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