'm glad that gate was locked!

This bus ride was longer than the ride out, but we got to see the giant church of Saint Giovanni which was the Vatican before the Vatican existed. Then we rode the metro back to the train station and walked around until we found an internet café. We booked a room at a hotel in Sorrento and I sent a bunch of emails to hotels in Venice to see if I could find an available room. Then we walked back to our room, did some laundry, and relaxed our tired feet!

Wed. 09-19-07 -- Rome, Italy

This morning we got up "early" so that we'd get to the National Museum of Rome at opening time (9am). We walked around and looked at all the ancient art... there were two bronze statues that were really amazing. They were so life-like and detailed that we actually went back to look at them again before we left. The other really cool section of the museum was their collection of tile mosaics. I REALLY like this type of art, so I thoroughly enjoyed walking through this section and looking at all the large wall and floor mosaics.

After the museum, we walked up to the Capucin Crypt, a church that is decorated with the bones of 1400 monks. It was pretty creepy, there were all these designs and patterns on the ceilings and walls made from jaw bones, ribs, tailbones, vertebrae, etc. They also had cloaked figures with skulls for heads (some still with mummified skin on them). Creepy!

After the crypt we took the metro and bus to a section of Appia Antica, the ancient Roman "queen of roads." We rented bikes and rode down the bumpy road for about 5 miles and then rode back (1.5 hours). The road has ancient ruins of giant tombs and monuments along both sides. We slowly pedaled down the road and looked up at these giant ruins.

When we turned our bikes in at 2pm, we were both feeling worn out from going non-stop in Rome for 3 days, so we decided to head back to our room for a siesta. We rode the metro back, and then slept, read, wrote, relaxed until 7pm.

We were getting hungry, so we headed downstairs to eat at the restaurant by our hotel. But when we walked up, they were hosting a big party, and they said they were full. :( So we decided to do a recommended night walk (actually I planned for us to do a combination of part of two walks, optimized for metro stops at the beginning and end) and we'd just look for food as we went.

So we took the metro to Piazza del Popolo, a carless square where an Egyptian obelisk is (Augustus brought it to Rome and it originally sat in Circus Maximus). We walked down Via Del Corso quite a ways (no cars, lots of people window shopping at lots of clothing stores) and made our way to Trevi Fountain. There were TONS of people here, but we wormed in to take a few pictures. Then we tried, unsuccessfully, to walk to the Spanish Steps, but somehow wound up back on Via Del Corso again!

We were really hungry by now, and were only finding expensive restaurants with tricky pricing (service charges, cover charges) so we caved and ate at McDonalds. It was pretty gross, the only burgers they had were either a BigMac or a McBacon Burger (which looked nasty even in the picture). So, I got the BigMac, which I don't really like...

We ate our not-so-fresh food then set out for the Spanish Steps again (this time knowing how to get there). Once again there were tons of people here! But there was enough room on the steps to climb around people, so we climbed all the way up to the top. From up there, we could see church domes rising about the buildings, and palm trees in front of the moon. Our last big glimpse of Rome before we leave tomorrow morning. We walked down the steps and over to the metro. A quick ride back and a short walk to our hotel. We packed up most of our stuff tonight so we'll be ready to go tomorrow.

Thurs. 09-20-07 -- Rome, Sorrento, and Capri, Italy

Got up, packed up, checked out, walked to train station and got on train. Next stop, Naples. Our train compartment had some interesting characters. One lady apparently had a sick spell (pregnant?) because she had to lay down for a while and then some time later she could sit up but she started crying. I felt really bad for her, but I'm not really sure what it was all about. There was also an old man who must have been playing a game on his cellphone, but the volume was up, so we had to hear phone dialing tones over and over... earplugs didn't help.

The ride lasted 2 hours, then we went below the train station and caught the commuter train to Sorrento (about 1 hour). We passed through Pompeii and Herculaneum (which we are visiting tomorrow) and I thought "Wow, I am actually here, in these towns I've seen so much about on TV!"

When we got to Sorrento, I had no idea where out hostel was, so we did the (now common) tour of the city with our packs on. Eventually we circled around and found our road, and then our hostel. The desk manager gave us site-seeing advice, including that we must see the island of Capri. Our time is actually pretty packed with things to do, so if we were going to see Capri, it was today or not on this trip.

We walked through town toward the port, but stopped at a little café for lunch first. The town is up on a cliff, but there is a long staircase (or winding road) down to a little port area. We walked out to the cliff and we could see land way out across the water (Naples, Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, etc). We walked down and bought boat tickets (one person, round-trip was a painful 25 Euros) and got right on the boat.

The ride was about 25 minutes long, and had great views of the Italy coast, and the approaching cliff island of Capri. We arrived at a similar port area like Sorrento, but a bit bigger and more touristy. We had no guide book or any idea of what to do here, so we wandered around aimlessly for a while. We saw that there was a funicular, so we bought tickets and rode up even though we had no idea what would be up there. When we emerged, we found beautiful views, and the rest of the town!

We walked all around the town and got good views of the towering cliffs above and the shore on the other side of the island. We stumbled across a nice park that had overlook points down the coast along the see cliffs, it was all very beautiful. After a while of soaking in the views, we headed back to the funicular (long lines) and got on the next boat that was leaving (very crowded, standing room only).

Once back we hit a supermarket to buy water and coke (cans of coke are 55 cents in the supermarket, 1.50 Euros at tourist stores and delis, and 2-3 Euros at restaurants!) We went back to our hotel and relaxed for a while, then went back out to see the town and find some dinner. We walked all around the old town square (no cars allowed at night) and ended up stopping at a pizzeria for dinner. At the end of the meal, we ordered limoncello, a very popular lemon flavored liquor in these parts. It came in a chilled shot glass (VERY cold) and it tasted very sour and sweet and strongly alcoholic. It was a sensation overload that was very pleasant.

We walked home and used the internet at our hostel and were very happy to find that we have a room in Venice on the 24th. It's 105 Euros (about 40 Euros more than we've been spending) but we were happy just to find a place during this busy time (I probably got back 10 emails from places saying that they're fully booked!) Ok, off to bed, we're getting up early to see Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Mt. Vesuvius tomorrow. The street noise outside is loud, so it'll be an earplug night!

Fri. 09-21-07 -- Sorrento, Pompeii, and Herculaneum, Italy

Note to self, don't try cleaning earplugs off with water! I washed my plugs last night, and then they'd expand instantly which made them impossible to put in my ears! But fortunately we had another set because I really needed them last night!

This morning we got up early and took the commuter train to Pompeii. We entered the ruins right around opening time, so we had some time there before it got really crowded with tour groups! It was incredible how large the Pompeii ruins were! We had mostly free reign of the ancient city blocks, so we explored with our map and our audioguides. There were two theaters, a colosseum and tons of shops and houses. The forum was a cool place because it was pretty open and had lots of administration buildings and temples surrounding it. In one of the buildings were casts of human remains left by the volcanic ash that buried the city. The skulls were still in place, so the casts actually had teeth, which looked pretty creepy.

We explored the ancient city for about 3.5 hours, then we went back to the train station and caught the train to Herculaneum. This city was much smaller, but built more vertically and better preserved. We probably spent another 1.5 hours here walking through the 2000 year old streets and houses.

We weren't able to go to Vesuvius because there is only one bus that leaves from Herculaneum each day. We gave up on the mountain, and hope to be able to see it sometime in the next 2 days. With the two ancient cities thoroughly explored, we headed back to Sorrento where we hung out in our room for a few hours. We're pretty fatigued from being on the run every single day, so we've been spending more and more time each day just relaxing in our room...

When evening rolled around, we walked around the town and sat at a cliff-side bench to watch the sun set behind the cliffs. Then we walked around the streets a bit before returning to the same restaurant as last night for some yummy dinner. After dinner, we sauntered back to our hotel and hung out before going to bed.

Sat. 09-22-07 -- Sorrento and Positano, Italy

Burned out. This morning I woke up and I felt like doing absolutely nothing. Kara got up and took a shower at 7:30, but I stayed in bed sleeping until sometime after 8:30. Once I was awake, I still stayed in bed and just read, I just couldn't bring myself to get out of bed to face another day of sight-seeing.

I had a restless night last night with many dreams that followed the basic theme: We were on this trip, but Kara made us go home to Portland early for some reason. We were back in Portland, and I was trying to frantically find a way to get us back to Europe to finish our trip before our railpass ended and our return flight occurred. A little pop-psychology dream analysis tells me that there are two sides of me at war within. The dream-Kara is the side of me that is exhausted and just wants to do nothing or go home. The dream-Jake is the side that knows that this is the adventure of a lifetime and wants to get out there and see as much as I can before the trip ends.

Anyway, this all put me in a serious funk this morning. Kara was understanding, and we just hung out and read in our room until the maid barged in around 9:45am. She said she'd be back in 5 minutes to clean the room, so I was forced to actually get up and face the day. Part of my exhaustion is due to not having a place to just veg. When we're out and about, you can grab some rest on a bench, but you can't comfortably hang out there for hours. Instead we are bouncing from place to place where we are constantly being treated and charged like the tourists that we are. I told Kara as we left, "I just want a place where I can veg on the internet and drink free water for a few hours..." But unless we were going to rent an apartment and move in, that just wasn't going to happen.

Our original plan for the day was to bus along the Amalfi Coast, stopping in the little beach towns along the way, and eventually make it to the Greek temple ruins in Paestum. We were already talking about not doing that, but just taking it easy for the day, but we figured we might as well start the journey and see what happened. We bought all day bus passes and waited 30 or so minutes in the surprisingly long line for the Amalfi Coast bus.

The first town on the bus line was Positano, about 50 minutes away. The ride was in a large bus along a very curvy cliff-side road that was a bit too narrow for the size of the bus. Some of the turns we took were hair-raising to say the least. The bus had to swing wide around corners, so we'd head straight for the guard-railed cliff edge, then the driver would yank the bus to the left at the last second and barely clear the rail and a death by driving off the cliff.

Positano is a vertical town built between the water and the highest cliffs above. We got off the bus and wound our way through narrow streets to the water. We saw a private beach that charged 10 euro per person for a spot with a lounge chair and an umbrella, and that looked pretty great to me.

But we were hungry so we found a little lunch place and had sandwiches. Over lunch we decided that we would rent some beach space and just relax all day. We stopped by a store on the way back to the beach, and bought potato chips and beverages (Coke for Kara, beer for me) and then we spent many hours just relaxing in the beautiful weather on the Italian Amalfi Coast. This was exactly what the doctor ordered, and I said as much to Kara. Later, Kara said "screw work" and we both laughed it up for a long time. This perfect day at the beach in Italy wasn't our vacation, this is our lives! We don't have crappy jobs waiting for us when we return!

Later in the day, after a wonderful beer-induced nap in the sun, I smelled someone smoking a cigar, so I got up and walked through town to see if I could find a Cubano of my own. I found a tobacci shop that had a nice humidor, and picked out a relatively cheap cigar (4.70 euro) that was "Hecho en Cuba." I smoked it on the beach and while we walked on a cliff path to another beach.

The town was having a festival of fish later that night and we tried finding out where it was going to take place. We walked up to where I had originally seen the announcement board, and when we got there, we found a group of 5 people parading through the streets holding the festival banner and playing percussion instruments. There was a colorfully dressed marshal of this little parade that was making humorous proclamations in Italian (unfortunately I don't know what he was saying, but I could tell it was funny from his bombastic delivery, and the crowd's reaction). The banner holder, marshal, and drum section made its way through the tiny streets, and everyone followed them. We were part of the ever growing parade!

I really wanted to stay for the festival, but it was getting late, and we needed to catch the bus back to Sorrento. So we decided to abandon the parade and make our way back to the bus station in the dark. From the cliff edge bus stop, we could see the coastal town lights sparkling in the distance, and the bright moon leaving a light wake on the sea. It was the most picturesque (and romantic) time I've ever had while waiting for a bus!

The 50 minute ride home was no less hair-raising in the dark, and this time there was some tricky maneuvering required by the bus driver to get around oncoming traffic. Now we're back in our room, Kara's sleeping and I'm feeling 100% recharged. This was such the perfect day for how I was feeling this morning. Kara was singing "What a difference a day makes" while getting ready for bed, and man is that ever true. I'm ready for tomorrow, whatever it brings!

Well, it's been 17 days since I originally wrote that last journal entry, and 9 days since I posted it to my blog! We're still alive and kickin', but I haven't had much one-on-one time with a computer in quite some time! Since that entry, we've been to San Sebastian and Barcelona in Spain, Nice, France and Cinque Terre, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast in Italy!! I'm still faithfully journaling every night, so sooner or later those recorded days will make it on my site. Our camera is just about hitting the full mark again, so I'll be posting more pictures pretty soon too. I can't do any of this right now, however, because I don't have any of our stuff with us, it's in the baggage deposit at the Naples Centrale train station. We're waiting for our night train to Venice (leaves in about 2.5 hours) so we're in an internet cafe to kill some time.

Ciao!