yeah!

Drew (who has now joined me in the UK) has told me to write in my blog: "I'm in London! Tea! Bye now!"

A substantial update will follow at a later date, I promise! So much to do in the next few days: Buckingham Palace, the Tate Modern, the Tower of London, the London Eye, Indian food!!!, Harrod's (which we went into around 5 pm on yesterday, a Saturday, and quickly exited because of the crowds), Camden Town, Notting Hill, pubs!, and lots of (sigh, window) shopping.

Love and London, Eliza

PS: I finally updated new photos, which include Vienna, Salzburg, the fairytale castles in Bavaria, Dachau, Nancy (France), and (more!) Paris: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizaswift/sets/72157625429460504/

barcelona, paris, luxembourg, nuremberg, prague, budapest, vienna

It's getting to the point where going home is no longer a distant fantasy, but a reality looming on my horizon. If I'd been asked three weeks ago, I would have said I was excited to leave Europe and ready to be home. But, of course, my feelings have changed and the thought of returning to the States terrifies me. Traveling has just started to become comfortable! (Although, perhaps, some of that is subconsciously due to my knowledge that I won't be doing it for much longer.) Earlier I wrote on here (or perhaps I didn't write it down, but thought it) that I was perplexed by the people who travel for a year at a time—how taxing that must be!—and now I find myself envying them. I've started to really enjoy the ability to go wherever on a whim. The portion of my trip with Alex was lovely and so much fun, but it was pretty well planned out. Being on my own gives me the ability to find out what spontaneity really means. I can decide on a moment's notice where I want to go. Right now, I'm trying to decide if I want to stay in Vienna tonight or push on to Salzburg. I've booked an extra night at my hostel here, but I want to get to eastern France by the weekend and I still have some castles to go visit in Germany. I intended on staying in Vienna an extra night so I could go visit Bratislava today, but I unfortunately find myself very sick again and I decided not to go with my friends. So I'm sitting in my hostel wondering—what now? It's a very liberating question.

I'm trying to figure out what exactly I can and should do in the week and a half I have before I meet Drew in London. It's frustrating, because there is SO MUCH to see and I've really just started to get tired of the big cities and ready to explore the small towns. I had so many thoughts before I came on this trip: Scandinavia, southern France, Portugal, etc. I've realized that I am not going to accomplish seeing every nook and cranny of Europe, and nor should I; if I leave no stone unturned, what will there be to come back to? (No, the travel bug is not out of my system, even yet...although I expect to be sated by this trip for quite a while.) So this is where I am: alone in my hostel dorm room, coughing up half a lung, trying to decide what happens after the fairytale castles and before I get to see my darling boyfriend in the UK. It's really not a bad place to be. (On the Vienna versus Salzburg question, I've just made a decision, which is to stay here for the night because I've paid for it anyway. I'll take an early train tomorrow. Budget travelers must stay budget conscious!)

Anyway, you're probably on here because you want to find out what exactly I've been doing and not because you want to read the pseudo-philosophical haggard-backpacker ramblings. (Did I mention that I'm sick? Again? As in, I was sick for almost a full month, recovered for about a week, and am now back on medication? My body will definitely be happy to be at home and recuperating.) So let me try now to reach back into what feels like a distant memory, over four weeks ago (oh my god has it been that long I am so sorry for being such a bad blogger aghhhh) to when my Mom and Ian joined me in Europe.

I had an early flight from Rome to Barcelona, which coincided with their arrival time in to Spain, so I had to leave the apartment in Ciampino around 6:30 am. It was really great to see the two of them, although they were looking very "fresh" from their long overnight plane flight. We got into a cab and headed to our hotel, conveniently located on the popular Las Ramblas. We checked in and they cleaned themselves up a bit and then we searched for food. I introduced the two of them to falafel—a middle-eastern dish that is a cheap diet staple for me in Europe—and we wandered up and down Las Ramblas for a while. I knew it was time to take them back to the hotel and let them lay down for a while when my mom started freaking out over these little mouth squeakers that the street vendors were selling; I dragged her back to the hotel before she could buy every single one of them. We had some amazing massages, ordered in dinner at the hotel, and called it an early night.

The next day, we slept in late and then went to see some Gaudi architecture. I think the two reasons anyone goes to Barcelona are to see the Gaudi buildings and to party on the beaches. Unfortunately, the latter was not an option for us because it was too late in the year. We headed first to Park Guell, the beautiful Gaudi-designed park that overlooks the city. From there we went to Sagrada Familla, the famous unfinished church that will someday be the world's largest cathedral (someday being when it's finally finished, which is projected around 2040-something). After that, Mom and I had a drink on the rooftop terrace. Ian wasn't feeling well, so we left him at the hotel and went out for dinner on our own, to a famous seafood restaurant named Botofumiero. It was good—although the waiter misunderstood Mom's order and brought her the wrong paella. After Botofumiero, Mom and I went to go see some flamenco dancing, which was really the highlight of the night. It was so passionate!

The next day, we went exploring the area around our hotel. After lunch at a cafe, Ian was still having trouble adjusting to jet lag, so he went back to the hotel. Mom and I walked around the whole afternoon. In the evening, she and I wanted to go to a hip restaurant called Moo, but it was booked...so we went anyway. They were still booked, but we were able to eat at the bar and it was really unbelievable food.

We thought we were leaving the next day, Sunday, for Paris, but we were actually heading out on Monday, so we didn't have anything planned for Sunday. Mom decided to hire a car to take us on a personal three-hour tour of Barcelona. We were able to get out to see Gaudi's famous Casa Batillo, a dazzling house and well worth the visit. The whole tour was great and we saw so much of Barcelona, including many places that we would have missed out on otherwise. For dinner, we had more falafel...I'm sure Mom is cursing that word, because that greasy food really did not sit well with her.

On Monday (the 18th of October), we left for Paris. Being in France during this October was an interesting experience, to say the least. All over the country, riots and strikes were taking place because of a pension reform plan that was passing through to law. Many oil refineries were shut down and a lot of trains were canceled. So we entered Paris feeling a bit nervous about the situation, all of us worried about our ability to leave. We checked into our hotel and grabbed lunch at a nearby cafe. Afterwards, we walked around Rue de Saint-Helené, a famous shopping street right near our hotel. It was mostly uneventful, although we did spot Mila Kunis, which was kind of funny.

The next day, Ian had a massage while Mom and I walked around and did some more shopping. Mom had a very long manicure at the Anne Fontaine salon and then we went to dinner at a chic little restaurant in the Marais quarter.
On Wednesday, Ian stayed back at the hotel while Mom and I went exploring. We had a grand lunch at a beautiful hotel whose name is slipping my mind—Mom will have to fill in that hole. Afterwards, we walked over the the Musée d'Orsay to see some impressionist painting. There was a great exhibit on the painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, whose work I had never really seen before. When we left the museum, we headed over to Marais to do a little shopping. That night, Mom and I went to a restaurant recommended by our concierge. Unfortunately, she slipped on a stair in the bathroom and hurt her back, so we left dinner early.

Thursday, Mom and Ian left Paris, and they thankfully did not have too many problems getting to the airport. I had one night left at the hotel, so I had a lazy day. I walked around our neighborhood, bought myself a rolling bag (tired of carrying that heavy backpack!), went back to Marais again to return some clothes that Ian didn't like, and had a light dinner. I wasn't sure where I would be going for the weekend, but I knew I needed to get to Prague by Tuesday, so I had to start working my way eastward. However, as I mentioned before, many of the trains weren't running, so my options on places to go were slim. At the last moment, I chose Luxembourg—it wasn't too far from Paris but it successfully got me out of France and, miraculously, trains were still running there.

Friday morning, I headed to Luxembourg. My train was quite early in the morning, around 7:10 am, so I had a taxi take me to the train station—I didn't want to deal with the Metro in case there were problems with it. The train ride was relatively uneventful and I arrived at my hostel in Luxembourg around 10 am. Luxembourg was freezing! There was frost on the ground and the sky continually threatened snow. But my goodness, it's a pretty place. After I checked into my hostel, I walked around the city for a few hours and had lunch. I went back to my hostel around 1 pm to start the laborious process of doing laundry, something I hadn't done in far too long. Around 6 pm, I went back down to change out my laundry and was having trouble making the dryer work. Luckily there was someone else in the laundry room—a 19-year-old Canadian girl named Kathryn, and she helped me out. We started talking and kept talking, eventually getting dinner together. Her French roommate, Marie-Fleur, joined us. The three of us spent all night comparing our different countries, bemoaning the French strikes, and planning out our next day in the city together. At one point, we met Allan, a nice guy from Texas, who decided to join us on our walk the next day.

So on Saturday, armed with new friends and my very warm new winter coat, I headed into the city to do some sightseeing. Our degree of success is debatable. We weren't really sure what many things were, but we walked for hours. Luxembourg is very hilly, and the city appears to exist on several layers. One of the downhill portions of the city is called "Grund," and you're able to get down to Grund by taking an elevator. Once down there, we walked to an old church and what I believe was once a 19th-century military hospital. From there, we headed back up into the main old town area of Luxembourg. There was a big markets going on in the center square and we perused that for a while. I bought some magnificent cheese from Trier, some really tasty sun-dried fruits, and a bar of lavender-flavored chocolate.

All day and all previous night, I'd been whining to my new friends about how much I missed Mexican food—something that Allan and I saw eye-to-eye on—and he mentioned that there was a Mexican restaurant in the center of the city. Kathryn and Marie-Fleur were kind enough to agree to go there for lunch. It was a chain place called Chi-Chi's Tex Mex, and while it was far from the best Mexican food I've ever had, it tasted like a revelation. It was so wonderful to have guacamole, margaritas, Spanish rice, black beans, and all the other flavors I'd been missing so much.

After we finished eating lunch, Allan needed to head back to the hostel and grab his bag so he could leave. Marie-Fleur needed to go shopping for some work clothes, so Kathryn and I went back with Allan and then went to the train station with him so we could book our own train tickets for the next day. By that point, I'd chosen Nuremberg, Germany as my next destination; Nuremberg was two easy train rides away, was a city full of fascinating (if macabre) history, and was a short trip away from Prague—it seemed like a good decision. We said our goodbyes to Allan and met back up with Marie-Fleur. The three of us went shopping and I was able to get a nice warm hat, something that I desperately needed in the Luxembourg cold. (I'm not exaggerating, folks, it was around 30 degrees Fahrenheit! In October!) We visited the main cathedral in town and then headed back down to Grund to go grab a drink at Marie-Fleur's favorite pub. After our beers, we went back to the hostel for dinner. All in all, it was a wonderful day in a very beautiful city.

On Sunday morning, I left for Nuremberg. I arrived in the early afternoon and checked into my hostel before going to walk around by myself for a bit. After about an hour and a half of walking around Nuremberg, I decided to head back to the hostel—cold rain was starting and I realized that I'd seen most of the old town already. What would there be left for me to do on Monday? So I had some falafel for dinner and watched a movie before calling it an early night.

Monday was kind of boring. Nuremberg is sort of a picturesque Bavarian town, but there isn't too much to do. I followed my path from the day before, and this time went all the way up to the Kaiserburg, a castle that's situated on the old city walls. It was really pretty and had great views of the city. From there, I went and grabbed some soup for lunch. After that, there wasn't much to do. I'd seen all the old churches already, and the infamous old Nazi rally grounds were situated outside of the city, so that wasn't an option. I ended up back in the hostel early again, cursing my decision to go to Nuremberg. I shouldn't have spent two nights there—there was just enough to see for one day of exploration. But all was well, as I had Prague to look forward to the next day.

The big perk of going to Prague, other than getting to see a wonderful city, was meeting up with my friend Chris from Semester at Sea. He'd been living in South Korea for the past year, teaching English, and he and some friends set off on a journey when their contracts ended in late August. They went up through China and Mongolia before hopping on a train through Russia and ending up in Eastern Europe. Chris is the same guy that I traveled with in Japan and in Thailand, and I knew that I would have a great time with him and his friend Chase.

I arrived in Prague and went to my hostel, the Czech Inn. Prague was much cheaper than the rest of Western Europe, all things considered. My hostel was running a special on the large female-only dorm and I was able to stay there for around 5 euros a night—an obscene amount cheaper than any other hostel I'd stayed in. The hostel was situated outside of the city center, but it was an easy tram ride in to the main attractions. Chris had left a note for me with the front desk, saying that he and Chase would meet me in the hostel's bar for happy hour around between 6 and 7 pm. With my belongings secured in my room (so clean! and large! and lovely!), I decided to go out for a walk and see how far I got. I ended up walking quite some distance: past the National Museum, all the way down Wenceslas Square (named after the same Good King in the famous Christmas song), into the heart of the old town where the famous astronomical clock tower is located. It was here that I found a holiday market going on, called "Holidays of Spices and Cheese." Amazing! I bought this type of street pizza thing called langose, which consisted of a piece of fried dough covered in garlic sauce, ketchup, and cheese. It was quite yummy. Just as I finished eating it, I saw a bunch of people gathering around the astronomical clock and arrived just in time to see it go off. It's a moving clock and it's actually kind of anticlimactic, but it's been around since the 1400s, so I guess that's cool.

After that, I went back to the hostel and met up with Chris and Chase in the bar. It was so good to see a familiar face! We met two other guys in the bar and the five of us headed out for the night, back toward the old town. We couldn't find any good bars so we mostly just walked around the area. We did manage to make it over to Charles' Bridge, which was very beautiful at night.

The next morning, we got up early to go on a free walking tour of the city. The tour started at the clock tower, where we found out some interesting history about the clock. It was the first mechanical animated clock in Europe, and the citizens of Prague were very proud of it. When they found out that the guy who designed it was planning on building an even better and bigger mechanical clock in a different city, they knew they had to find some way to stop him...so they poked his eyes out and blinded him. He was understandably pretty pissed about that, so he went up into the clock tower and smashed all the mechanisms into bits. Unfortunately, he was the only person who knew how it worked, and he had been blinded, so there was nobody available to fix the clock and it sat around unmoving for something like 150 years. Crazy! We also learned all about the Hussites, a religious minority in Prague that had been subjugated by the Catholic Church. In the 15th century, the Hussites were quite mad about their position in society and started defenestrating city officials. In case you don't know what "defenestration" means, it's a word that I learned on the walking tour: tossing people out of windows. What a method of revenge!

Although our guide was not the most enthusiastic, the walking tour was all-in-all very informative and I think we all enjoyed it. We also met a girl on the walking tour named Ashley, who was staying at a different hostel. After the tour, Ashley walked across Charles' Bridge with us and over to the castle. For some reason, the castle was closed, so we were only able to see the cathedral. There were really great views from the top of the hill, though. Ashley was headed to Budapest after Prague, the same as me, so we exchanged contact info. That night, we had dinner in the bar and met a British guy named Sam who was on holiday from his job as an officer in the Queen's Royal Navy. Sam, Chris, and Chase all went out for a pub crawl, but I was tired from the day's activities and opted to stay in for the night.

Thursday, the 28th of October, was a national holiday in Prague. I think it's technically celebrated as the independence day of the Czech Republic, because it signifies the day that they separated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Some Czech people told us that it wasn't really celebrated. However, it did mess up the transit system quite nicely, as a lot of trains and trams weren't running at their normal capacity. Chris, Chase, and I had decided to go Plzn that day to go on a tour of the Pilsner brewery. We got all the way to the bus terminal necessary to go to Plzn (which took us something like an hour and a half), only to find out that there were only two tickets left on the 3 pm bus to the city—and three of us people. The brewery closed at 5 pm so our only chance would have been to make the 3 pm bus. It was really disappointing. But we tried to make the best of our day and headed back into the heart of Prague to do some sightseeing. We walked up a huge hilly area called Petrin hill to what is called the "Eiffel tower of Prague," Petrin tower. There were great views of the city from up there. We took the funicular back down the hill, took a tram over the river to our side of the city, and walked back to our hostel. That night, we made a lot of friends at happy hour, including a Canadian girl named Jacqui who was in the same dorm room as me. We all went to a bar called B-52, suggested by a girl from New York named Jarra, who had studied abroad in Prague a few years prior.

The next day, Chris, Chase, Sam (the British guy), Jacqui and I got on a train to Kutna Hora, a town about an hour outside of Prague that houses the famous "bone chapel." The inside of the chapel is decorated in thousands of human bones, mostly victims of the bubonic plague. It was quite a sight to see, similar to what many catacombs look like but more ornate. After checking out the bone chapel, the five of us headed back to Prague. By this point, it had been decided that we were all going to do the pub crawl that night, the same one the guys had been on a few nights before. So we got back to our hostel, all got ready, rallied the troops, and headed out with a big group of people. The pub crawl starts at a pub that has open bar from 9 pm to 11 pm, and lots of drinking games to play, including beer pong and flip cup (two very popular drinking games with the university set). After that, you head to three other bars and clubs, and there's a free "welcome shot" at each other place. By the time we reached the fourth bar, we'd lost Chris and Sam, Jacqui and I were ready to go home. The three of us ate some street food and took a long walk back to the hostel. All three of us were going to be heading to Budapest, so we planned a few things out. Jacqui was due to take the night train on Saturday night and arrive Sunday morning, and Sam would do the same thing on Sunday night, arriving Monday morning.

On Saturday, I got on the train to Budapest. Chris and Chase were still sleeping when I left, so I managed to avoid doing a sad goodbye. Ashley, the girl we'd met on the walking tour, was booked on the same train as me, so we met up in the train station. We were miraculously booked into the same compartment! The train ride to Budapest was about 6 and a half hours long, and both of us thought we'd spend most of it napping, but we ended up talking for a majority of the time. When we got into Slovakia (the train passed through it), we received a nasty shock: our Eurail passes weren't valid in Slovakia, a fact neither of us was aware of, and the ticket collector demanded that we pay him. We'd both spent as much of our Czech crowns as possible and had not yet pulled out more money, since we were changing currency to Hungarian Forints...so neither of us had any money on us. Thankfully, a Hungarian girl around our age was in our compartment and spoke English, and she offered to lend us 7,000 Forints (close to 30 U.S. dollars) so we could pay. Crisis averted, we spent the rest of the trip talking to the Hungarian girl about her country, which was very illuminating.

When we got into Budapest, Ashley and I parted ways: she was staying at the Grandio Party Hostel (yes, "party" is part of the name), which I couldn't get a reservation for, so I opted to stay at the much more tame Suite Hostel. It was a little unsettling arriving in a new city after dark, but I managed to find my way to my hostel. I cannot express enough how much I enjoyed the Suite Hostel. It was set up in a bunch of converted apartments. The apartment I was staying in was the main hang out area, and it had a full kitchen for guest use and giant living room complete with an expansive DVD library. The dorm rooms were situated on the second floor: two rooms with eight beds each and en suite bathrooms. I had an experience that I like to call "winning the hostel lottery," which consists of booking the largest, cheapest room available and ending up in a smaller room. This has happened several times on my trip. I booked a 16-bed room at the Suite Hostel and ended up in an 8-bed. Not so bad! After I checked in and put my stuff away, I went into the living room and asked if anyone knew where the closest grocery store was. A guy named Chris, funnily enough, said that he knew and was about to head there himself, so we went together to buy groceries. Back at the hostel, he offered to share his salad with me and I made enough pasta for the both of us, so we cooked dinner together and hung out with everyone that was coming and going in the kitchen. After dinner, we put on the Ricky Gervais show "Extras" and watched a few episodes before bedtime.

On Sunday (Halloween!), I left a note for Jacqui with reception and went out on a free walking tour. The walking tour I had in Budapest was nowhere near as informative or as good as the walking tour in Prague or the one I'd done before that in Paris. I think part of the reason is because there was a very nice family with three very young girls—ages 4, 6, and 9—who needed attention. The guide seemed to take the tour at a slower pace to accommodate the family, which is understandable, but did not make for the most interesting tour. However, the little girls adopted me as their best friend and I spent the entire time entertaining children, which was actually quite fun. Budapest is really constructed of two different cities that combined in the 19th century, Buda and Pest, and the tour went from Pest over to Buda and around the castle. After the tour ended, three and a half hours later (ugh!), I went back to Pest to my hostel and finally met up with Jacqui. The two of us cooked dinner and then started getting ready for the main event of the evening: Halloween.

Halloween in Europe is mostly nonexistent. However, when you're staying at hostels, you're surrounded by mostly non-Europeans, and we knew that there would be a party happening somewhere. That somewhere, it turned out, was at Ashley's hostel, the Grandio Party Hostel. Jacqui had another friend that was staying there, so we went about the business of figuring out makeshift costumes. Jacqui decided to go as a hippie. I had no idea what to be, but I had a yellow dress with me, so I decided to revive my makeshift Semester at Sea Halloween costume: mustard! I drew a French's mustard sign and pinned it onto myself and I was good to go. A guy from our hostel, Stephen, decided to join us at the party, so he taped a bunch of maps around himself and went as a map. The party was crazy! We arrived just after pretty much everyone there had done 10 (yes, TEN!) Jagerbombs each. Ashley had taken a picture of the Jagerbombs being lined up, and it was insane, something like 500 drinks in a row. I have to admit that I am very glad we came just a little bit too late, because that sounds like my idea of a nightmare. A few minutes after we arrived, the hostel shut down the main upstairs bar and sent us all to the basement bar. The basement looked like a cave, and it was very creepy to have a Halloween party there. The best part of the evening was, by far, all of the makeshift Halloween costumes.

On Monday, Sam arrived at our hostel, and so the dream team was reunited! We decided to go to the House of Terror, a museum based in a building that had been used by both the Nazi forces and the Communists as a building to torture detainees. We got all the way over to the museum before realizing that it was closed for All Saint's Day, which is a national holiday in Hungary. We kept walking, and went on to the Hero's Monument, which according to my guidebook was "built to mark the 1000th anniversary of the Magyar conquest." After that, we decided to head to the huge mall nearby the train station, because we knew there was a giant Tesco's (super market) inside and we wanted to get food to make. Unfortunately, the Tesco's was also closed, but the movie theater was open, so we opted to go see a movie. We all received student prices (the benefit of having my old student card on me), so the tickets only cost around 900 forints, or close to five dollars. Five dollars for a movie! Not to mention that the movie theater was one of the nicest, cleanest, newest theaters I've ever been in and we had assigned seats in the middle of the theater. Jacqui and I managed to convince Sam to see "Easy A," the comedy starring Emma Stone that came out just before I left for Europe. I think she and I both really enjoyed it, although Sam thought it was kind of a chick flick. For dinner, we just made some more pasta because all the grocery stores were closed.

Tuesday was like a weird repeat of Monday. We walked down to the river front so Sam could see Buda, and then we had lunch at a delicious Indian restaurant. From there, we walked back down Andrassy, a boulevard known as the Champs d'Elysee of Budapest, where the House of Terror was located. It was thankfully open, and we were able to go inside and see the exhibit. I learned a lot about the history of Budapest and of Hungary, and it was a very interesting museum. The most chilling part of the museum was undoubtedly the recreated dungeons in the basement.

After the House of Terror, we went back toward the Hero's Monument, into the Varosliget, or city park. Here is where the Szechenyi Spa Baths are located. Budapest is well-known for its thermal bath houses, and we'd be poor tourists if we didn't experience them. We entered the spa and separated into the male and female dressing rooms. I rented a bathing suit, which sounds kind of gross but it was very clean, although it was a bit too small on me. From the dressing rooms, you enter the outdoor pool area. There are three huge pools outside, including two large heated pools and one lap pool. We spent a few minutes in the heated pool before going inside to the sauna. The sauna was wonderful, and when you left, there was a 60 degree chill pool to jump into. From there, we went up into the thermal baths. There seemed to be unending rooms filled with the thermal baths. Of course, they smelled a little weird because they had sulfur and all other sorts of minerals in them. Each bath had a varying temperature, up to as hot as around 120 degrees. There was one of the baths was a whirlpool that whisked you around the tub as you sat inside it. We also went into a steam room where the steam had a medicated smell, almost like Vick's. We ended the day back in the heated pools outside. All and all, it was an incredible experience. The thermal baths were so relaxing and made us all feel wonderful. It was especially great for me, as I was starting to get sick again (after having just gotten better!)

From the baths, we walked back to the mall we'd been at the day before so we could go to Tesco's. We had decided on making Mexican food, and Tesco's had everything we needed. They even had peanut butter, which I'd been looking for since Prague but hadn't been able to find anywhere! (Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a great cheap food option for me.) Back at the hostel, the three of us cooked up our giant Mexican feast and spent the night watching The Office.

Budapest was so comfortable, in large part because we were staying in a hostel that felt like an apartment, and we weren't in any rush to do more sightseeing. So on Wednesday, we decided to try out one of the other bath houses, the Gellért baths, which was situated on Buda. This bath house had two common pools but separate thermal baths for men and women, so Jacqui and I had to separate from Sam for part of the day. There weren't as many thermal baths as Szechenyi, so we weren't as impressed. We all agreed that we wish we'd gone to the Gellért baths first, so we would have appreciated it more—compared to Szechenyi, it just wasn't that great. It looked like there was a bunch of baths outdoors, but the outdoor area had been shut down for the season, so we didn't get to experience those.

That night, we cooked a huge stir-fry dinner. It was really wonderful having a kitchen and having people to cook with! That night, we decided to go out to a popular bar called Szimpla Kert. "Kerts" are, according to my guidebook, "fun, makeshift bars set up for short periods of time in buildings awaiting demolition." Szimpla, which was the first kert, has become a permanent bar. It was a really cool, eclectic space.

The next morning, we all slept late. Jacqui and I were heading to Vienna that day, but the trains to Vienna from Budapest are very frequent, so we took our sweet time getting ready. The three of us watched some more episodes of The Office while having a long lunch. Sam was heading to Krakow the next day, so he left for a while to go book his bus ticket. Meanwhile, Jacqui and I went out for a bit. I needed to mail some postcards, but I also had to get to a pharmacy—my impending cold had at this point become the inevitable and I was desperately in need of a decongestant. We stocked up and went back to the hostel to say our goodbyes to Sam, a sad parting since the three of us had been together since Prague. Then we went to Vienna.

The train ride to Vienna was short, comparatively—only about 2 and a half hours—and we arrived in Vienna somewhere near 8 pm. Our hostel, Wombat's, was easy to find from the train station. At this hostel, too, we "won the hostel lottery," as I like to say. We'd booked an 8-bed female dorm and we were placed in a 4-bed for the same price. Traveling during the off-season can be so beneficial. We had dinner at the hostel bar and called it an early night.

On Friday, I woke up feeling really awful. My cold was officially back in full force. We decided to make it an easy day, and after a long lunch at a Turkish restaurant near our hostel, went into the center of Vienna. There we took the trams around "Ring Road," a circle of roads created in 1857 to replace the town's fortifications. The tram ride took maybe half an hour in all, but by the end of it, I was exhausted, so Jacqui and I parted ways. She went to go walk around some more, and I went back to the hostel to nap. Being sick while traveling is the worst because it's the total antithesis of sightseeing. That night, Jacqui suggested we go see another movie, which was one thing that I felt capable of doing, so we went and saw The Social Network. Not bad!

We needed to actually go do some stuff on Saturday, and our hostel was located in walking distance of the Schönbrunn Palace, the summer palace of the Hapsburgs. Schönbrunn looks a lot like Versailles, but I actually enjoyed visiting it a lot more; there were nowhere near as many tourists, which made it easy to sit and enjoy every room, and the history of the Hapsburgs was fascinating. It was a really remarkable sight and I'm so glad we did the full tour of it. After we finished the interior of the palace, we walked around the gardens for a while, but opted not to go to the ground's zoo (the oldest in the world). After the palace, we went back to the hostel, so I could lay down again, and Jacqui went out in search of a new purse. That evening, we headed to the Vienna State Opera House to see Mozart's The Magic Flute. We were able to buy standing room tickets for only 3 euros a piece. The opera was magnificent, but we couldn't see very well (only about a quarter of the stage from our perspective) so we ended up leaving at intermission. I'm so glad we did it, though, because it was a really worthwhile cultural experience. When we got back to the hostel, we ate some food, played cards, and watched some TV before going to bed.

On Sunday, we met up with my friend Kathryn from Luxembourg, who was also in Vienna, although staying at a different hostel. We met at the Albertina museum and walked over to the Sacher hotel, home of the original famous Sacher torte. Obviously, we had to try the torte, so we all ended up eating cake for breakfast. From there, we just walked around for a few hours. We saw the Stephensdom cathedral, but the catacombs weren't open yet so we decided to go back later. From there, we walked by the Spanish Riding School (whose famous show we had just missed), down past the museum quarter, and over to Naschtmarkt, a famous food market that was unfortunately closed for the day. Then we walked back toward the Stephensdom and had lunch. After lunch, I was feeling really ill again, so I left Kathryn and Jacqui and went back to the hostel to have yet another nap. I met the two of them in the bar around 5:30. Jacqui loaded her iPod up on my computer and then had to say goodbye—she was taking the overnight train to Rome. It was hard saying goodbye to Jacqui as we'd been traveling together for over a week and a half by that point. But I feel confident I will see her again someday—maybe in Vancouver!

On Monday (yesterday!), I was supposed to take a day trip to Bratislava with Kathryn and her fellow Canadian friend, Jeff, as I said at the very beginning of this post. But I was feeling really crappy and I opted to stay back. I got pretty much nothing accomplished yesterday, but when you're traveling, you sometimes have to have your down days. I was fine staying back—I feel like I saw everything I had wanted to see in Vienna.

And now I'm done with this post! Whew! I'm actually on the train to Salzburg, and I've been writing this post since I got on the train. Three hours later, I'm about ten minutes from arriving there, so this worked out really well. It's grey and cold-looking outside, and I'm really hoping that tomorrow will be clear because I'm planning on going on the Sound of Music tour. (I downloaded and watched The Sound of Music yesterday while I was sick in bed and am now very excited to visit Salzburg).

I cannot believe that I'll be home so soon! I will hopefully have a few more posts for you before then, and I hope to upload some more photos tonight, assuming that my hostel's internet connection is halfway decent.

Love and (just went through) Linz, Eliza

photos!

So I may not have a new blog for you (sorry sorry sorry!!) but I've finally posted some photos. These are from Barcelona, Luxembourg, Nuremberg, Prague, and Budapest. Here you go: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizaswift/sets/72157625185511101/

Just a quick update: I've left Budapest and I arrived in Vienna last night. I'm traveling with my friend Jacqui, who I met in Prague. I'll be here until Monday at least and then I'm heading to Salzburg after that. Miss the cheap prices of Eastern Europe already!

Love and Euros (finally back to Euros!), Eliza

sort of a post!

Hi everyone,

Sorry things have been so slow on my blog! I have not been setting aside the time for it, which is very bad of me. I'm in Prague right now and heading to Budapest this afternoon, which is a six hour train ride and hopefully I will get some time to catch up then. However, I did get some time to write a few pages the other night and was able to finish writing about the rest of my time in Italy. I thought I would've been able to completely catch up by now but Prague has been a gigantic party so that hasn't happened! But I figured I might as well post those pages I'd written already so this blog isn't sitting completely unused. Here they are!

Man, I am not a very consistent blogger. Apologies for that. It's a lot harder to make myself write these now that Alex is gone and isn't pestering me to do it every day. I have so much to write about, just like last time, and so I had to finally make myself sit down and do it...otherwise, I know I'd find myself in London a month from now, wondering where the time went and cursing myself for not blogging. I can't believe it's still October; it's hard to imagine that this is the same month that I went to Switzerland. Right now, I'm sitting in my hostel dorm room in Prague. I love this city so far. My friends think it's kind of over-hyped, but I didn't really hear much about it (as I wasn't even 100% sure I'd be coming here), so I think it's just great. It's actually a revelation after the snoozefest that was Nuremberg...but more on that later.

Ok, so, starting off from my last post would bring us up to Rome. I only left Rome two weeks ago but it feels like forever! So after our harrowing almost-forgetting-our-passports experience, Alex and I had a smooth train ride to Rome, where we proceeded to get extremely confused by the Roma train station. As I said in the last post, Alex and I stayed in the second apartment of her former au pair, Paola. Paola lives in a suburban area of Rome called Ciampino, which was about 15 minutes by train from the city center, and we were due to meet her at the Ciampino train station at 7 pm. It should have been an easy ride for us but we got very turned around in the train station and boarded a train that had just recently arrived. As soon as we got onto it, the train powered down and we got stuck inside the car for about 10 minutes. After that, we were worried that the train would leave if we got off, and so we decided just to stay on it—but the train didn't leave until 7:30 pm. Thankfully, we had Paola's phone number and Alex was able to call her and tell her we wouldn't be there until 8 pm. We figured out the train system pretty quickly after that and didn't have any more problems.

Paola picked us up and took us to her apartment, where we had dinner with her and her husband, Fedrigo (I think I'm spelling that right but I'm not sure, so Alex can correct me if I'm wrong.) They made us a huge Italian meal, which was our introduction to how the Romans really eat. Apparently, Italians eat pasta first and then a salad or main course. Crazy! It was really great food and they were very accommodating about my whole vegetarian situation. After dinner, Paola took us to a pharmacy so I could get some cough syrup—I was at the height of my illness (which started in Switzerland) at this point and kept having coughing fits. Then she took us to her second apartment. The place was really nice, with a TV (and cable! such a joy for people on the road!), it was an easy 5 minute walk from the train station. Alex and I went to sleep very happy to be in Rome.

The next day, we got up and ready and realized the weather might be rainy...thank goodness we took our umbrellas into Rome with us. We had planned on doing a large walking tour from the Spanish Steps to the Coliseum, but after a few minutes at the Spanish Steps we realized that it was going to be too rainy to do much of anything, least of all walking. So we scratched that plan for the day and decided to head to the Vatican museum. Unfortunately, when we got to the Vatican, we realized that every other tourist in Rome seemed to have the same idea—the line was never-ending! So we sat down at a restaurant nearby and got some pizza and a bottle of wine and waited for the line to die down. By the time we got into line, at 3 pm, it was significantly shorter. We didn't realize it, but the Vatican stops letting people in at 4 pm and we were worried that we weren't going to make it, but we just barely got in. Alex and I kind of breezed through the museum; you reach a point when you're traveling that, unless you're a student of art or particularly interested in one thing, all the museums start to feel the same...kind of boring. But we had to make it to the Sistine Chapel, which is at the very end of the Vatican museum, so we had to go through everything to get to it. I've been to the Sistine Chapel before, when I went to Italy with my choir tour in high school, so I wasn't overwhelmed or anything, but it was cool to see again.

By the time we got out of the Vatican museum, it was getting kind of late, so we decided to head back to Ciampino. Both of us were looking forward to spending a night inside maybe watching a movie, and we found all three Jason Bourne movies for sale as a package for something like 20 euro, so we splurged and got them. Back in Ciampino, we bought some wine and some (more) pizza and settled in for the night in our apartment. It was perfect.

The next day was the day that Alex made me finish writing the last blog (I so miss her encouraging me to do this!), so we had a late start, but we got into Rome in the early afternoon. We went straight for the Coliseum area and headed to Palatine Hill first. That was one site that I didn't visit my first time in Rome and I really enjoyed it; the view from the hill is incredible. Afterwards, we went to the Coliseum and decided to get a guided tour. Unfortunately, our guide's Italian accent was so thick that her English was barely intelligible. Also unfortunate: I was seized by a major coughing fit and had to excuse myself from most of the tour. Oh well...I don't think the Coliseum is going anywhere, so maybe I'll have another tour of it someday. From the Coliseum, we walked over to the Roman Forum and saw that for a bit, before continuing on to the Trevi fountain. Oh yes, we did the entire tourist circut. We stopped and had a glass of wine after the fountain before heading to another area of the city to meet up with Paola and Fedrigo for dinner.

The dinner they took us to was incredible! The name of the restaurant was "Acchiappafantasmi," which means, "ghost busters" in Italian. We had the fixed menu, which was a menu of mushroom dishes...good luck for me, since it was mostly vegetarian and they were able to alter the dishes that weren't. Bad luck, as well, since I loathe mushrooms. But it was actually really delicious. The antipasto was a mushroom salad with parmesan (good) and these big cooked mushrooms with gorgonzola (which I thought was gross). After that came the "primo," which is the pasta course. This included two types of pasta: a dish with truffle oil (so delicious) and a fettuccine with mushroom sauce. Next came the "secondi," or the main course, which were more mushroom things. By this point, I was both so stuffed and so sick of mushrooms that I barely ate any of it. And then after that came the dessert, which was three types of gelatos. And after that came espresso, limoncello, and shots of two other after-dinner liqueurs. I have no idea how the Italians eat like this, it honestly boggles my mind. Of course, dinner took a really long time; they don't try to eat all that food in thirty minutes like Americans do. After dinner, Paola and Fedrigo drove us back to Ciampino and we said goodbye to them—Alex was leaving the next morning.

Having to say goodbye to Alex the next morning was only easy because I was half-asleep when she left around 9 am...I had spent most of the night awake coughing. It was extremely sad to lose my traveling companion though, especially one that was so much fun to travel with. I was a little nervous going on the trip with her, because it's been many years since we've spent so much time together (maybe since summer camp), but I really don't think either of us got sick of each other and we actually traveled really well together.

After she left for the airport, I got back in bed and slept until almost 1 pm. Yikes! It had been quite some time since I'd done that. But my body needed to heal. Once I woke, I got ready for the day and headed into Rome. I went to see the Mouth of Truth, the statue made famous by the movie "Roman Holiday," and walked up to the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona before heading back down toward the Coliseum. On my way, I stopped at a bookstore and bought both "Roman Holiday" and "Charade" on DVD...there was some special going on for Audrey Hepburn movies so they were discounted. After stopping in a grocery store at the train station for some food, I went back to Ciampino for the night and watched both movies. It had to be an early night for me because I had to leave Ciampino by 6:30 am the next day to catch my flight to Barcelona!

*****

Alright, so I will work hard to write some more today and get further caught up. I have done so much in the past few weeks and can't wait to tell you about it!

Love and lots of coffee, Eliza

on the move again!

Hi all,
My brief blog hiatus (unintentional, I swear!) is sort of over. Okay, I don't have a big blog for you (and I know it's going to be a huge one, have to report on my few days in Rome, and then Barcelona and Paris with Mom and Ian), but I did want to tell you where I am and where I'm going. So I've managed to make it out of Paris---not an easy task considering the union strikes currently happening---and I'm currently sitting on the internet at my hostel in Luxembourg City! Yes, I am in Luxembourg! Why, you may ask? Who the hell knows. I picked a place that the trains were running to and went there...just needed to get out of Paris. So I'm looking forward to exploring this small city over the next two days, and then I'm off to another yet-to-be-decided location. Currently on the list of possibilities include Cologne, Frankfurt and Munich (again)...I'm trying to work my way eastward so I can meet up with some friends in Prague. I actually don't have a HUGE desire to go to Germany again just yet, but it may be unavoidable given my current location. Anyway, I'm gonna go explore the city now. It's very cold and gray here and I'm extremely glad that I bought a new, warm, winter coat. As I was taking the train here, I could see frost on the ground. The colors of the scenery looked completely muted! So not the best walking weather, but I'm eager to stretch my legs either way. Look later today or tomorrow for photos, I'm going to try to get those uploaded at some point.
Love and Luxe, Eliza

that time alex and i almost left our passports in florence

Alright, I've been a horrible blogger. Each night, Alex pokes me and says, "Dude! Are you going to write your blog post?!" I meekly reply, "Well, maybe," but then I become too involved with cheap Italian wines to get anything done. But finally, finally something really worth telling has happened (not that everything else hasn't been worth telling!) and I've been inspired. So here we go. Alex and I are on the train from Florence to Rome, where Alex will be departing from in three days. At the beginning of this trip, I said that I would either be very sad or very happy to see her go, and thankfully, it's the former. I can't believe her portion of this trip has come to an end so quickly, especially since September felt like it dragged on forever.

Ok time to put sentimentality aside for the time being and get to the travels. I started a blog post in Paris which I never finished, so I'll start the post off with that portion:

Alex is yelling at me right now because I'm not paying attention to the task at hand—writing this blog post. I'm too busy being distracted by a million little things: the food being cooked in this kitchen in front of me, our Brazilian roommate playing the guitar, the half-empty bottle of Chardonnay on our table that begs to be finished, the British news channel discussing public funding of British universities (yaaawwwnnn), and the two delicious tarts we bought earlier (one is chocolate and one is strawberries and both are amazing!) that keep daring me to eat them. So, from that description, I imagine that Paris sounds really lovely, and at the moment it is exactly that. I'll talk about Paris earlier, but all you need to know is that we're enjoying it despite our hostel being the worst place ever (yes: Alex and I have agreed that we'd take another night in the Tent over this.)

So, first and most importantly, Switzerland!! The last (substantial) post I wrote, Alex and I were spending a rainy day inside in Zurich, patiently awaiting our travels to Lucerne. We got to Lucerne around 5:30 and waited in the tourist office for my friend Julian to pick us up. (Yes, it's funny, his first name is Alex's last name.) For those who don't know the story of my Swiss friends Julian and Pascal: I met them in Barcelona in 2007, when I was on Semester at Sea. They were staying in the same hostel as my friends and I, and we only met for one night, but it was enough to exchange email addresses (this was before either of the guys had Facebook, and they wanted to send us pictures of our night out together). Needless to say, we stayed in contact over the years; Julian and Pascal visited me in Chicago for 4 days in 2008 during their large trip to the United States, and they were kind enough to return the favor when we came through Switzerland.

After Julian came and got us, we walked over to a Swiss grocery store (called CoOp, huge chain) to get some food to prepare for dinner. For legal reasons or something (Julian explained this to me at some point, but of course I've totally forgotten), Swiss grocery stores close very early, so we had to go before we went back to his apartment.

Ok that's where the post from Paris ends. Picking that back up, we decided to make pasta and salad for dinner. From the grocery store we headed to his apartment, a really nice place that seems close to everything (although Lucerne is so small that it's hard not to be close to everything.) Pascal came over and the four of us cooked...or, rather, Julian, Pascal, and I cooked while Alex drank some wine and talked about how she was useless in the kitchen. It was great to have our first home-cooked meal of the trip! After dinner, we decided to go out to a bar called the Black Sheep, because they had great drink specials: 2-for-1 champagne and beer. We called it an early night because Pascal lives a short while out of town and the buses were going to stop running.

The next day, we were ecstatic to see some sunshine, although disheartened by the amount of accompanying clouds. We ate a delicious breakfast of chocolate croissants and strong Swiss coffee, and Alex and I put a few loads of laundry in. If you've ever been on the road for more than a week at a time, you know how precious doing laundry becomes. There are few things more exciting to me now than clean clothes! (Ah, simple things.) After breakfast, we went to the train station to book tickets to Paris. Unfortunately, even though it was only Friday, all the high-speed trains to Paris from Bern were already booked. (There is only a certain amount of Eurail passholders allowed on each train.) This meant we had to book a slow train, guaranteeing us another very long day of travel on that Sunday. But we felt fortunate to have booked anything!

After our tickets were booked, Julian and Pascal took us on a tour of Lucerne. We crossed the famous old wood bridge (which, at several hundred years old, burned down in the 90s and was rebuilt) and went to a Lucerne brewery for lunch. I had a traditional Swiss dish called Auplermacaroni, which is basically macaroni, potatoes, and grilled onions smothered in raclette cheese and served with a side dish of applesauce. It was incredible, although I was so fatted afterwards that I felt like I could barely walk.

We had waited until the afternoon to do the main event for the day: take the cogwheel tram (the steepest in the world!) to the top of Mount Pilatus, the highest mountain around Lake Lucerne. We'd all hoped that by the afternoon, the clouds would have disappeared and were disappointed to find that they did not. However, Alex and I decided that we were willing to fork up the 40-odd Swiss francs each to go to the top anyway, and we're so glad we did. The entire top of the mountain was snowy and cloudy, but the clouds would part occasionally and let us see through them. The way down from the mountain was the most spectacular part, because the clouds started to disperse and we had an incredible view of Lake Lucerne.

After we descended the mountain, Pascal drove us to the other side of the lake to the top of another mountain, where we were afforded another incredible view of the lake, as well as the surrounding areas. Rolling green pastures with the Swiss alps in the background...it all really looked like a painting. Here's something that is not a stereotype about Switzerland: there are cows *everywhere* and they're all wearing bells! When we got up close to the cows, Julian and Pascal had a good laugh at my childlike delight.

From there, we headed to a fondue dinner. Julian and Pascal both maintained that we needed to have fondue, even though they admit they only eat it a few times a year. So we went to a restaurant directly on the lake, where we got the full ordeal. The fondue cheese pot was served with potatoes, bread, and an assortment of fruits and vegetables. Also accompanying it was a HORRIBLE thing that the Swiss call "schnapps" but which bears no resemblance to the kind of schnapps that American teenagers get drunk off of. We were each given a shot glass of the schnapps, which bore a taste similar to nail polish remover. Alex and I were told that we needed to dip the bread into the shot glass before putting it in the cheese and both of us were disgusted and horrified by the following taste. I don't think I've ever had such strong-tasting liquor in my life. However, the boys maintained that it helps one's stomach digest the incredible amount of cheese, and by the end of dinner, I was sipping it. Each sip was more bearable than the last, although I wouldn't say I'm eager to drink it ever again. I managed to finish my shot, something that Alex refused to attempt. Pascal and Julian were true gentleman and, knowing that the dinner would be stretching for both of our budgets, bought us dinner. Have I mentioned yet that they were pretty much the best hosts someone could hope for?

That night, we geared up to go to a Swiss nightclub. I was very surprised the night before when The Boyfriend emailed me telling me that one of his close friends from high school, Jeff Dwyer, was also in Switzerland at that exact moment. Jeff lives in Chicago and I've known him for a quite a few years, so I emailed him to see where he was. Blessedly, Switzerland is a tiny country (fact: 4 hours to drive from one end to the other), and he was coming to Lucerne that Friday! So we all met up with Jeff and his brother at their hotel and had a beer on the hotel's rooftop before heading to the club.

The nightclub that we went to, Opera, was set in an old cinema and it was gigantic. I can't even begin to describe what a mess this place was, but I will try. First of all, there were flashing lights everywhere. It looked like laser beams! In the main dance hall, there was a shower on the second floor that people who were inebriated enough could get into for a shower and a dance. (No, we did not even attempt that disaster.) Because the drinking age in Switzerland, like every else in Europe, is much lower than the U.S., we were surrounded by teenagers. Alex and I, on our cheap backpacker budget, ordered Sex on the Beaches all night because that was the drink special. I don't really like fruity drinks, so it wasn't fun to chug down, and I didn't feel great the next day. Anyway, we had a really fun time just watching the crowd and dancing, so much so that Alex and I needed to get some pizza afterwards. I don't know if it was just the alcohol, but it was some of the best pizza ever.

On Saturday, we had plans to head to Bern. Julian's parents and girlfriend all live there and he and Pascal went to school right outside the city. Pascal also had a concert with his carnival band (more on this later) that night, which we were going to attend. Since Pascal had to drive out to his parent's house (in a village about 45 minutes outside of Bern), he offered to take our bags with him, which was so great. Being able to take a train without lugging our bags around was amazing. Julian was going to take the fast train to Bern so he could get in early and do some errands, and Alex and I had intended on taking a slightly slower and more scenic train. However, since we were not a little tired from the night before and we wanted to give him some extra time, we decided to take the extra-long train which went through Interlaken. We are both SO glad that we decided to do this. Saturday was incredibly clear and the views from the train were unbelievable. There are pictures, which I've already posted, but they barely do justice to the beauty.

When we got to Bern, Julian and his girlfriend Miriam met us at the train station. They proceeded to take us on a long and wonderful walking tour of the city, where we saw the parliament building, the many fountains in the streets (which are for drinking water!), the old famous clock face, the captive bear family that is the mascot of the city, and some incredible views from a park at a slightly higher elevation than the main area. After our walking tour, we went to Miriam's apartment and made dinner. By this point, I was starting to feel really sick. My nose was stuffed and my brain felt fuzzy, so Miriam let me lay down in her bed for a while after dinner and gave me some saline flushes to use in my nose. Laying down made me feel a bit better, and around 9:30 pm we headed out for Pascal's concert.

Carnival, which is similar to but also quite a bit different than the Brazilian carnivale, is a big holiday in Switzerland, particularly in Lucerne. Pascal is in a band that performs carnival music, and the best way to describe it is to say that it's essentially a marching band without the marching (they perform on risers.) Pascal happened to have a concert while we were in town, so we drove out into the country to see his band perform. It was a fun evening, where several different carnival bands did their thing, but I grew more ill feeling as the night went on. After Pascal's performance, Alex and I said a bittersweet goodbye to Julian and Miriam. I feel confident that I'll see them again at some point, somewhere else in the world! We've agreed that we have to conquer a new continent.

Pascal packed his car up and then drove Alex and I back to his parent's house in a village near the French area of Switzerland. I've also posted a picture of this so I hope everyone looks at it; Pascal's village is so beautiful and picturesque and I can't believe anyone lives there! I'm still halfway convinced that Switzerland is not a real country and that they're using backdrops to convince tourists otherwise. Pascal's wonderful mother made up the guest bedroom for Alex and I, and we were so beyond excited to be sleeping in a big, comfortable bed...our first *real* bed of the trip. I can safely say that neither of us had slept so well until that point.

The next morning, we showered (yes, even Alex!) and got ready for our train ride to France. Pascal made us some delicious cheese sandwiches for the road with a type of Swiss bread his mother had made that he said was called "weekend bread" (which looks like challah and is completely yummy). He drove us to a train station about 15 minutes away in the French part of Switzerland and there we had to say another sad goodbye. I can't say enough how wonderful both Pascal and Julian were throughout our entire time in Switzerland; amazing, gracious hosts, excellent tour guides, and wonderful friends. I'm so appreciative that we were able to have the "100% Swiss Experience" (as we kept calling it) with my 100% Swiss friends.

Then we left Switzerland. I think we were both very sad to be leaving it. It's such a small country but it's a really remarkable one, with incomparable beauty. If only Switzerland was a little less expensive! So then, France. We had to change trains in Basel and we arrived in Paris at the East train station around 7 pm. Alex and I made the horrible mistake of not writing down any information about our hostel before we got to Paris; we've been overly reliant on tourist information offices during our travels, which can be found in every train station. The train station in Paris had a tourist information office too. Unfortunately, we both had lost track of the days and failed to realize it was a Sunday. The tourist information office was closed. No problem, we thought, the train station is sure to have wi-fi. It did, but we couldn't figure out how to get on it. "Ok," I rationalized, "I'll just call my parents and have them look up the information on the hostel for us." (My phone has been fixed!) Unfortunately, my phone was completely out of batteries. After about twenty minutes of sitting around feeling defeated, we decided just to walk in what we thought was the right direction. I knew that our hostel was in Montmartre, so I figured out where the Sacre-Coeur church was and lead us toward it. Eventually, we found a McDonalds that had free wifi, and Alex was able to look up the reservation on my computer. Miraculously, I had been leading us in the absolute right direction and we were only about a 5-10 minute walk from our hostel, Le Montclair.

So, as we are budget travelers, we booked the cheapest hostel we could find that didn't seem like a total dump. Boy, were we wrong. Le Montclair is a very gross, dirty place filled with exceptionally weird travelers. Neither of us have loathed a place as much as this, ever. The girl working reception barely spoke English and was frankly utterly useless. (Our nickname for her, Fuzzy Head, stuck throughout the rest of the trip—named so because she oddly brushed out her dishwater blonde curls in a way that made her look electrocuted.) Ole Fuzzy Head gave us our room number and told us we were on the second floor, but failed to tell us that we were on the second floor of the other building, so we spent an incredibly frustrated 15 minutes trying to jam out keys into other room's locks before we figured it out. The room, as a 6 person dorm, had blissfully few people and an en suite bathroom, but the bathroom looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. I took a shower on Tuesday morning and the only word I can use to describe the experience is "violated." It was a matchbox of a shower that alternated between boiling hot and ice-water cold, and the water had to be pushed back on every 15 or so seconds. Yes, the showering experience was so bad that I felt violated by it. The beds were horrible too. The first night, I was on a top bunk of a bed that was so wobbly that every time I slightly moved a leg, the whole bunk would rock and slam into the wall, loudly, undoubtedly waking up the person under me. Anyway, the place was horrible and to spare your delicate sensibilities, dear reader, I will describe it no further.

After we finally got a room and our things sorted out, we went to pretty much the first restaurant we could find, where (in our incredible frustration with the universe), we proceeded to spend too much money on pizza, lasagna, and wine. Ohhh, the wine. Alex is a beer drinker, so the first half of the trip was heaven for her, but there are few things I like more than a good glass of wine, and the past week has been perfect for me. The wines in France and Italy are not only great, they're so cheap! We're able to buy totally palatable bottles for only four euro (and sometimes just two). It's just wonderful. We went to sleep feeling much better about everything, even though I was still very sick.

On our first day in Paris, we had our free hostel breakfast and set out for the Sacre-Coeur. The view from the Sacre-Coeur is probably the best in Paris, because it's unobstructed and lovely. From there, we took the Metro (are there better public transit systems existing on the planet? I think not! What a useful and wonderful system!) to the St. Michel station. Here we met up with a free walking tour of Paris, which lasted about three and a half hours. The tour took us through Ile de la Cite, over a few famous bridges, through the Louvre grounds and through the Tullerie gardens, and down Champs-Elysee. It was a really nice tour and we learned a lot about the history of Paris...not to mention that we walked right through Fashion Week and we were able to stare at that for a while. By the end of the tour, I was feeling really beat (the cold was catching up to me), so we went back to the hostel and Alex let me nap for a few hours. That night, we had Indian food for dinner, again...which brings us to how many times? Too many, probably, but we sure do love our curry.

On Tuesday, we walked through Montmartre during the morning. We were able to see the Moulin Rouge, and we accidentally ate lunch at the cafe that Amelie was filmed at (I say accidentally because we chose it for its food selection, not realizing that it had been the filming location until we sat down and looked around). In the afternoon, we headed to the main event for the day: Versailles! We only had a few hours, so we just did the palace and a part of the gardens. Versailles was, of course, beautiful, and it was incredible to see the Hall of Mirrors. The pop artist Takashi Murakami has put up a temporary installation of his sculpture work throughout the palace and grounds, and I almost enjoyed seeing the Murakami work more than Versailles. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, but it felt really sparse (pretty much none of the original furniture remains, so there has been a little bit of period furniture thrown in) and the tourist crowds were the worst. Alex and I were shoved around quite a lot by gigantic Asian tour groups eager to get their photos with every piece of artwork. It really ruined the atmosphere of Versailles. I think I may be going back to see Petite Trianons sometime next week with my mom and brother, so I hope to have a better experience at that point.

After Versailles, we bought a bottle of wine and a baguette and went back to the hostel for dinner (where we ate our Indian food leftovers). Fact: the stereotype of French people carrying around baguettes is well deserved. We were amazed to see how many people actually stop by their neighborhood boulangerie in the afternoon/evening and walk around with baguette in hand.

Wednesday was our Louvre day. The Louvre is so big and so overwhelming, so we only saw a few things. We needed to see Mona Lisa, of course, which had a similar tour-group-shoving vibe as Versailles, and we also saw Venus de Milo. We weren't sure what we should go see after that (and we kept getting lost) so we thought it would be interesting to see Napoleon III's apartments in the Louvre. It was incredible! I actually have to say that I enjoyed the apartments more than Versailles, because the apartments were created in Louis XIV's style (which means that they actually look quite like the style of Versailles) and all the original furnishing is in place, but there were very few people milling about, so we were able to spend time appreciating everything. After the Louvre, we walked over to see the Notre-Dame Cathedral, which was lovely. From there, we took a train back to our hostel (which we'd already checked out of) so we could cook some dinner for ourselves and pick up our bags. And then it was off to the overnight train to Venice.

Ah, the overnight train. I actually didn't really mind our experience with the overnight train. When you've booked a couchette, the cheapest option (it cost us both around 28 euro with our passes), you get a fold-down bed in a six-person compartment. So there are three people sleeping on each side of the compartment. Alex and I were both stuck with middle berths, which we were upset about (we assumed that the middle would be the worst). The compartment next door was filled with a big group of Chinese friends, a few of whom were in our compartment, and they wanted to make a switch with us so more of their friends were in their compartment. They offered us bottom berth tickets, so we of course agreed, assuming that the bottom would be much better. We were so wrong! The bottom berth stays at a weird sort of angle and the headrests fold down so they're hanging in your face all night. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but it was also a learning lesson—now if I have to take a night train again, I know to keep a middle bunk or try for a top. The train took around 13 hours, but Alex and I watched TV on my computer for the first hour and a half, and drank enough wine that when we had lights out around 10 pm, we were both ready to go to sleep. We woke up around 8 pm, ready to arrive in Venice.

We booked a hostel in Venice that my friend Jackie had stayed at and recommended, called L'Imbarcadero and located about 10 minutes (walking) from the train station. We got into Venice, went to the hostel, put our bags down and cleaned up in the bathroom, and headed out for the day. The guy who ran the hostel, Alex, highlighted a walking tour for us on a map that he said would take about 4 hours (and it did!). We spent all day hoofing around the island and we were able to see quite a lot...although we didn't go into St. Mark's cathedral because there was a gigantic line and far too many people. We were able to take a (very short) gondola ride that only cost us a euro each, which was great! We also went back to the train station and booked a ticket to leave for Florence the next day. We had intended to leave in the morning, but all the trains were booked until 2:40, so we had to book that. By four p.m., we were exhausted and I was still feeling sick, so we went back to the hostel and napped for a few hours. Our beds were so comfortable (they weren't bunks! just individual beds!) and we both ended up napping for something like three hours. Whoops! But I really needed it, this cold has not been very much fun for me. After we woke up, we opted to go out for dinner (versus eating in the hostel) because we both wanted to go stretch our legs. Then we came back to the hostel and went back to bed.

At some point in the night, I was scratching my arms and hands and face so hard that I woke myself up. Freaked out, I went into the bathroom and saw that I had bug bites all over my arms, hands, and face. My first assumption was, of course, that I had bed bugs. I went and shook Alex awake, and we turned on the light and stripped my sheets. No bed bugs! Alex convinced me that I had given myself some sort of nervous hive reaction and prompted me to go back to bed and stop scratching. I heard some buzzing around my head, so I slept with the covers pulled over me. In the morning, I woke up with swollen face (my chin looked like Jay Leno!) and a right hand so swollen that I couldn't use it. We've deduced that I was probably bit by some sort of mosquito, because of the buzzing noise and since I was only bit on areas that were exposed. Plus, I always have very adverse reactions to mosquito bites. The guy who ran the hostel, Alex, took me to a pharmacy and translated for me, and I was able to get a cortisone cream and an oral antihistamine. Slightly fixed, Alex and I went to a park in Venice and just sat and read our books until we had to get on the train.

We arrived in Florence around 5 pm and walked to our hostel, Ostello Santa Monaca, a really clean and nice place. We were in a 6-person female-only dorm room with a huge bathroom en suite. There wasn't a big party atmosphere or anything, but the hostel was probably the nicest we've stayed in, which was funny because it was also the cheapest. The first thing we did in Florence was walk to Vivoli, an old and famous gelateria, where Alex made the mistake of trying new flavors and ended up with what tasted like a ginger flavor and a pear flavor, neither of which were particularly good. After a big pasta dinner, we headed to bed, ready to take on Florence!

On Saturday, our main day in Florence, we grabbed a quick breakfast at a close-by pastry shop and went to the train station to book our train to Rome the next day. Once that business was taken care of, we headed into the heart of Florence to take a look at the Duomo, the huge and famous church in the city center. At that point, the line was obscene, so we just took a gander at the outside and walked over to the Accademia to see the David. The line at the Accademia was also outrageous, but tickets were sold at a nearby museum, so we were able to purchase some and by-pass the line with a reservation. David's very impressive, even at my second time seeing him, and it was well worth the entrance price.

After viewing David, we went back toward the Duomo, where the line had completely died down and we were able to get inside. Both of us found the outside to be more impressive than the inside, and frankly, at this point, all churches are starting to blend together. Following the Duomo, we did the necessary walk across Ponte Vecchio, the bridge that's covered in jewelry shops, and did some great window-shopping. After a quick stop at another gelato shop, we went back to the hostel, where I did some much-needed laundry. For dinner, we went to an organic wine bar across the street from our hostel. Have I mentioned that I love Italian wines?

The next day, Alex and I had another breakfast at our favorite pastry shop, and then we headed out for a long walk. We found a nice park to sit in and we read our books for a while, until Alex finished hers. She's gone through a lot of books in the past three weeks, because she keeps trading in her finished books at book exchanges in hostels and taking whatever's in English; the books she ends up with rarely end up to be very good. Then we went back to the hostel, made ourselves some lunch, and went to the train station for our train for Rome.

We got our bags out of the luggage room at our hostel and headed on the 10-minute walk to the train station. We arrived at the station with about 20 minutes until our train departure. Alex suddenly gasped and shouted, "Oh...my...god." She looked over at me and said, "We left our passports at the hostel." Oh yes, with 20 minutes until our train, our passports were still securely locked up at the reception desk at the hostel, where we usually leave them. Without much hope, Alex handed me her bags and sprinted off in the direction of our hostel. I can imagine she was probably an obscene sight, wearing a bright red dress and boots and running down the street haphazardly. As the minutes passed by, I started chewing on my nails harder and harder. Missing the train wouldn't have been a *huge* deal, except that we were supposed to meet Alex's former au pair, Paola, at a train station in her Roman suburb, and we wouldn't be able to make that appointment. With two minutes to departure, Alex appeared back in the doorway to the train station. We grabbed our bags and hauled ass onto the train, Alex dripping in sweat and both of us amazed that we almost left our passports in Florence. We're both very thankful that we managed to remember before we boarded the train! From now on, I'm going to be obsessed about where my passport is at all times.

Ok, so, I'm now 9 pages into this blog post and I was not able to finish all of this on the train from Florence to Rome—I've been finishing it up over the past few days in Rome, and it's now Tuesday, our second full day. Rome has been great so far, mostly because we're staying in the second apartment of Alex's former au pair. Paola and her husband were nice enough to offer us this apartment, and we're thrilled to have a television, a kitchen, a clean bathroom and a big bed. However, it's getting later and later into the morning and we have a ton of stuff to do today, so I'm going to have to update on Rome later. We're hoping that today is sunny, since it was pouring rain yesterday and it ruined our plans to go do a walking tour. Instead, we went to see the Vatican and we'll be doing our walking tour today.

Whew! Huge post! Thanks for reading it all. I'm really bummed out that Alex is leaving tomorrow but looking forward to seeing my mom and brother on Thursday in Barcelona. I can't believe that this has gone by so quickly. During September, both of us felt like the time was dragging on, but then we got to October and suddenly Alex is leaving! Anyway, I'll try to get up another post before Barcelona describing our few days in Rome. Meanwhile, I'm still pretty sick (can you believe it?!) and I've got a totally offensive cough that has been repulsing Romans all over their public transit system. So think sunny thoughts and well wishes in my direction, please!

Love and lots of pizza, Eliza

ugh

Ok, I'm awful, I haven't had a chance to update the blog yet. I've written like 1/4 of my new blog post. But to tide everyone over, I've posted some photos to Flickr. Unfortunately, the internet at this hostel (like everything else at this hostel) is incredibly slow and horrible, so I don't have the patience any more to title them. But here's the album of Switzerland and Paris (so far): http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizaswift/sets/72157624978299687/

I'll put some titles and descriptions on the photos in the next day or two and will hopefully get a blog posted in the next 24 hours!

Love and sleeps, Eliza

overdue!!

Hi everyone,
I know that I am incredibly overdue for a post! I've got a whole boatload of excuses for you, some of which are: a) we've been having toooooo much fun!, b) Alex and I are both sick and sleeping a lot, c) we were in Switzerland (Alex maintains this is a legitimate excuse.) We're about to head out and explore our neighborhood (Montmarte) for a bit before going to Versailles to see some decadence and indulgence (our favorite things). But I promise I will try my very hardest to get a real, lengthy post written tonight...so much to tell! Mostly, I'm moving to Switzerland! (Ok, not really, but I wish.) Just an FYI: everyone seems to be freaking out about this security alert thing, but no one over here is even talking about it, so please stop being worried. We're fine. We love you and miss you all!!
Love and Louvre, Eliza

so far...

So far, Switzerland is: hanging out with my favorite foreign friends, delicious homecooked meals, laundry!!!, hot showers with great water pressure, comfy blow-up bed, good 2-for-1 drink specials at luzern bars, going to the Alps today! You win, Switzerland!

Today is going to be the most expensive day of our trip, because of the trams we're taking to the mountains, and because we're going to fondue for dinner tonight. But Alex and I have agreed that it's 100% worth the true Swiss experience. More later, and photos, but probably not until Sunday.

Happy love!, Eliza

PS: THERE IS SUNSHINE!!!!

all about germany!

Ok, blog time, finally. I've been meaning to do this for days but there was always some reason that I didn't; mostly, I've just been too tired to devote the time to it. But I really am going to try to be more consistent about posting, I promise. On that note, I've posted some new photos, which you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizaswift/sets/72157624936887689/

It's been a crazy five days and there's so much to tell! But, of course, I'll start from where I last posted, which was Berlin. So after our long, crazy day of train rides, we arrived in rainy and cold Berlin around 7:10 pm. We stayed at the BaxPax Downtown hostel, which was probably the cleanest and nicest hostel we've stayed in so far (although the one in Amsterdam was still the most fun.) We went out for a birthday dinner at a cheap Indian restaurant around the corner. Back at the hostel, we made friends with a group of Swedish guys, who invited us out with them for the night. We met them at an oddly tropical-themed bar and the restaurant gave me a free birthday drink. It had sparklers in it! Terrified me quite a bit, and tasted like it didn't have any alcohol in it. We went to another bar after that restaurant closed and we were out until quite late in the night (like...4 am? yikes.) I had a couple cool conversations about our respective countries with the Swedes. For instance, they told us that smoking marijuana is considered so bad in Sweden that their families would disown them, and they would stop talking to friends that did it. (This conversation came up because they were on their way to Amsterdam.) One guy told me that he was appalled by America's arrogance, but admitted that he thinks the U.S. is the best country in the world—"I just don't want you *knowing* that you're the best, that is horrible!" Another couple interesting things I learned about Sweden: they do not eat the Swedish fish candy and they have never seen the Swedish Chef. They were very offended by our "borgity borg" impressions.

The next day, we were very surprised when we slept until almost 12 pm; we've been getting up at 8:30 almost the entire trip. We groggily cleaned ourselves up and headed toward Unter den Linden, a large boulevard in Berlin that a lot of tourist stops are near. Imagine our surprise as we get closer and closer to the boulevard and it gets louder and louder—the Berlin Marathon was going straight down the middle of it! We'd been seeing people in these green Adidas rain ponchos for the past two days and wondering why...if only we'd looked closer and seen "Berlin Marathon" printed all over them! So the big thing for us to see at Unter der Linden was the Brandenburg gate, which was very pretty. It was the first time in the trip that I've really felt the weight of the history around me, especially when I saw some old photos of the boulevard that were taken at the Nazi rallies that had been held there. From the gate, we headed to the Holocaust Memorial, or as the official name goes: "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe." Pretty blunt, eh? At the outside, the memorial didn't look like very much, but as you walk further into it, the ground goes down until you're walking underneath these huge pillars of stone. It was very moving. We then walked over to a large preserved portion of the Berlin Wall, which was also incredible to see. It started raining really hard so by 5 pm, we were ready to get back to our hostel and have some showers. We had Indian food for dinner AGAIN, which, if you're counting, brought us to 3 times in 5 days. Obsessed much? We felt a little guilty for not eating traditional foods, but only a little, since we both love curry so much.

So we got back to the hostel that night and I had a horrible realization: I was sleeping next to The Snorer. Every room in every hostel, no matter how big or small, appears to have a Snorer. I'm not talking about someone that lightly, inoffensively snores. The Snorer is in a league of his/her own (although, it is more often men than women). The bunk next to The Snorer is the worst property in the room and pretty much guarantees that you will not sleep in what is already likely an uncomfortable bed. I slept next to The Snorer in Munich, too, but the guy in Berlin was by far the worst I've heard. It was like trying to fall asleep to the sound of geese aggressively mating. It overpowered the (admittedly minimal) strength of my earplugs. Somehow, I managed a few hours of sleep, but it wasn't easy. We had a very early train ride to Munich, at 6:50 am, so we had to leave our hostel around 6. It was gross out and raining again, so we didn't feel guilty sleeping on the train. We arrived in Munich around 12:50 pm.

Ok, so our hostel in Munich was kind of a disaster. The hostels get really expensive during Oktoberfest, so we booked the cheapest one we could find, which is called The Tent. The Tent is literally a large circus tent that people sleep in and a campground. We were thankfully placed in the smaller tent, but there were still at least 50 people inside. Unfortunately, there wasn't any heat, and it was pretty cold (high 40s to low 50s) the whole time we were in Munich. By the end of our time at The Tent, we were cold, bitter, crabby, dirty, and ready to get away from it. But we didn't go to Munich to stay in a nice place, we went for Oktoberfest, and we really had an incredible time.

The first day we got into Munich, we were going to walk around a bit and see the city, but we decided to stop by the Oktoberfest grounds for a minute first and see what it was like. Neither of us thought we'd be able to get into any beer tents, since we didn't have reservations and it was later in the day. We were wrong! The Oktoberfest grounds are enormous, and it feels like a gigantic county fair. I thought there would only be 3 or 4 beer halls, but there was something like 10. We sat down outside at Hofbrau, one of the more popular tents, and quickly were chatted up by obscenely drunk Italians. One of them wanted to "have a dialogue" with me, away from Alex, so we got him to go back to his friends and then bolted from the tent as soon as we finished our beers. I wanted to go on some of the rides, and I managed to talk Alex into going on the high swings with me. They look like the regular swing rides that we have in the U.S., but they go up maybe 75-100 feet in the air. I thought it was going to be really fun, but Alex was terrified, squeezing my arm the entire time and screaming, "We're going to die! This is going to snap!" Needless to say, I didn't really enjoy myself, and both of us were very happy when the ride ended.

After the ride, we were walking around and I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and there were our Australian friends from Amsterdam!! We were so happy to see them, we had a great couple of days with them and we really never thought we'd see them again (especially not at Oktoberfest, which was so packed full of people.) We all went back to Hofbrau and Alex and I had another beer. She and I left Oktoberfest around 8 pm, back to the wretched Tent. There was a campfire going on, though, and we sat around that and chatted with fellow travelers for a while before going to bed around 10:30.

Our second day at Oktoberfest was the real mess. We met the Australians outside Hofbrau at 11 am and walked around the rides for a while. At some point, we went into one of the tents, where Alex and I had our first beer. The guys left us for about an hour to walk around while we drank. A huge group of Italian guys sat down with us, and didn't talk much to us, although they showed us a love letter that one of them had received and translated it for us. It was very dirty! At one point, a television crew came around and one of the Italians offered to have his chest waxed for TV. The Australians came back and we left to go to Hofbrau again. We found seats inside with a big group of Brits and had another drink. One Australian, who was not really with our group, puked all over the table and into his drink...really disgusting. I feel like 18-year-olds should not be allowed at Oktoberfest! We were kicked off of the table eventually, because the people who reserved it showed up. At this point, we went and got some food, even though we were all filled with beer—I knew that I had to eat something, though!

Sometime after our second beer, I got into a snitty mood and Alex and I started to fight. The Australians decided to head back to their hostel and let us work our shit out alone. Alex wanted us to head back to our hostel but I convinced her to stay (can you imagine? ME convincing ALEX to stay at a party?! major, major role reversal). Then she got into a snitty mood and we fought even more. Neither of us knows why we were fighting or what about, but we apologized to each other and got another beer. During our third beer, we sat down outside with some Germans. One of the guys didn't speak any English and was apparently saying very rude things to us in German, which another German was translating. So we taught him how to toast in English. We got him to toast to diarrhea, dingleberries, and saggy tits. By the time we were toasting to saggy tits, he was catching on that we were screwing with him and was very resistant, but we got him to shout it out anyway. I really wish I had captured a video of the whole thing.

Then we went inside that tent for our fourth beer. We found some (other) Germans who had a friend working at the hall and helped us get some beers. They asked us if we were Australian, so we naturally agreed and went along pretending we were Australian for the rest of the night. We're lucky that there were no Australians with us, because our accents were probably really horrible, but we managed to convince this group of friends. Somewhere after the fourth beer, the night gets a little blurry, but we know the beer tents closed at 10:30 so we must have left around there. Alex and I tried to piece a few things together the next day, but there are a few things we still have questions about. For instance: Alex has a huge bruise on her butt, so she must have fallen at some point, but neither of us remembers it. Alex's coat looks sort of like she slept in a gutter, which would support the falling-in-the-muddy-rain theory. Also: both of our jackets are covered in stains that look suspiciously like mustard. Once we thought about it hard, Alex claimed, "I have a vague feeling of mustard," so we've deduced that we ate something mustardy at some point.

You may guess that we were feeling pretty awful yesterday, and you would be correct. We didn't have the foresight to plan out yesterday ahead of time, so we knew that we needed to leave Munich and go somewhere but we weren't sure where. (We had an extra day in between when we left Munich and when we'll meet my friends in Lucerne tonight.) So we stared at my guidebook all blurry-eyed for a while before deciding just to go to Zurich. Yesterday was definitely the day for us to be taking a 4-hour train ride. We thought we'd sleep on the train, but of course it was the first really sunny and lovely day we've had since Amsterdam, so we stared out the window the entire way. Switzerland is lovely! The hostel we're staying in here in Zurich is nice and quiet, which was perfect for us last night. We were able to take showers (Alex even washed her hair!), which was a very welcome feeling after The Tent. So we didn't do much last night, just cleaned up and ate dinner at the Italian restaurant below our hostel.

We had to check out of our hostel at 10:00 am, so we were able to go do some sightseeing in Zurich this morning. However, it is of course grey and rainy out again, so we're back in the lounge at our hostel. Alex is reading the new book she picked up from the book exchange (a crime thriller called "A Faint Cold Fear"), I'm downloading some television for us to watch in transit (I've been able to do a surprising amount of that! HOW CRAZY WAS MAD MEN?!), and obviously I'm writing this blog. We're gonna take a train to Lucerne around 4:30, and we're meeting my friend Julian at the station at 5:30. Alex and I are both very excited to sleep in someone's apartment and not a hostel. We're also looking forward to doing some laundry...our clothes (many of which have been slept in) smell quite fragrant. It will also be nice not to pay for a hostel; Switzerland is incredibly expensive (which I had heard but somehow not totally comprehended.)

Alright, off to eat some falafel. We really are having an incredible time, although we do miss everyone at home. I'm trying my best not to think about how long my trip is going to be, because it makes me really homesick when I do. But, at the same time, I can't believe we're in Switzerland already! Hopefully I'll be able to get another blog and some more pictures up by Sunday.

Think sunny warm thoughts for us, lots of love, Eliza