behold, all things are become new

This is the post that I was supposed to write a month ago, sorry for the delay!

Europe. Here goes.

We left Germany on December 16th and went to Zürich. All I remember is that we couldn't figure out how to buy the Strassenbahn tickets and therefore it took a while to get to the Hostel. We walked around that night through a Christmas market and ate dinner at a place where I felt completly underdressed. Our first country, Switzerland, was the only one where we needed to change our Euros into something else - Swiss Franks. That really screwed me up just because I wasn't used to the money. I can't imagine how my mom felt as she was not even used to Euros.

The 17th took us to Geneva. The train ride was better than the city. We walked around the lake and then crossed over to the other side of the lake. We didn't do any museums or anything interesting, and since we were so close to France, no one spoke German. Communication was therefore primitive sign language and/or "Können Sie deutsch...English?"

The next morning we took an early trin to Bern and spent a few hours there. We just walked around, again. No museums or anything like that. Everything was closed, essentially. This was my mom's favorite city....

We took an earlier train to Milan than we were planning, and it worked out very well. We actually got to SEE the mountains as we went through them, and getting to the hostel was all but impossible once we got there. It was raining. All mom had was a square inch map with every 20th street on it and a bus number with no alighting point. At least I think we had that much. The train got in at 5:35pm and we got to the hostel at 9:30 pm. A lot of walking, asking for directions and random busses eventally got us there. My mom was convinced that there were people following us from the first bus stop. Paranoia. So we got in to the hostel and got our own room with its own shower. We were planning on leaving at 3 pm to go to Rome so we headed out early the next day. We dropped our bags at the train station and then went down to the metro to get us to the sights. While trying to figure out how to buy tickets, a man grabbed my arm and flashed a badge at me, while holding my pencil case. Yeah, a gypsy had gotten into my bag and stolen my pencil case. The cops had caught them (two tiny kids) and mom and I got a free ride downtown - exactly where we wanted to go. A police report was filed and we left. Fun stuff. That, however, had eaten away a lot of our sightseeing time so all we ended up seeing was the Cathedral. There is large copy of the police report at the bottom of this blog.

Rome was next. My favorite city - and we actually spent two days here. The first day was all the old archeological stuff - ruins, the Coliseum, stuff like that. The next day we went to Vatican city to see the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum. No pictures allowed inside the actual chapel but we made do with what we could.

Late on the 21st we traveled to Florence. The people were VERY nice to us tourists, and even told us when we were about to get on the wrong bus. We went to Florence just to see Michaelangelo's David. No pictures allowed.... But the hostel was an old mansion so that was beautiful.

We got into Venice late that evening and walked around the city a little bit. The novelty wore off for me after a few minutes, but my mom absolutly loved it. We stayed in a hotel that night, as there were no open hostels during that part of the season. No museums here..only a lot of glass. The hotel had a thing where they set up a trip to Murano glass and we got to see actual glass blowing and stuff. It sounded exciting so mom and I signed up and went. We left early Saturday morning, that would be December 23. There was a grand total of 7 minutes and 34 seconds of glass blowing before the extreamly well dressed tour guide took us up to the glass show room to show us all what they are capable of. The glass was beautiful, and expensive. An inexpensive vase was 400 euros and the 'nice' ones were upwards of 2000 euros. We did the loop with our guide and then expected him to take us to the exit. Oh no, he expected us to buy something. So began the stand-off. He continued with the sales pitch "oh, if you find something you like we'll ship it to your house in America free of charge. If it ever breaks, we'll send you another one" and so on. So I found a really cheap vase that was made by someone just starting off. It was only 50 euros and I liked it and decided that I would get it. But he wanted to wrap it up and let me take it with me. I said thanks but no thanks and we sat some more, wondering how to get out of there. Finally I went to the restroom and came back and just asked him to show us the exit. He did, in a huff. Whenever I think of Murano glass, I emphasise the the first two syllables. "Moran." And they made this tree.

We spent and entire day traveling and made it to Paris late on Christmas Eve. That means that for Christmas Day we were in Paris. No crowds, and we didn't have to deal with the locals much at all. That was a plus. We did the normal tourist things, Notre Dame, Eifel Tower, we saw the outside of the Louvre as it was closed for the holiday, and the Arc de Triomphe.

We spent the 26th traveling to Vienna. We just walked around and eventually did a short little trolley ride around the city and then took off to Salzburg on the 27th.

Salzburg on the 28th was the most embarassing for me. My mom took me on the "Sound of Music Tour." We were on a bus of mostly Americans who had no qualms whatsoever of singing along to the soundtrack they were playing in the background. People who had been on the tour before (yes, aparantly once was NEVER enough) noticed discrepancies in things. "This wasn't the wedding church they took us to last time. Those aren't the trees the VonTrapps were hanging out of, at least they showed us different ones last time..." etc. After that, however, we had a wonderful time going up to the fortress in the center of the city. First you'll get to see some views from the Sound of Music, then some views from the fortress.